Esperanto, Toki Pona, Swahili, Indonesian
This is a lukewarm little story with a few connected bits, but it might be interesting or even helpful. Follow the links in it, for full effect.
Esperanto start
For decades, I’ve wanted the experience of carrying on a conversation in another language.
My language-teaching polyglot friend Benny Lewis said that if you’ve never really spoken another language, then the best strategy is to start with the easiest possible language to learn, which is Esperanto. His advice is to spend just a few weeks learning and having conversations in Esperanto, so that you can feel the experience of detaching from your mother tongue. Then you’ll be better-prepared to go learn the language you really want to learn.
A few years ago, during Christmas holidays, when the world expects less of us, and I actually had spare time, I procrastinated something by thinking, “I should look into Esperanto.” I sat down mid-afternoon and checked out lernu.net, which seemed to be the most popular Esperanto-learning site. And oh my god! It’s fascinating! The language is so well designed! Everything made sense and with each new thing I learned, I thought “That’s brilliant!”, and wanted to learn more. I was so riveted that I didn’t realize it had gotten dark, and by the time I got out of that chair it was 10pm.
So I decided to learn Esperanto to a conversational level. It was December, and there was an annual Esperanto conference in Seoul Korea in July, so I signed up to attend the conference and made that my deadline for fluency. I found an Esperanto teacher, signed up for live conversation practice, and started learning for one to three hours a day. I was a keen and diligent student, and had Esperanto books shipped from overseas, which I read slowly, learning new vocabulary. I watched videos in Esperanto made by a funny Australian dude. I used Anki flashcards, and wrote my own command-line dictionary for quick reference of every word I’d learned. I was so into it that my friend Elina got annoyed and asked if I could please stop talking about it so much.
After six months of study, I was able to have conversations in Esperanto. I was able to say almost anything I wanted to say, and understand almost anything someone said.
Toki Pona
I was on my way to Seoul Korea for that Esperanto conference, but stopped for a few days in Singapore. There’s an app (made by the funny Australian dude) that helps you find other Esperanto speakers in your area that are willing to meet up and talk in Esperanto. So I turned it on in Singapore. It said that just a mile away from me was an Esperanto speaker named Sonja Lang. Wait a minute… I know that name… Oh my god it’s her!
You’ve heard of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis? It suggests that the structure of the language you speak affects the way you think.
Sonja Lang, a brilliant linguist and translator, was inspired by Taoist philosophy, and found she felt best when she simplfied her thoughts and concentrated on basic things. So she decided to apply the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and created a new language that has only 137 words. With so few words to communicate everything, you have to simplify your thoughts and concentrate on the basic essence. She called it Toki Pona. I had heard of it for years, found the idea fascinating, and even read a little book about it.
So I texted Sonja Lang through the Esperanto app, and asked if she would meet up with me. She said yes, but only if we speak only Esperanto. We met up the next day at a restaurant in Singapore. She’s like a rock star to me, so I was nervous and excited, and I’d sometimes break into English to tell her something. But she patiently responded in Esperanto, and spoke only Esperanto for two hours with me that evening.
I wanted to stay friends with her, but we only connected through that app, and only that one time. Still, I was starstruck, and count it in my top ten celebrity encounters.
Esperanto conference
I’d always wanted to go to Korea, and this was my first time. So excited to be there, and excited for this Esperanto conference.
OK so this is why I said this story is “lukewarm”: because I have mixed feelings about what I’m going to say next, and I’m going to trash something (maybe myself) in a way I usually don’t.
I went into the conference, and was immediately disappointed. The average age of the attendees around me was probably 55. They were disheveled and unkempt. They had signs saying we could have world peace if everyone spoke Esperanto. They were singing sappy songs with acoustic guitars and hand-drums about Zamenhof, the linguist who invented Esperanto in 1888. I cringed. It’s hippie Klingon.
I talked with the funny Australian (in Esperanto, of course), after watching so many hours of his videos, that was cool to meet him. But everyone else? Eh. I realized I had no desire to talk with these people. And then I felt bad for my lack of interest. I’ve attended many conferences about the Ruby programming language, and really loved nerding out on those conversations with fellow enthusiasts. But I just didn’t like these Esperanto people. I felt like a bad person for not being more interested in them. So I forced myself to have a few more Esperanto conversations with strangers, but I still didn’t like it. And so I left and never spoke Esperanto again.
I feel bad saying that I liked the language but not its speakers. I feel like it’s my fault. They’re all probably really interesting people, and the problem is me, which makes me feel worse.
Esperanto conclusion?
I realize that I lost the plot and didn’t do what Benny had suggested. I was supposed to spend just a few weeks on Esperanto, have a few conversations in it, then move on. But I was just so intrigued with the language itself that I dove all the way in. So I’m left with a feeling of regret.
Esperanto is interesting but almost useless. Almost nobody speaks it, and they all speak English and other languages too. So I can’t ever feel the joy of using it to communicate with someone who I couldn’t otherwise.
I spent over 400 hours practicing Esperanto, and I wish I had spent that time learning a more useful language. For an English speaker like me, Spanish, French or Portuguese would have been almost as easy. A year later, I moved to Portugal, and deeply felt that regret.
So now it’s just something I nerded-out on for six months, and have a lingering admiration for how well it’s designed.
Indonesian and Swahili
Linguist John McWhorter has a lot to say about language. I’ve spent probably 50 hours listening to his great courses and podcast about languages.
He said that if he could have chosen a language, instead of English, to be the world’s shared second language, then it would be Swahili or colloquial Indonesian. He said both of these languages have been learned by millions of people as their second language, so all the weird edge-cases have worn away, and they are as smooth and beautiful as a river stone. No weird grammar. No weird tones. No exceptions. In all of his studies of hundreds of languages, he said Indonesian is the closest thing to an ideal language he has ever encountered.
