Top products from r/Esperanto

When I was a teenager, I was aware that English was not the international language, despite everyone saying it was. I decided that it would make more sense to simplify English. Internet searches on the subject revealed Basic English, which was a failure, and then to Esperanto, which was reportedly not.

So one afternoon I spent a few hours with the Fundamento of Esperanto and Teach Yourself Esperanto (which is out of print, but is still the best language textbook I've seen). And that was about it. I was reading Esperanto.

There was still a lot more to learn, but I was reading it. The agglutinative nature meant that I only had to have a little vocabulary (mostly acquired that same afternoon) to start. The grammar was simple enough that even if I encountered a complicated text, all I had to do was look back to my learning materials.

Once you make it that far, you are officially a crazy person as far a the world is concerned.

"There are at least hundreds of thousands of people who speak it, maybe millions!"
"Where are they?"
"All over the world!"
"I've never seen them."
"I'm one of them."
"Yeah, but who are you going to speak it to?"
"Anyone else in the world who speaks it."
"Sounds useless if no country speaks it."
"That is missing the purpose of an international auxiliary language. It is easy enough that anybody can learn it in practically no time at all."
"If it was that easy, everyone would learn it."
"I DID, BUT YOU WON'T."
"Well, if everyone isn't speaking it, there's no point."

Over and over and over. People either don't know about it or think that no one speaks it at all. Then they treat you like you're talking about your imaginary friends. Then when you explain that it really is what everyone is looking for and they refuse to try. Because the truth is that not only are they not interested, but they will look for any excuse to perpetuate their disinterest. And others are such bigots for their own language (I'm looking at you, English and French speakers) that they just can't stand the idea of their own language not being the standard.

All modern Esperanto speakers have this experience, and in many ways it has affected the Esperanto culture. It was different in the old days. Esperanto was a grand new idea. There were people from all walks of life who picked it up, and it grew like wildfire. Then Nazis said it was a Jewish thing, the US said it was a communist thing, and the communists didn't even need an excuse. The momentum was lost, and let us not forget, people were killed for it.

Now, though there are many Esperanto speakers, the body of Esperanto speakers is different. Before it was a great blending of idealistic intellectuals, writing poetry and translating Tolstoy. Now it is mostly hippies. Lots and lots of hippies, and now the movement is seeing more and more attention from language-dabblers.

And, you know, hippies aren't all that bad. Nor are language dabblers. They are great allies in the movement, and the change is as much a reflection of global culture as Esperanto culture. But the difference is very notable.

As for me, my studies have been limited to dictionary lookups and occasional browsing of grammar guides since then. I had to give up Esperanto for a while because its vocabulary was similar enough to Spanish at times for me to mix them up at times. Even so, those few hours of study and dabbling bit of practice have left me able to understand Esperanto about as well as I understand Spanish (which I'm not perfectly fluent in, but I am competent enough to converse and exist in Latin America entirely without English.) I think that's a pretty amazing testament to Esperanto. I just wish that there were more people using it across the world so I would have more that I could do with it.

There is a surprising amount of academic literature that concerns Esperanto, the language itself, as well as its history and culture. You have to dig around a bit because its spread over a lot of journals and disciplines. Beware this rabbit hole goes very deep !

A couple of starters:

On language:

The Journal "JĘZYK, KOMUNIKACJA, INFORMACJA" or "Language Information Communication" http://jki.amu.edu.pl/ often has articles about esperanto or on topics in interlinguistics in esperanto. Here is an issue from 2017 which should give you a pretty good idea of whats being researched.

If you are interested in the academic study of constructed languages, and particularly Esperanto, the work of Detlev Blanke is especially interesting. A selection of his work is collected in International Planned Languages. Essays on Interlinguistics and Esperantology.

Individual linguistic researchers also publish on esperanto. This is an interesting paper by Swedish professional linguist Mikael Parkvall- "How European is Esperanto? A typological study"

On teaching:

The Internacia Pedagogia Revuo is a journal dedicated to Esperanto language teaching published by the Internacia Ligo de Esperantistaj Instruistoj (ILEI)

On history:

Papers (and books in english and esperanto, and other languages like russian and spanish) on the history of Esperanto appear all over the place. They are published in such diverse journals that they are easy to miss.

