Your views on Esperanto.?

Question

Okay, so you think that Esperanto has no culture. You think that Esperanto is a dead language or a failed experiment. You think it doesn't have enough speakers to make it worthwhile.
These are the bulk of the reasons given for not wanting to learn the language, and that's fine. It means you haven't done your homework on the subject, but fine none-the-less.
Having said this, what other reasons can you think of to not want to learn Esperanto. I honestly want to see if there are any reasonable reasons out there.

If you need to find out more about Esperanto before you answer, try these sites.

http://www.lernu.net
http://www.esperanto.org

Others can be found by plugging it into your search engine.

The Irish site has an excellent expose here.
http://www.esperanto.ie/english/zaft/zaft.htm

Now tell me what you think.

Answer 1

I don't like how it isn't attached to a certain culture or group of people, I know that's the point of esperanto, but that's what makes langauges fun and interesting. Also I don't like how it's grown to some religion almost, with people who don't want to learn it being looked down upon and having to justify their choice. I replied one time to a post on espertanto in a group, and this one guy sent everyone who said anything negative about esperanto some huge long message preaching the joys of esperanto, and that's really offputting.

Answer 2

Esperanto is useful for travel, cross-cultural communication, making friends, etc, but not for commerce. Most Esperanto speakers I have met were either students, retired, or from poor countries and so don't have much money. Though I am glad there is not a commercial incentive to learn Esperanto so that the people who learn it are only motivated by idealism. Getting to a Chinese fluency level that is useful in business will take a LOT of work. Many years. And Chinese involved with business often have OK English ability anyway. It may be worth learning some basic Chinese to impress them, but if you want to actually negotiate in the language go for Spanish.

Answer 3

Actually I DID study Esperanto for a while. I already speak Spanish and some German, so most of the grammar wasn't too complicated. I quit for none of the reasons you listed.

I am aware that there are plenty of speakers of Esperanto worldwide, but I was having extreme difficulty locating any locally. I learned firsthand with Spanish and German that if you have nobody to practice with, it is difficult to retain the language (at least for me)... which is why my Spanish is fluent and my German is pretty bad. There aren't many German speakers around here either.

If you're curious, I was doing an online Esperanto course and my tutor was some guy in Sweden. :) I made it through I think 5 of 10 lessons, and this was a year ago. I don't really remember much anymore.

Answer 4

I think Esperanto is the best idea ever! One language for everybody to learn. And it's also very easy. I think it's a pity that Esperanto hasn't become a world language. I've tried to learn it, but I don't have the time to do it. I really want to start again when I have the time. I think it's great that Esperanto is a free language, for everybody. Not like English, because there are a lot of people who have English as their mother tongue. If Esperanto ever could become a world language, I definitely will help to make it work!

Answer 5

I'm learning Esperanto...for many good reasons. For one, it helps me to better understand my first language which is English. I like the idea of being able to communicate with people who don't understand English.... My husband is not involved in learning Esperanto. His is the best reason I've heard so far: he enjoys complaining about what I'm doing. I suspect that he is more knowledgeable and honest than most of those other people who complain about Esperanto. Thank you for the Irish site.

Answer 6

I think it is a pity that Esperanto is so little thought of these days. It sounds quite pleasing to the ear, is extremely easy to learn, and after more than a century of existence, it does indeed have a culture. What is more, the Baha'i religion still actively tries to promote Esperanto as an international means of communication.

Answer 7

I think it is more interesting to learn English or some other language instead of Esperanto. English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, etc. - such "natural" languages are products of many centuries of development. Millions of people took part in their creation. In contrast, Esperanto was created relatively recently by one person. Natural languages are associated with history, struggle, evolution, and so on. They are much more exciting to learn. Every word in English or Japanese has its own unique history. Esperanto is an artificial language without long history, without long evolution. It's boring and mostly useless.

Answer 8

Esperanto is the best answer to this problem: Why am I obliged to use English, that is not my language, while it is your language?

Esperanto is the neutral solution!

Renato

Answer 9

It's a waste of time. The language contains some constructions which aren't necessary in an artificial language, and simply doesn't have a large enough following to be useful. English has become the international language by default, and not unreasonably so. verb structures are straightforward, nouns are not declined, adverbs are visible, plurals are mostly simple (unlike, for example, Arabic), and the only real problem is that it has absorbed words from every other language spoken on the planet, sometimes with spelling adapted, sometimes with pronunciation adapted, and sometimes both, so English pronunciation is a zoo.

Answer 10

Kvankam mi ne bone komprenas la anglan lingvon, mi certas ke Esperanto baldaux estos la solvon por multaj lingvaj problemoj. Saluton al cxiuj kaj..........PACON !!!