I still want to learn to speak another language to a conversational level. I’m very tempted to learn Indonesian or Swahili, to experience what he loves about them. Like learning to play a song that an expert says is the most beautiful song ever written. And each one could connect me to millions of native speakers that don’t speak English.
I daydream about what it would have been like if, instead of Esperanto, I learned Swahili and went to Zanzibar (birth place of the language) to speak nothing but Swahili for a week. Or learned this ideal language of colloquial Indonesian, and instead of going to a hippie nerd conference I would have talked with people around the Indonesian islands. These scenarios are much more inspiring to bridge the communication gap.
But for me, still, the language with the greatest unlocking power is clearly Mandarin Chinese. Over one billion speakers that don’t speak English, from a rich and admirable culture with its own thing going on.
Some day.
Hey Derek!
Where I live there is a large refugee population from central Africa and nearly all of them speak Swahili. I haven’t had much opportunity learn the language but you’re absolutely right about so many of them learning Swahili as a second language.
They all speak other languages, but Swahili is usually the one that they communicate in because everyone speaks it.
Fascinating.
Jethro
Saluton! My mother's boyfriend was an active part of the Esperanto community 15 years ago. He taught me the language, and we often met or were visited by "Esperantists."
Even though I always liked the concept of the language and the language itself, I completely agree with your opinion on the speakers. They were a very odd crowd—not the good kind of odd, though.
☺ “not the good kind of odd” — well-put! — Derek
Great story. The part about the Esperanto conference reminded me of a sitcom my son used to watch, "Big Bang Theory," where the nerdy scientists on the show all spoke Klingon. :-)
Esperanto = hippie Klingon? — Derek
Your experience with Esperanto is similar to mine. I learned the language and found it to be fun and fascinating. Later I attended a polyglot gathering and met many people who were into learning languages, and that group included many Esperantists. Some were cool people, but many were repulsive, just as you noticed. The overall culture of Esperanto did not sit well with me. Like you, I was done with the language after that.
I loved this, I can really relate to aspects of the story about diving deep into an interest but being repulsed by some of the commonalities of the others in that community. An interest becomes part of our identity, then we realize we only like the thing itself for what it is, not what it says about us to others. When that happens, it reminds me to adjust my focus on admiring the thing itself, instead of the desire to belong to a new community, or what me liking it communicates to my peers. I have to get back to liking the thing for what it is and see if that’s enough to keep me going. I’ve felt this as a musician (jazz musicians can be too serious and elitist, and each genre has its different types of musicians and fans) and veganism, (can be preachy, judgy, perfectionist or too hippy instead of focussing on the practical benefits).
The premise of Esperanto has always been fascinating, it’s a shame it never caught on. I wonder if if it had, the world would have become less Americanized and English speakers would have benefitted too, being forced to learn at least one additional language.
Bonan tagon Derek, mi lernis/as Esperanton kaj tage parolas per babilejo. Mi ne konas esperantistojn proksime al mi, do mi ne povas diri multe da aferoj pri li.
Lerni novajn lingvojn estas utila kaj interesa, kaj one povas lerni du (tri, kvar, … dek!) samtempe. Mi kredas ke Esperanto havas unikan kulturon; estas plej da romanoj verkitaj per Esperanto, romanoj ne tradukita angle.
Ĉiu ajn lingvo donas al ni iu nova!
I never understood the appeal of made-up languages, let alone learning them. I'm perplexed why Benny would recommend that. It's a guaranteed waste of time because, as you realized yourself, they aren't useful.
Spanish is an extremely easy language to learn, probably not that much more difficult than Esperanto for an English speaker, yet it opens a huge world to you.
After a few weeks of (seriously) learning Spanish with a private tutor you could have simple conversations, and all with real, native speakers (of which there are none in these fake languages - and no, I don't count the children of Esperanto speaking parents as natives because you can't have a native level not learning from natives).
I'm not a linguist so this is just my opinion but if I could choose a global language instead of English, that would be Spanish.
Indo-European language speakers would find it very easy to learn because of thousands of shared words. It also has an almost perfect phonemic orthography so after a couple of weeks of practice you can read everything without any mistakes in pronunciation (unlike the ridiculousness of English). The natives are very friendly and accepting of foreigners speaking Spanish.
All in all, I'd definitely focus on Spanish way ahead of any other language (I speak four).
It's great to hear about your Esperanto learning experience.
As a Chinese speaker, I'm also pleased to hear about your interest in learning Mandarin Chinese.
I believe that learning a language is the best way to understand another culture. It can help us to overcome misunderstandings generated by the media, whether intentional or unintentional.
If you need any help with learning Mandarin Chinese in the future, I'd be happy to offer my assistance.
Whoa!
It's so cool to see how passionate you are about learning Indonesian, especially going all the way to Yogyakarta as well.
I'm grateful for being Indonesian, especially Yogyakarta, my hometown.
PS: You might wanna pick up some Javanese language too, since it's the main local language here in Yogyakarta.
Great place! I've been to Yogyakarta already and love it very much. — Derek
For me, Esperanto is like Rick and Morty: I love the show, but strongly dislike talking to anyone else who loves the show.
Hello,
Have you ever considered learning and reading Sanskrit ?
The liguistic structure, peculiarity and grammar of it ?
No. Gotta draw the line somewhere. ☺ — Derek
I recently visited the island of Bali for about a week. Balinese (Basa Bali) is related to Indonesian (Bahasa) but has a smaller vocabulary. The people of Bali all generally know Balinese and Indonesian, and those working in tourist-related fields tend to know one additional language like English, Chinese, Spanish, German, etc. Anyway, I found pocket phrasebook for balinese at a local bookshop and started practicing with the locals. Every single one was amused and interested in the fact I knew even one or two Balinese words (since the language has a small set of speakers), so learning more words was very rewarding. If you are interested in Indonesian, I suggest you go for it; but even more fun perhaps would be to arrange travel to Bali and to practice some Balinese as well - it might be even more fun (but less useful) to know. Thanks for sharing your experience with Esperanto. Cheers Mac
I feel like not being a native English speaker is both a curse and a bless. Since, well, English is the world langauge right now; I would be at a disadvantage stepping outside my home country if I didn't spend time honing my English.