Here is one such article I particularly enjoyed on "The Practical Internationalism of Esperanto" from the International Catalan Institute for Peace. The author of that article, Xavier Alcalde, is writing a biography of a Spanish esperantist and anarchist and his role in the Spanish civil war.

Brigid O'Keeffe, an associate professor of history at Brooklyn College has a new book in preparation on Esperanto in the Soviet Union - Tongues of Fire: Esperanto and Languages of Internationalism in Revolutionary Russia.

Of course the Revuo Esperanto (the UEA magazine), both online edition and the printed edition, is generally the best place to watch for recenzoj.

Given that the community is fairly small and widely spread, its dedication, the output and its quality is quite astonishing.

Ĝuu !

I would combine Duolingo with Lernu: https://lernu.net/en

You don't have to spend money, but if you want to, I've heard good things about the Teach Yourself Esperanto book (it's a pricey though): https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Esperanto-Learn-write-understand/dp/1473669189/ref=sr_1_1?crid=L17CYNEAZJ1E&keywords=teach+yourself+esperanto&qid=1573258720&sprefix=teach+yourself+esper%2Caps%2C213&sr=8-1

There's also the textbook by David Richardson, which is available as a very inexpensive ebook; the reader near the end of the book is valuable: https://www.amazon.com/Esperanto-Learning-Using-International-Language-ebook/dp/B06X96ZDZ1/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3C83DAZAWX3V1&keywords=esperanto+richardson&qid=1573258790&sprefix=esperanto+rich%2Caps%2C217&sr=8-1#customerReviews

After you've made it to the end of a course and have a bit of a grasp of the language, you can do ekparolu, which is a program that matches learners up with fluent Esperanto speakers for 10 free skype sessions: https://edukado.net/ekparolu/prezento

If you live in or close to a city with an Esperanto club I would go to that too; they're usually pretty easy to find online with a bit of googling and it's important to start trying to speak the language out loud as soon as you can even if it's hard or you can only really say "saluton" and "ĝis".

Amuziĝu :)

i’m not sure about everyone, especially by march of next year, but i do think that there’s a good chance the community may increase to 3mil-4mil (from its current ~2mil) speakers by 2025-2035. the introduction of the internet is doing esperanto well. duolingo including esperanto and the introduction of that book that came out in february 2019 is a great push forward for the language. i do have faith that this language will continue to grow, if not to a global level, than to maybe an official status in europe.

Google Translate is notoriously unreliable -- using it to "check" your writing is going to be more trouble than help.

​

Lernu.net is probably your best bet for organized, online learning.

Duolingo is a useful, game-ified supplement.

​

There's some actual books worth checking out. Richardson's

Esperanto: Learning and Using the International Language

is highly recommended.

Availability of the hard-copy can be inconsistent, but it's also available as a free PDF download from Esperanto-USA, as is an 12-lesson audio-course by William Auld.

A quite recent, but already well-recommend, book from Britain is supposed to be available in North America in early January (can be pre-ordered from Amazon, now):

Complete Esperanto: Learn to read, write, speak and understand Esperanto

​

> Just because Islamic terrorism exists doesn't mean that Israel gets a blank cheque.

Sure, no nation state under heaven is perfect. For a deep dive into imperfections and strange quirks of the Israeli political scene, you might want to read Catch The Jew!. Be advised the work is very satirical in it's approach to the subject, but none the less quite accurate. Enjoy the chuckles as you read, it is as funny as it is enlightening.

> Errors are: the wildly inaccurate map…

Yep, you're right. I read the words and didn't pay attention to the pictures. That map is more than a bit silly. Especially because the creator of the map makes the all too common error [among Westerners] of conflating "Arab" with "Muslim" to the point of using the terms interchangeably. Also, big chunks of the map that are marked in red for "Arab/Muslim" are relatively unpopulated such as the interior of the Sinai Peninsula which also makes no sense.

> In short it is contrary international law to settle your people in occupied territory in order to demographically alter the region, which is exactly was Israel is doing.

