As to ease of learning: I hesitate to say that *any* language is easy; by necessity, human languages are difficult and full of subtleties. Esperanto is undoubtedly much easier than most, however. There is still a lot to learn, but you can spend your time learning meaningful things rather than memorizing verb conjugations, irregular pronunciations, or the “gender” of inanimate objects. :-) For example, once you learn how to conjugate one verb (which takes all of about five minutes) you’ll know how to conjugate every verb you’ll ever encounter.

The agglutinative system of word formation also helps to maximize what you’ve already learned. A simple example: once you know the root for “dog” (“hund-”) and the suffix for “offspring”(“-id”), you automatically know how to say “puppy” (“hundido”) without having to learn a new word. The same works for any animal. No need to memorize a different baby name for each species, e.g. cow/calf, hen/chick, goat/kid, kangaroo/joey, etc.

In terms of hard numbers, various studies since the 1930s have shown that students can aquire a basic proficiency considerably faster in Esperanto than in other languages: typically in a quarter of the time. Learning Esperanto also seems to help with subsequent language acquisition. Primary schools in the UK are taking advantage of this by teaching Esperanto as part of the “Springboard to Languages” program: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto#Language_acquisition

Finally, to answer your question: yes, I started out with a British textbook “Teach Yourself Esperanto”, believe it or not, and then went on to a tutored course on the Net: http://pacujo.net/esperanto/course/

Being able to actually speak with people from other countries and have a conversation was really rewarding, so I went on to study the language formally at university. In the States (where I’m from) where the options are sparse, the best university program is at the University of California, called NASK: http://esperanto.org/nask

It is great to hear from Esperanto speakers as it seems like such a hidden world unless you look into it. Your experiences suggest that Esperanto can take you a long way indeed and there is a close-knit, yet world-wide community out there.

And Hoss, the language site you gave the link for is particularly interesting. I understand more about how it works – Esperanto is attempting to combine the best bits of other language systems you could say?

But is it really that easy to learn? Did you teach yourselves? It does seem relatively straight forward compared to French and English which does appeal!

One of the nice things about speaking Esperanto is that it enables you to find free lodging with friendly locals all over the world. I have an American friend who used the Pasporta Servo (“Passport Service”) to travel across Europe a few years ago. She toured for about sixteen months, and she still speaks fondly of all the nice people she met… http://www.tejo.org/eo/ps_lingv_en

I’ve used Esperanto in some fifteen countries (Bulgaria, Slovenia, Italy, Finland …), and returned earlier this month from Cameroon, where the language gave me access to the homes and lives of ordinary people there.

And I am increasingly not buying this ‘pan-cultural unity’ concept. Everyone knows that the true universal language is the language of love…

Blurgh.

She certainly put me right off the whole idea.

Bonan matenon (Good morning)
Mi ne komprenas vin. (I don’t understand)
Dankon. (Thank you)

The language still comes with European constructions and cultural baggage, and its clearly easier to learn Esperanto if you already speak a Latin/Greek based language. If you’re Chinese and learning Esperanto you may as well just learn English!

Keith, my point exactly!

F-C, Working in an Esperanto shop sounds like my ideal kind of job. As there clearly wouldn’t be any customers, I really could just blog, read and daydream all day…

It’s sad really, as it’s a language that’s utterly failed to catch on.