However, since I'm already used to speak a second language, there's no need to do the Esperanto part consciously. I'm learning Japanese right now (also a beautiful langauge), and feeling that "allocating some circuits for another language and switch there" is indeed already in my skillset...
Being from south-east Asia, Indonesia is also high on my wishlist :D
The funniest thing... I thought of Esperanto just a day or two ago myself, and felt compelled to do my once-every-few month Derek check-in today. 😁 Love the synchronicity/brainwave frequency!
I am sorry it sounds like the conference was disappointing! But, I promise it was not for naught.
From the outside as an observer, I would say most likely you had an overflow of seratonin/dopamine from your lovely Singapore meeting with Sonja and that temporary depletion may have colored your experience of the conference.
And you just never know when that Esperanto might pop up in your life again... 🌈
At a science fiction and fantasy convention, where we tend to be unkempt nerds, a big name author encouraged us to learn Esperanto, saying the speakers "are like us here: Very smart and very poor."
Years ago I started learning Esperanto from a leaflet at a university bulletin board. I forget how many lessons I did, at least two. I stopped when I got to gendered nouns for people like teacher and teacher-ess. This when the airline were dropping flight steward and flight stewardess for the non-gendered word flight attendant.
I realize that in a lot of non-English languages gender is natural, and that in even in English, a more democratic language, the word Ms, to be non-marital status, (Not Miss or Missus) is now dropping out of favour, and I think the English are starting to have gendered nationalities, such as saying Fillipio and Filipina, which I didn't hear in my youth. At least, so far, the English don't say French and Frenchette. (I made up that word)
As for the value of second language for helping you to learn your own, here is something queer: My local high schools stopped teaching a second language the same year the local universities stopped making a second language an entry requirement, such as algebra still is.
A few years later, about the same year that students who dropped a second language would have aged into entering university, the local universities began requiring an English competency test. (For high school graduates) I wonder: Did high schools suddenly get worse, or is that is a mere coincidence, or what?
Hi Derek,
I've always been fascinated by Esperanto and admired its logical engineering, but have only explored it superficially. Thanks for this essay -- I've been bouncing around between learning Italian, German and Estonian (I'm a touring musician and recently hosted a songwriting retreat in Italy called Song Camp Italy, and tour with an Estonian violinist in a duo named Rahel n Beck).
Sounds like Esperanto needs a campaign of revitalization to attract hipper, more fun adherents! I'm going to check out Toki Pona! Thanks for making me aware of this!
Disappointed to learn you've been turned off from Esperanto. As a touring musician and someone who gives frequent workshops and classes on international touring, I have espoused the "Esperanto Passport" as a way of cutting down lodging costs during international tours. Your essay has raised the conundrum: Abandon hope for Esperanto or help it attract a new generation of adherents!
My mother tongue is English but my second language is Shona (the main language spoken in Zimbabwe). One time while traveling through Mozambique (borders Zimbabwe but main language is Portuguese and there’s no English) , I had the fascinating experience of being picked up by a Portuguese local who also spoke Shona as a second language so the only way we could communicate was through both of us using our second languages.
Well done committing to learning a language to conversation level.
I expect many of your database / followers would like to know another language to conversation level.
Did you find yourself thinking in Esperanto? Did you have humour in Esperanto? Does Esperanto have humour given that it is a non indigenous language?
I have friends whose second language is English that tell me they read books in their native language but in their mind they read it or translate it to English.
I hope that description makes sense. They dream in English.
I would like to know another language well enough to understand / eavesdrop that could be fun for a holiday I think.
I think to become as fluent as to dream in another language must be an unreal experience initially. Something done without processing or intent.
If you can choose to live in a non English speaking environment until you get to that level of communication that could be an efficient and fun less academic method to learn. You could pick up an accent or dialect or slang!
I hope to learn a language other than English soon. I have studied Spanish and Italian in the past, but have not had conversation outside the classroom in them except for brief phrases. I live in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood so it would be helpful.
At this moment, I am thinking of my languages. Since I was born in South of China, Fujian, I learned one Chinese dialect when I was born. Then after I went to university, I found my friends can speak much better than me, so I put lots of efforts in English. Your books notes also helped my English reading a lot. Since I have lived in South Korean for 20 years. so I can also speak Korean.
The benefit of learning language is that you can find some better way to express myself. Understanding multiple languages makes it easier to identify similarities between them.
Hi Derek,
I have been there.. So many lingual syntaxes ! Especially when one is learning multiple new languages.
Mandarin - especially so!
I would recommend Duolingo the app. It’s a good place to start and to help stay consistent while building a vocabulary.
Cheers!
Assad
It’s funny to read thank you for sharing 🙏
Invented languages like Esperanto and Toki Pona lack wells of shared history and culture from which to draw, no turns of phrase that reference tales handed down for generations or the inside jokes of a people. It is in places like these that the true value of learning and using languages will be found, not in the logical, streamlined, efficient, and ultimately sterile conversations about nothing that come out of the ones you've tried. So yes, learn Swahili or Indonesion or Portuguese. Get down in the mud with whatever people and experiences are thrown your way. Throw the grammar books and such things away. You will learn from the expressions on the faces of the people you are trying to talk to how well you are doing. Good luck!