*Sigh.* Jerusalem is not a settlement anymore than Moscow is settlement. The regions of Judea and Sumeria aren't settlements either. They have been occupied by Jews since very ancient times.

The fact is, as I suspect you well know, the "Palestinian state," already exists: Jordan. A second concurrent "Palestinian state" is not needed.

> …calling people who have lived in Palestine for centuries "squatters" and "brutal terrorists".

I'll concede this point too, but I do not think you'll like the result. Non-Jewish residents of these regions should be brought into the fold and offered full Israeli citizenship. If they cannot stomach Israeli citizenship they may voluntarily relocate if that is truly their wish. The most efficient path to peace therefore would be The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East. Wouldn't you agree?

Before dissenting from the One State solution, please consider this: virtually every time Israel has extended an olive branch along "two state" lines both the Israelis and residents of the Palestinian Territories have been made to suffer. Just look at Gaza. Israel seeded control and militants promptly moved in and began shelling Sderot. (Irony of ironies: the first Qassam rockets were made using "recycled" materials from greenhouses the State of Israel left in Gaza to the Gazens get on their feet, economically.) Israel, having a moral obligation to protect its people, was forced to act with an embargo and, at times, limited military strikes.

The very sad truth is: Palestinians are made to suffer because their own leadership reckons them as useful political pawns than as settled and naturalized Israeli citizens. The optics of the situation are then exploited to create the appearance of a moral crisis that would not otherwise be present if Israel held unchallenged autonomy over its borders. This is also why residents of Palestinian territories don't relocate, they're generally prevented from doing so by neighboring powers perpetuating the "crisis."

What are your thoughts /u/TeoKajLibroj?

I third this. It's probably the best single book. http://www.amazon.com/Esperanto-Teach-Yourself-Revised-3rd/dp/0844237639/ref=la_B001KI9TGC_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1416982334&sr=1-1


It's out of print, so prices are high, but there is a PDF floating around the internet than you can google for.

Also, go to Memrise.com and sign up for "Speak Esperanto Like a Native 1" course. Memrise is a godsend for language learners.

Most of them are free online. For me, if I hold a piece of paper or a book, I learn better. So, it would probably be best if you print them. There should be a print shop in your area that can also bind the books for you. Or, you could just use coil binding.

• http://i-espero.info/files/elibroj/eo%20-%20saint-exupery,%20antoine%20de%20-%20la%20eta%20princo.pdf
  
  
• http://www.steloj.de/esperanto/gfabeloj/
  
  
• http://eduinf.waw.pl/esp/lern/uem/index.php
  
  
• http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Esperanto_(Bookshelf)
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Luko-Kuniklo-Esperanto-Tony-Braun/dp/1522898492/

This book is all you'll ever need to pay for. And really not even that if you really don't want to. You have Duolingo, lernu.net, Memrise, and Anki. All free and all useful in their own way.

Plus there's apps like Amikumu and Telegram and all that to practice with people.

lernu is fantastic, and the canonical book is TIY Esperanto (I wouldn't get it from Amazon, since their cheapest is $40 for used, I just linked so you can find the ISBN and whatnot).

Consider a meetup group (that one's in the Bay Area), having actual people to speak with is a huge plus.

I used the Richardson book. It’s grammar and vocabulary lessons, followed by a section of reading texts that get more advanced and introduce more words. It’s a free PDF now from Esperanto-USA (https://retbutiko.esperanto-usa.org/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=19232) or you can buy the book on Amazon (Kindle here: Esperanto: Learning and Using the International Language https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06X96ZDZ1/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_v4iADb27HYR0P). The paperback is for some reason currently not available (it’s too expensive from third-party sellers), so don’t bother with that. You could print the free PDF if you really wanted to.

Disclaimer: the Richardson book was written in the 90’s and doesn’t know about the Internet. I was involved in the minor edits to the current version, which came from a scan of the paper book, since we didn’t have the digital files anymore. The text is just a tiny bit less-than-clear because it’s a scan, and that’s unfortunate. It could use a full OCR and actual editable text. I also cleaned up a few of the images from earlier editions that were questionable (there was a “parts of the body” image of a woman that was cartoonish and “too anatomically correct,” and a few others).

