Tag Archives: Esperanto

Esperanto defined in an Esperanto dictionary

Esperanto Resources

June 20 marks my third anniversary of studying Esperanto. To celebrate my anniversary, I thought I’d share some resources I have found valuable. Photo by Stefan on Unsplash.
Streaks screenshots

Gamifying Your Task Management

Email is a cruel master. When I first started working in an office, in the 1980s, we shared files via “sneaker net” – taking them back and forth on floppies. Very high tech. For customers and prospects, we sent and received documents overnight through FedEx, then we sent and received faxes. When we first got email, we could only email other people in our building. Then, of course, we could finally email through the Internet. Over time, my In Box became my master, often to the detriment of my true […]
Mastodon

Tips for Using Mastodon

In 1985 or so, I logged on to my first online community, dialing into a local BBS (Bulletin Board System) using a 300-baud modem. Eventually I got on Compuserve, USENET, Brown University mailing lists, and AOL. Leaving dial-up behind, I joined LiveJournal, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. I have accounts for the last five, though I rarely ever use them. I still have a friend who I first met on the Compuserve marketing SIG. Online communities are often ephemeral, though for me Twitter had the longest heyday, as I used […]
owl on a green background

2 Years of Esperanto

I finished Level 1 of the Duolingo Esperanto course in 50 days, after about 70 hours of study. Near the end of Level 1, I created an Esperanto-only Twitter account and could read and write basic tweets in Esperanto. All subsequent levels of the Duolingo course after Level 1 are just a repetition of what you’ve already learnt. So the emphasis is really on practice. I completed the Duolingo course on May 14, 693 days in (1.9 years), studying for 15 to 30 minutes a day. And today’s my two-year […]

5% of Americans Have Studied a Constructed Language

Nearly half (47%) of American adults have heard of a fictional of constructed language (“conlang”) such as Klingon (39%), Valyrian (18%), Dothraki (17%), or Esperanto (9%), according to a new online survey of 1,377 adults. Six out of ten Americans (62%) have reported watching a show or movie where people used fictional languages (though they may not have known the language’s name). One out of five (20%) have read about fictional languages. However, few Americans (5%) have ever studied a constructed language. The top three conlangs studied were Klingon (2% of Americans), Esperanto […]

365 Days of Esperanto

Esperanto is relatively easy to learn, but it is not easy to learn. Relatively easy, because it is easier than any natural language, as it has fewer exceptions and streamlined grammar. Today, a year into my study, I’ve accomplished far more than I did in four years of high-school Spanish. Not easy to learn, because, like a natural language, Esperanto has tens of thousands of words to learn. Esperanto lessons on Duolingo proved even more addictive than I anticipated. I thought I might do it for the month or two […]
Knabo diras "La realo ne cxiam plenumas niajn revojn."

Addictive Technology to Teach You a Language

Tl;dr: Don’t pay for a Duolingo subscription. Much of the free technology that we interact with strives to build behavioral addiction primarily to show us advertising. The software developers of Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok all concentrate on increasing utilization of their respective apps, often using cognitive science against us (check out this review of Irresistible: The rise of addictive technology and the business of keeping us hooked for more). So it is nice to use an app whose developers are primarily trying to help us achieve our educational goals (though, […]

More Gymnastics with Onomastics

Mark Rosenfelder has edited and updated my articles and essays from the Model Languages newsletter and the former Langmaker.com website, assembling them into the book Langmaker: Celebrating Conlangs. Available now as a Kindle or paperback from Amazon! Here’s the third issue I ever published. From [email protected] Fri Aug 4 12:13:39 1995 Date: 03 Aug 95 23:48:12 EDT From: Jeffrey Henning To: BlindCopyReceiver: ; Subject: MODLANG 3 MODEL LANGUAGES The newsletter discussing newly imagined words for newly imagined worlds ———————————————————————— Volume I, Issue 3 — July 1, 1995 MORE GYMNASTICS WITH […]
Langmaker: Celebrating Conlangs book cover

An Introduction to the Hobby of Model Languages

Mark Rosenfelder has edited and updated my articles and essays from the Model Languages newsletter and the former Langmaker.com website, assembling them into the book Langmaker: Celebrating Conlangs. Available now as a Kindle or paperback from Amazon! Here’s the very first issue I ever published. From: Jeffrey Henning <[email protected]> Subject: _Model Languages_, 5/1/95 MODEL LANGUAGES The newsletter discussing newly imagined words for newly imagined worlds ————————————————————————– Volume I, Issue 1 — May 1, 1995 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HOBBY OF MODEL LANGUAGES Some people build model airplanes, some craft model […]