This discussion is very profound, I see it differently though. Multiple languages is a sign that humans are still *quite* primitive. Multiple languages are very stupid in that people with limited time waste vast amounts learning languages which take lifetimes to master. The point of Esperanto to some was that everyone could communicate fully no matter where you went. There really was no need to invent a new language as English is the most shared language in the world. Lets just dump the others and save infinite time for humans while getting rid of things like Belgian, Zulu and Mongolian. World intelligence would vault centuries ahead with the kind of clarity and efficiency this would produce. All the wasted translation problems gone with the wind.
Awesome post as usual Derek, you've been an inspiration for years. I learned Mandarin Chinese 4 years ago in my 30s in Taiwan and it's been one of the best decisions I've made, its changed my life, helped me find love, move to Taiwan, make new friends and now I even help other learners learn it! You can definitely do it. I'd be happy to help out in any way I can :)
Danyo
I have always lived in American cities where many people do not know English. It's possible to learn their language through osmosis by hanging out. A new technique that some folks teach involves no books or grammar, just street.
I learned Esperanto at 18 and then again at maybe 36. Both times really enjoyed the experience just to realize it was useless. Well the second time I had my wife learning it as well so I had someone to practise.
It feels like a videogame, you can enjoy and master it but gives you little in your "real life".
However if there's a huge community of people feeling this... maybe the hippies are just the ones willing to meet, but not really representative of the people that enjoys the language.
I also wonder if we'll feel like this ("useless") for all languages soon, when they are auto-translated. So learning a language will become something akin to just a hobby. Maybe that will level the field for Esperanto.
An alternative perspective on the Esperanto experience, and travelling to the conference. It enabled you to meet up with someone you hugely respect and also to spend some time in the wonderful country of South Korea. I wonder whether your thoughts on this experience will be different in a few years when you look back on it?
There is a wonderful line in a song called "Baggy trousers" by the band Madness - "Oh what fun we had, but at the time it seemed so bad"
In my 20s and 30s I spent 12 years working around the world as a DJ and lived in 12 countries around Europe, the middle east and Asia. In most of those countries I stayed for between 4 to 6 months, which gave me enough time to learn a little of the language, but never became fluent in any of them, and then my next contract was in Jakarta, Indonesia, where I ended up staying for 7 years, and became almost fluent.
I travelled to some of the many beautiful places in the country and met a huge number of lovely people, who were often surprised when they met an Englishman who could speak to them in their language. But apart from surprise the other reaction was respect, that I had taken the time to learn their language. I met thousands of ex-pats from many different countries living in Indonesia in the time I lived there, but not so many of them took the time to learn the language.
Not lukewarm at all, really interesting to read, thoughtful and thought-provoking! I love language - another big fan of McWhorter’s Lexicon Valley here - and had been keen on the idea of esperanto years ago but never properly studied it. I speak reasonable Japanese (not fluent but functional for living there) but have never managed to learn a European language despite several attempts with German and French, even though everyone says this should be easy for a native English speaker!
Rabbit holes. Some are deep, some are shallow. Both allow growth.
I have spent over 4 years learning Spanish. I study every day and read only a Spanish Bible, since I am already familiar with it in English. I read it out loud so I can practice speaking. That has been very helpful in learning the language. I do video chats with native Spanish speakers to practice.
Learning a language, for me, is like learning to play music. I see it as a worthwhile lifelong commitment. Whatever you can do to be able to benefit the lives of others is a good thing.
Hello Derek,
Though it is quite difficult and often messy - I always try to remind myself of the importance that my regret about the past remains beneficial towards the future (as opposed to the unbeneficial, self attacking kind). The hours that you spent on Esperanto are not lost hours even though it may create a great feeling of frustration when you begin to think what could have been if you had applied those 400 hours elsewhere. I am sure that the lesson may become clear later. Already one benefit is the sharpening of intention and aspiration for the future.
Best,
Tomas
Be aware of what you invest in ? Even languages:)
Communication is fascinating to me. Last year watching a behind the scenes video on HBO’s the last of us I first learned of Black American Sign Language. It’s different and that was how the two black deaf characters communicated.
Yesterday my 16 year old son asked me about blindness and how it affects one. I asked him how he would describe the color red to someone who can’t experience it like him? He described it with emotion. Anger, love, passion. Our conclusion was you find commonality and work from there.
Because Esperanto is experimental in that it was created to bring a common language to the world. I would suspect that those who learn it are either academic or altruist or both. Somehow creating a religion. I wonder if your reaction is similar to waking up in a cult and realizing that you have changed as an individual. Maybe the emotional state you experience is realizing that a language without a home feels different. Anger, sadness, loss. What color is that? Magenta?
Living in Taiwan made that for me. Chinese made me simplify very much my thoughts because I was living here and my mastery of the language was limited. So I had to put complex ideas into very simple terms.
Also I realized with my wife that our communication was much better when we used a common language like English where none of us is native.
But maybe this is only for us, I don't know
Hey Derek,
This was a really interesting read to me. As someone who is bilingual, and who can find the nearest watering hole in another three languages, being able to communicate in another language is something that I am so grateful to be able to do. It was a gift my parents gave to me, and I use both my English and my French on a daily basis in my work as a voice over talent.
My dad spoke eight languages, and when he passed away I saw that the next two languages he wanted to learn were swedish and Esperanto. So you made me smile with this post.
I'm really sorry that the conference was a disappointment, but I don't think you wasted your time. The result was not the conference, the result was learning something new and you enjoyed that process. Even if the purported result of speaking it with other people wasn't quite what you would hoped for.
I think that sometimes we get so caught up in doing things that are "useful" to justify to others (and ourselves!) the time that we spent learning it. Esperanto may not be useful to you at this point, but I think you are richer for having learned it. And WE are richer because this post was really interesting and so is reading all of the responses to it.
Bravo!
Hi Derek,
This was really captivating to read, thank you for sharing. I actually understand your perspective and I have a temperament that becomes a bit obsessively intrigued by certain subjects and I follow the lead of wherever that energy takes me, sometimes spending a bit too much time on it.