Mondial is a good site to get books from and These books available on amazon are recommended


English-Esperanto-English Dictionary (2010 Edition) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1595691499/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apap_EFnodhvgyeQd5

A Complete Grammar of Esperanto https://www.amazon.com/dp/1517225981/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apap_G1jBJvtjKk1jb

This has the virtue of being compact. I haven't received it yet, so can't comment on its worth.

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Grammar-Esperanto-Ivy-Kellerman/dp/1426428596

This book is 100 years old and is still a great way to learn Esperanto grammar (the vocab is a little outdated just because it doesn't have things like "TV" "Computer" etc...

Komencanto here!

I bought the Wells dictionary recently, and like it quite a bit. It's a decent size (average paperback) and has both Eo-En and En-Eo sections, with a brief reference grammar in the front. It's recent too, so it has terms for things like phones and computers that some older vortaroj might lack.

I bought this and really like it

Definitely check out the Memrise course. 120 words, memorize them, then read through the simple grammar. Or buy a Pu~

'Complete Esperanto' is an excellent, modern textbook:

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Esperanto-Learn-write-understand/dp/1473669189

If you want a free PDF of an older textbook, 'Esperanto: Learning and Using the International Language' is available from Esperanto USA:

https://retbutiko.esperanto-usa.org/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1029_1033&products_id=19232

You'll see PDFs of Ivy Kellerman's textbook floating around, but it's from 1915, and not the best for learning modern Esperanto.

There was a recent english translation that if enough people request might get an ebook: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1352000199/

Just go down to the product details and click on request this on kindle and they'll forward that on to the publisher who might eventually create an ebook for people to buy. As far as the Esperanto version you'll probably have to live with paper.

I make a point to buy Esperanto content when I can. (I'm waiting for my next paycheck so I can buy a Dolchamar album...)

I generally shop at:

• The Esperanto-USA Retbutiko - I've bought books, comics, music CDs, movies, lapel pins, and random stuff from here.
  
• Vinilkosmo MP3 - They sell MP3s for albums.
  
• Amazon - You can find some books here. I bought Marvirinstrato and some other books through here.
  
• The Universal Language - I paid for this documentary
  

Epitomo: Epikuraj Skribaĵoj - estas aro de verkaĵoj pri la filozofio epikura kaj facila maniero studi kaj filozofion kaj esperanton
https://www.amazon.com/Epitomo-Esperanto-Hiram-Crespo/dp/1537679473/

Marvirinstrato estas libro de mallongaj noveloj, kiu mi tre sxatas.

It's available online https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Esperanto-Learn-write-understand/dp/1473669189

Oni povas aĉeti ĝin ĉi tie aŭ senpage elŝuti ĝin ĉi tie.

Laŭ la video, oni povas aĉeti ĝin ĉi-tie, ĉe Amazon. Ankaŭ, ŝajne, ĉe Esperanto-USA.

La verko estas elektitaj rakontoj de Edgar Allen Poe, kaj la libro estas aĉetebla je amazon.

Aĉeti libron estas malfacila, kiam vi ne scias kie vi povas aĉeti ĝin! Ĉi tiu afiŝo kaj ĉi tiu filmeto estas merkatado. La plej simpla merkatado estas diri, kio la afero estas.

Step by Step in Esperanto is an old textbook that I have found to be phenomenal.

Duolingo is pretty bad at explaining things unfortunately. If you are on the desktop website, you can get a bit more information if you click the little light-bulb symbol that appears next to some of the lessons.

However I’d recommend doing another course alongside or instead of Duolingo. For example, you can try the course at Lernu.net or buy the book Complete Esperanto.

The -n ending marks the accusative. You add it to the thing that is being acted on by a verb. In English this is the thing that usually appears after the verb. For example “mi manĝas la pomon” (I am eating the apple). The apple is being eaten, ie, it is the thing being acted upon by the verb, so it needs the -n ending.

komencinte lerni E-on mi trovis cxi tiun vortaron cxe mia publika librejo. gxi estas bonega por paroli kaj skribi E-e. mi havas cxi tiun libron. gxi estas tro simpla, tamen gxi estas helpema.