Hello everyone.
Welcome to Langfocus.
My name is Paul.
Today I want to talk about Esperanto.
Recently, I've been studying Esperanto with Duolingo.
But, what is Esperanto?
Esperanto is a constructed language.
That means that Esperanto did not develop naturally.
It was created,
Dr. Zamenhof created the language before 1887.
He wanted to create a simple language that is easy to learn.
Zamenhof successfully created such a language, and that's quite amazing!
And Esperanto is very easy to learn, compared to other languages.
The billionaire George Soros' father was an author of Esperanto literature.
And he taught Esperanto to George when he was a child.
In Esperanto, there are only 16 grammar rules.
And there are no exceptions.
All nouns end with the letter "o".
amiko = friend
tago = day
Adjectives end with the letter "a".
amika = friendly
taga = daily
Adverbs end with the letter "e".
amike = in a friendly way
tage = on a daily basis
There is NO grammatical gender!
(silently) Yes!
All verbs are conjugated the same.
mi lernas = I learn
mi lernis = I learned
mi lernos = I will learn
And the conditional: mi lernus
ALL verbs are like that.
You learn one rule, and then you're finished.
So you progress rapidly.
There are native speakers of Esperanto.
Some Esperanto speakers speak Esperanto with their babies and kids.
Esperanto was based on European languages.
The roots of Esperanto vocabulary mostly come from Latin and Romance languages.
I am an English speaker who knows French,
so I immediately recognize some Esperanto words.
There are also some Slavic and Germanic words.
I think that Europeans can learn Esperanto easily.
And, it's very fun to learn.
But, some people say that the language is too European.
And, it's not so easy to learn for non-Europeans.
Speaking another language in front of another Esperanto speaker
is called "crocodiling".
Don't crocodile!
The problem with Esperanto is that it isn't useful.
It didn't become the international language.
There is no city or country where many people speak Esperanto.
There are approximately 2 million speakers in the world.
But, they communicate on the Internet,
or at Esperanto meetings.
Esperanto is just a hobby language.
Is it a good idea to learn Esperanto?
If you want to learn a language that you can use in the street,
then it's a bad idea.
If you love languages and you want to learn Esperanto for interest,
then it's a good idea.
And if you want to be more familiar with the Romance languages,
and other European languages, then learning Esperanto first can help you.
Because after learning Esperanto, you will recognize many words in those languages.
Will I continue to study Esperanto until I'm fluent?