As a polyglot who dedicates a significant amount of time to re-activating languages I am forgetting, practicing what I know with others, and learning bits and bobs of new languages, I also understand the importance of connecting with the people who study the same language. As much as I love French, I have noticed that American's and other folks in the states who are actively learning French are not my people, and I can feel resolve with that statement. Portuguese and Italian and Spanish are all very fun to learn, and I am sure you will have the opportunity to try again (maybe with a bit less time available). I am working on Japanese for the fourth time or so in a classroom, and am currently pretty overwhelmed. Swahili is really lovely. I accidentally created the first Swahili club on Duolingo years ago when I studied it.
Glad you shared the emotions around an unsucessful trial and error, and I am optimistic that you will find something more you down the line. Feel free to connect more on language learning if it resonates!
Any suggestions to learn Mandarin Chinese. I live in a community outside Seattle where there is a strong population of high tech, Chinese professionals. I would like to learn the language to connect with them. Thanks
I strongly disagree with the premises of toki pona language, as our thoughts can go as deeply and nuanced only as our vocabulary allows.
A language that limits you to 130s words sounds very Orwellian to me.
On the other side of the spectrum is Chinese with it's thousands of ideograms that takes years to master and represent a huge barrier for not native speakers to cross
Hi Derek
You didn't waste your time when you studied Esperanto. Look at the joy it gave you! Look how it inspired you! And it lead to you meeting two new heroes, Sonja and the Australian guy. It also gave you insight into how languages are structured and probably started you thinking you could probably come up with a language yourself.Maybe that would even help with your programming in some way. I read that learning itself keeps your brain young and sharp so there's that benefit too.
As for the disappointment you experienced, well, go-getters and hippies don't really get along. You have different priorities and outlooks on life. You are driven they just want to chill. :)
Sounds like you could've saved a few months if you'd chosen to take Pig Latin to a conversational level instead of Esperanto! ;^p
Also, I've heard that you have not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon.
When my daughter Jillian was about 8, we went to Antiqua,Guatemala and stayed with a family to learn Spanish. There are several schools there where one can have a one on one experience.We each had our own teacher and only spoke Spanish. Was a beautiful place and completely immersive. Jillian went with her teacher and did all kinds of fun things all the while speaking Spanish. Was affordable and think it gave Jillian motivation to continue learning after our return home. Maybe would have been best if we could have moved there but still was a iworthwhile experience .She is now 35 and has her own coffee roasting company “Beach City Coffee.”
There's a fascinating book called "The Loom of Language" which talks about the history of languages, what certain branches of languages have in common, and goes into detail about Esperanto and other "bring the world together" created languages (there are a LOT!) I think if you read even just that part, you'd feel better. The Esperanto movement always had an agenda, and you weren't aware of it, so it's understandable that you'd feel uncomfortable with the speakers. I'm sure there are jazz musicians who don't like groups of expert players who have an agenda, and are stuck because they love the music. So your story is really relevant and human.
I love this sentiment. And how you didn’t feel the need to rationalize your passion for after the fact
Maybe you just wanted to meet Sonja Lang and that was the serendipitous way of doing it.
Hi Derek
I think you're being a bit harsh on yourself. I think any learning experience is valuable.in years to come you may look back on this and there is a nugget of what you enjoyed about the process that you can use in a future endeavour. I found it interesting to read about your process of acquiring the language. As an English speaker I'm in awe of anyone who learns a second language. You never know when this skill may come in handy. I empathise with you about not liking the people. I go to church and while I follow Jesus sometimes I find the people who follow him and talk about him a bit boring! Which sounds even worse than your observations of the conference attendees. Thanks for sharing.
bruhahahahahahaha. i love the brutal honesty. feels like the only type of hippies that can afford to go to said conference would be what i like to call "hippy ballers". They are definitely annoying. After living in California one becomes expert in recognizing the various types. These have expensive tastes and can be identified by the price of their snacks, all the whilst looking shabby generally (in earth tones). They probably smuggle/grow/sell (organic) pot when not attending foreign useless conferences. The idea of a language of only 137 words is way more fascinating. You've sat down with what sounds like an evolved human. thanks for sharing. you are at one with your salt and i'm here for it.
I live in my home country but then with an american accent & quit caring about how well i speak/read/write the language. (insert shrug)
I’m so glad I read this. One because I haven’t heard of those first two languages. And I love language.
And I really want to learn Spanish, and when I started reading, I’m like oh I should learn Esperanto and of course by the end, I’m like nope— I should just learn Spanish. Thank you for that.
Studies have shown we tend to make more rational decisions when thinking in a second language and we make more gut-feeling decisions when thinking with our mother tongue. I think that's because the words in our mother tongue are infused with childhood memories, sensory experiences, emotional and relational experiences. It's more embodied. I like the premise (and promise) of Esperanto, but the lack of native speakers means nobody has grown up with it.
Also, the fact it never caught on and mainly attracts a peculiar crowd VS the fact that English is the lingua Franca in spite of its awful spelling system, say many things about languages and top-down vs bottom-up approaches.
Swahili is an interesting choice. Many panafricanists want it to become Africa's lingua Franca. I think it has good chances for East Africa, but less in the West. Still, you'd find a plethora of people to chat with, people with richly different worldviews and experiences!
Hi Derek
I just received your email and read both this article and the book extract.
I may be in the minority, but I much preferred this ‘lukewarm’ piece. More human, more personal. I can relate to the nerding out about something that in hindsight seems like not the best use of life, being driven on by a kind of manic knowledge thirst.
I am a little surprised by the advice to try and learn Esperanto in the first place; then as you say, your friend did say to switch after a couple of weeks.
