Esperanto
Here is a great quotation, whose accidental application to Esperanto is obvious:
“Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Think big.” – Daniel Burnham, Chicago architect. (1846-1912)
Esperanto is certainly a case of “a noble, logical diagram” (with its “internal idea” corresponding to the “noble” aspect of the diagram), and the staggering things that our grandsons will do is reminiscent of Zamenhof’s assertion, “La nepoj vin benos, se vi pacience eltenos.”.
Here’s a great quote that I found that could serve as a motto for Esperanto:
“Esperanto is the only planned international language to have become the vernacular and literary medium of a widespread speech community.”
I found it in the website of Mondial, in the description of the book “Original Literature of Esperanto” (by Geoffrey Sutton).
No one who ignores Esperanto has the right to complain about cultural collapse.
(parody of TOEFL Speaking test)
“Ignorance of Esperanto on the part of any language teacher constitutes incompetence.”
Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Why? Why not?
preparation time: 20 seconds
response time: 60 seconds
I just posted an aswer to a question relating to the language barrier on the meta component of the Mathematics Stack Exchange website. Here is the link:
http://meta.math.stackexchange.com/questions/1617/what-is-the-site-etiqu...
My daughter came up with this last week while we were otherwise occupied. The game is very simple, but I think it's a good one to help learn sentence forming and occasionally a new word. One person gives the first, or other player two nouns and a verb in Esperanto. That person must then form a sentence containing those words. Sounds like a good game in the car, too.
Ofteco de salutonoj estas mezuro de Esperanto-etoso, do jen kial mi, en antaŭa afiŝo, enkondukis tiun terminon.
En ĉiu lerneja tago mi ricevas multajn individuajn salutonojn ĉe la lernejo kie mi instruas (la matematikon, en la angla). Jen la ligo al mia (anglalingva) mencio pri tio en reta versio de la tagĵurnalo “Beijing Today”:
http://www.beijingtoday.com.cn/news/esperanto-lives-on-despite-shortage-...
Afable,
Mike Jones
Usona eksterlandulo en Beijing
13.maj.2011
I might be teaching Esperanto to elementary aged children for my local homeschooling co-op. It may also be a "Language appreciation" sort of class, where kids can learn about cultures and languages they may never have thought of. Who here is familiar with teaching 5-8 yr olds Esperanto? I can't use my own kids as an example, because they were home schooled by me and my wife, and this will be a different setting. (Many times, home schoolers pawn off a subject they are lacking in to another members who is willing to take it on. We have a chemist who teaches the high sciences to some HS kids, and we have a local musician who teaches instruments as well. Since I also teach computers, I felt I should add Esperanto to the mix. Any ideas?
Things are still going well. We've done lesson 5 from the postal course. I've also supplemented a few dialogues from Jen Nia Mondo. My daughter has taken to translating, mostly on her own with my good Welles dictionary, a few songs from Veggie Tales. The mistakes she is making are your basic beginner ones like the adjective/noun agreement and the occasional accusative. The course hasn't gone over participles yet, so I just put those in for her as needed.
When she askes for a word, I tell her what it should be, and spell it out to her using the Esperanto names of the letters. The only time this gives her much problem is when I'm saying the Esperanto 'i' and she's writing the English 'e'.
To help keep her interest I've taken to translating the back cover text from any of the fiction books she's reading. It was fun doing the one from 'The Guardians of Ga'Hoole'
Over the Christmas break from school, my 11 year old daughter announced to me that she would like me to help her learn Esperanto. This caught me off guard as I had all but figured I was a lone Esperantist in the house. My wife learned it when we were first dating, but has since switched to German, since relatives of her's were recently discovered in the Old Country. My daughter gets some instruction in Spanish at school, but I've rarely heard her say a word either in Spanish or German.
She has watched some of the Esperanto Muzzy videos and has enjoyed them, but nothing has really caught.
So I soft pedaled for a few days, but started making a few preparations to teach her. Just before school went back into session, I asked her if she still thought she wanted to learn it and she said yes!