As a non-native French speaker, it is a thrill to think, communicate and learn in a second language. Culture is the key here. As a kid learning languages, cultural modules always seemed to be getting in the way of the ‘real’ language learning, but as an adult it is the culture that matters. The people, the literature, the food, the whole shebang.
Sounds like your Esperanto experiment was very successful in terms of language learning and communication just not quite the culture you were after. Hippie Klingon is such a wonderful turn of phrase.
And a comic for intellectuals… 😂💗i love it all- i have at least 5 new tabs to dig through.
Hi Derek this was an interesting and fascinating read thanks for sharing
I didn't know those languages existed that you mentioned.
I also really like learning languages.
I speak English, and Japanese,
I'm learning portuguese , Spanish and German.
However the languages all started to get muddled in my head and when I go to think and speak in one language the words of another language pop out of my mouth. so I realize it's probably easier to learn them one at a time at the moment I am focusing on Spanish.
I was immediately envious in the first few paragraphs. On some level, I admire your ability to focus on one thing for a long time; longer than probably 99.9% of people.
But then, I felt better towards the end. Maybe trying to do 10 things at a time is not that bad after all. I'm hedging my losses (and, by extension, my successes).
I'm still holding on to my dream of being fully fluent in Spanish. I love the language, the people, the sound of it, the culture it opens up for me.
Take the joy of learning the language of the nerds and carry it in to learning mandarin.
Derek!
Good job devoting so much time to Esperanto. I delved into it but never too deeply and wish I had given it more serious study (in spite of being proficient in Spanish and ASL (now that's a cool lang with a VERY interesting minority culture necessarily embedded in a spoken language culture).
Although your assessment of esperantists seems right on, the learning of Esperanto is a great way to get your toe into the language learning waters. Prior to learning another language I didn't have a great sense of linguistic categories (nouns, adjectives, grammar, morphology, phonology, etc etc). Esperanto can really help with this, and it has a case endings to boot (!)-- accusative if I recall correctly.
I once heard someone make a compelling case that Esperanto should be taught in schools to into language, just as we use recorders to into music. Few people play recorders into adulthood, but many young recorder players became musicians. An interesting argument which I think has some weight.
I empathize with the regret of devoting oneself to something we later feel meh about, but no learning is ever completely a waste. Good luck on your future language learning adventures.
Luke
Hey Derek,
I've thought about learning Esperanto in the past for the same reasons you did, but I guess it never came up during my procrastinations.
I have, however, for the past few years been learning Mandarin, which has all sorts of challenges. For me particularly, I started learning it when I was living in China. I mastered enough to be conversational at a basic level and could also read and write about 300 characters or so. Then, I moved to Taiwan and the real challenge kicked in. In China, they use a simplified version of the traditional character, which Taiwan still uses. So many of those characters I learned were rendered close to useless because the disparity between traditional and simple is so great.
Still, that's just the reading and writing. Speaking should be the same... except it's not. Yes, Mandarin is still the main language here but they have different names for common objects and their own phrasing that is often completely different from China. At least once a day, I'm told by a laughing, good-natured Taiwanese person that I "speak like a mainlander."
All of this, of course, leaves out the fact that in many places in China and Taiwan were the local dialect is the primary language and there are still quite a few people in these places that can only speak Mandarin at a grade school level.
Cheers,
Tom
I've used Esperanto to talk to people I don't have other languages in common with. There aren't any monolingual Esperanto speakers, but there are a lot that don't speak English. It's really helpful for me in learning other languages too, including Mandarin - it's grammatically flexible enough that I use it to gloss phrases a lot more closely than I can with English.
The speaker community is varied - it has a whole range of people from disheveled idealists to people like Sonja and Benny. I don't like every speaker of any language, and wouldn't have enjoyed the conference in Korea either, but some of the best experiences and connections of my life have involved Esperanto. I wouldn't trade the time I've spent with Esperanto for the same C1 level of proficiency in any other language on Earth, even ones where it would normally take 20 times as long to reach that level.
I've studied some Swahili and Indonesian. They're both beautiful, fascinating languages - and they definitely take a lot longer than Esperanto to become conversational in. Persian's another "river stone" language in a lot of ways.
I agree about the unlocking power of Mandarin. A lot of my language study time goes to it - and I get a lot more joy from it than I do from Indonesian or Swahili.
Being from India it would be normal for many kids to grow up learning (basic speech at least) 2-3 languages, due the many old and evolved native languages which has a huge number of speakers and rich media and context available for them.
So when I started learning French, and tried a couple of others (again like you mentioned debated as the which would be most useful) I realised that English is so very different from most of the Indian languages and also didn’t not make learning other languages easier.
I was glad that I had already learnt some of the regionals languages growing up more naturally and not via a medium like English.
I am very intrigued to now learn Swahili or Indonesian based on your comments . I just wished there was some other way to learn them more directly without having to bridge via English. And it is so true about the deep connections between the way people things and their culture being influenced by their language and likely vice-versa.
And thank you for this interesting story.
“I spent over 400 hours practicing Esperanto, and I wish I had spent that time learning a more useful language.“
I spent over 1000 hours playing Chivalry 2. I too wish I used that time for something else, but I don’t regret the fun I had along the way. :)
Wishes are less fun than real fun though. :)
Glad to here you want to learn Indonesian! Let me know if I can help :) the thing with conversational language in Indonesia is that each area actually has their own mother tongue, like Balinese in Bali, or Javanese in Jogja. Therefore, if you travel throughout the islands, the speakers have different accents of Indonesian. When I translated "Your Music and People", actually I used some colloquial Indonesian used in Jakarta (commonly used in media / pop culture) - check out the conversation with that guy (in italics) as a start!
Ankaû mi ĉiam volis lerni Esperanton, kaj nun mi ankoraǔ scias ĝin. Se vi volas paroli kun mi en la universala lingvo, mi estas ĉi tie por vi, guruo!
☺ I understood that. — Derek
Derek bisa belajar bahasa Indonesia dengan cepat!! :)
Sonja!!!! ☺ — Derek
Loved the fact you were willing to be so honest about your experience.
Always have been fascinated by learning languages. In 5th grade (of public school, no less!) we were required to choose between learning French or Spanish. I never realized how French had become so ingrained in my brain until I took Spanish lessons about 40 years later... and I started (mistakenly) speaking French words and phrases instead of Spanish... without even thinking about it!
My partner and family are fluent in Vietnamese. After 25 years I sometimes can figure out what they are saying... but definitely not easy! LOL
But at this point in time, I am focused on another language... that being of music. For me, it is the most powerful way I can provide inspiration, hope, challenges, questionings, discordance, empowerment (just to name a few) to anyone who is willing to listen.
Thanks.
Hey Derek,
You mentioned Sapir-Whorf, which perhaps a majority of linguists had held in disrepute for a long time. But a few linguists helped to revive the idea with empirical evidence. One of them is Lera Boroditsky, whom you've probably already heard of, but just in case, here's a talk by Lera.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKK7wGAYP6k
Best,
Sincerely,
Joseph Poulshock, PhD (Linguistics)
Professor, School of Intercultural Communication
Senshu University
Editor, readoasis.com/
Blog: ilinguist.net/
I once attended a college where people spoke fluent Latin. Crazy! I didn’t see the utility in it at all except speaking it with very few like-minded people. They just loved the language.
I've been learning Swahili using duolingo for the past year. 2-10min a day. A slow process. I picked it up because I volunteer with a non-profit that does stuff with troubled kids and widows. I wish I'd started it 10 years ago when I got involved but better late than never. Even if I rarely to never use it I picked it up just to keep the mind engaged. And duo is gamified so it keeps me going.
Thanks for sharing
John
You are on the right track.
Fundamentally speaking, what are languages and why do we have them? Maybe you have already figured them out. :)
A quick lesson in (and about) Esperanto:
The word “esperanto” translates as “one who hopes”.
To flip the meaning of a word, simply add the affix “mal-”. So . . . one with extinguished hope could be called a “malesperanto”.
Restore your hope by watching with the most inspiring three-minute video ever:
First Follower: Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy
youtu.be/fW8amMCVAJQ?feature=shared
I hope you dance.
Why not today? Chinese may seems intimidating but not impossible since more than 1bn people managed to speak it, and many of them, myself included, learned English, which is not much easier for a native Chinese speaker. I am actually also learning Finnish now since I moved down here and want to be part of the culture.
Chinese is hard to begin with but it also will be much easier after you learn the basic less than 1000 characters, since the words are just combination of the characters.
Things are hard because we chose not to do it, nothing is too hard if you just do it, especially something billions of people can do.
I had the same experience as you when studying another completely different subject: Polyamory. I dated polyamorous people and started researching the topic and reading books and blogs about the topic. I found it super interesting and thought the concept was fascinating, however, meeting the community was a disappointment. We had very little things in common and we were not approaching it in the same way. After some few meetings I stopped hanging around the community. Many are very insecure and many suffer from mental illnesses and use the meetings almost as "therapy sessions" and to ramble about their love fortunes and misfortunes. This disappointed me and I lost interest in the topic. I am now on a monogamous relationship and very happy.
Btw: I dislike CONlanguages, I speak 9 languages semi-fluently and I get constantly comments about esperanto. I know it will be easy and logical, but I still don't want to learn it.
You are absolutely right about the disappointment. Its a normal thing to feel, even if it feels like you are the one who is responsible. Ive had this happen many times in my life in many groups of interest. Religion, business, masterminds, bands, etc. There is the allure of the thing itself and there is the back story we might be oblivious to. So dont kick yourself in the balls about it too much. The main thing is if you learned anything and I feel you indeed did learn a lot from it.
Languages. My wife is a learning polyglot who is trying to master languages from all over. Me and her tend to disagree about how to learn a language. She wants to understand every single detail about the entire language. Me, I just want to be able to order food coherently and be able to respond to people when they ask me questions. im personally working on my 3rd language (well more like 12th if you count programming languages as languages - and based on the article you wrote I would now count Javascript as a language 🤣). I moved to Italy and I am in the process of learning Italian/Sicilian. Im not stressing it, Im just trying to be a little more conversational today than I was yesterday. Im going to take at least 4 college courses back to back to help me solidify the grammar stuff but the language speaking itself (and even the reading) can be done watching Italian shows, listening to Italian music.
Why take 4 college courses? I lived in Germany for about 13 years. Before moving there i had taken some high school Spanish, but nothing so special that I could actually hold a conversation in Spanish. Still cant. But I can indeed order tacos and horchatas. But in Germany i literally started with a page or two of German words. I eventually took 4 college classes back to back and in the course of me studying German and spending my time on trains every weekend with no english speakers in sight, I was able to unlock the conversational part of the language. The grammatical part I just memorized as I was having conversations. The real unlock for me while taking the classes was dreaming in German. Ive heard and also experienced firsthand that once your brain starts to “speak” the language on its own then you are closer to mastery.
Lastly I will say that being conversant and trying to tonally sound like a native, for me anyway, are the ways i learn a language, use a language and ultimately enjoy a language. It can be done quickly yes, but the mastery and feeling fluent really takes about a year or two at most of full immersion. Daily engagement, and just allowing yourself to be a kid again and start with broken conversations as such a basic level and slowly evolving them over time each day. Sitting down having lunch and dinner with native speakers who have very little english also helps a ton especially when you can hear them talking normally with each other and you interject with a single word… first they look at you crazy, then they hear you annunciate the word like you are clapping out the syllables , and then they understand the word you are trying to say… and they laugh a little and agree with a nod. Feels like being a toddler but also reinforces why you are even learning the language in the first place.
Hi Derek,
Excited to read your new article. I’m learning Japanese since back from my Japan trip last year in Oct, I love the culture so much and it’s the biggest driver for my Japanese learning. Maybe you should learn Japanese so we can communicate in Japanese next time hahaha…
My M.A. thesis was about Esperanto because I thought it was a "bonan ideon" – a good idea. I went to a week-long conference, and met five interesting people, the rest were quite peculiar. Later I went to a Esperanto weekend event, only to find more of the same oddities, with fewer places to hide. The history is fascinating but the community is very strange. You also cannot use it, since anyone who can speak it most likely speaks another language you can speak. At the conference I spoke English with an Esperanto teacher and other attendees complained. The teacher said I do not know how to speak about complex philosophical and political issues in Esperanto. -The language does not really work. Their marketing team is strong and their pseudo religious cult like following catches people into their herd.
Being a South African, I often wish I had learned Zulu, Xhosa, or another local language. One interesting aspect of Esperanto, though, is its extensive literature. However, you probably read literature in the original or your mother tongue, gaining a deeper understanding. Reading that literature in Esperanto does not really make sense. If there's a community around, you can simply speak without the need for reading.
My wife speaks Russian, and I can manage to follow a conversation and read a bit. When attempting to learn Mandarin, I was intimidated to learn how to read. Then I thought I can speak German, Russian, and Afrikaans, and I almost never read in those languages. I can read it quicker and grasp the content far deeper when it's in English. So, 'speaking' a language has become more important for me than 'learning' a language in full.
As an Indonesian, I just realized in the last few years how fascinating it is to go to many major city in a faraway island and be able to communicate effectively using bahasa Indonesia. Even though the local person usually communicate among themself using local language such as Sundanese, Javanese, Balinese, everyone still have similar bahasa Indonesia comprehension level.
I think this stems from the Youth Pledge that was declared on 1928 to use bahasa Indonesia as the unifying language, even before our independence in 1945.
Love it! If you ever need a friend to learn Portuguese, let me know ; )
I am willing to be involved in your journey to learn Indonesian, if you feel like it.
Hi, thanks for the interesting story.
For people wanting to learn new languages and quickly get to a conversational level, I highly recommend State of Mind on YouTube. I've used his system to learn Italian for a month before a vacation there, ~20min/day, and was able to converse with our housekeeper, arrange alternate boat tickets, etc.
I've learned other languages before, and this was definitely the best way I've found so far.
This is so interesting! I admit, I never heard of Esperanto. I love languages though and I'm grateful i can speak 3 languages fluently. I grew up with Arabic and German, and learned English at school. At school i also learned French, but i can't speak fluently anymore because I haven't been using it at all for more than 10 years.
I've been 'learning' Spanish and Korean for 2-3 years now on Duolingo. I'm not an all-in person like you, so i don't dedicate a lot of time to it. Or let's say learning new languages is not a priority for me right now, i just do it for fun and to keep my language-brain active. I can't speak these 2 languages fluently, but I'm actually proud that i can understand so much of them from dedicating only 5-10 min per day to them. When i travelled to Spain i could say basic things and understood a lot.
Languages are treasures in my opinion. The time i felt this in my bones was when i was in Mekkah. It's the place where you're surrounded with people from ALL around the world wherever you go. It was fascinating to me. I was so lucky to be able to speak to so many people from different countries. I used all my 3 languages there and even a bit of French when a lady asked me about something.
A beautiful thing about being human is that no matter what language barrier there is, you'll still be able to communicate somehow. Body language and Google translate are great 😄
When I was younger I tried learning Esperanto but only through the printed form, with what was available as computer learning programs in the 1980s (on floppy disks), not conversation. I think there might have been a newsgroup on Usenet, but we didn't have Unicode then so it was all with the substitutions ŝ -> sx and so forth. That made everything look even weirder than before. But after that year or so, I dropped it and nothing stuck with me.
I too am a McWhorter fan.
Hi Derek,
Thanks for sharing your experience with learning a new language as an adult, which also makes a big difference versus when you're a child. I speak Portuguese, learned English during my teenager years, and am working on learning Luxembourgish while living in Luxembourg. It does require practice (and practice), and I am also looking for new methods to improve my retention of the vocabulary, especially for germanic based language. Appreciate any tips that you can share. Thank you.
Derek, this was inspiring.
I enjoyed this article as I was sipping my cup of coffee.
Thanks. Sometimes all we need is a well written personal story.
No need for any conclusion. Just sharing what we've been through.
Keep rocking 👊🏼🙏🏼💜
Derek Erek! Thanks for this, most post are all hot shit, no Lukewarmth, cause hot shit gets clicks, but as someone who is also very interested in being a multi-linguist, your story spoke to me, in a lukewarm way. It's just what I needed to read. Good luck in your linguist pursuits and wish me luck in mine! Mexico City is my future second language university! Rock On, Johnny John!
Always enjoy your thoughts and honesty... even when it results in an outcome that seems lukewarm.🙏🏽
Really enjoyed your Esperanto story- it’s so entertaining! I’m happy you actually nerd out with it. For Chinese studying you could start with poetry, the words paint nice images in your head and the sounds are pleasant too (they always rhyme); then if you are really curious can try writing the poetry with traditional calligraphy. It’ll be a very cultural experience.
This was a great read.
I share the ambition to speak another language conversationally and enjoyed finding out how you approached it.
Thanks for your honesty about your experience with Esperanto and the community around it.
Lovely read, thank you for sharing! I had never heard of Toki Pona before, so it was extra pleasant to learn something new as well :)
Jambo Derek and Apa kabar?
I've been a language enthusiast for decades and have learned phrases from about a dozen languages. It is nice to surprise someone with a greeting in their language, even if that's all you know.
Like you, I've always wanted to be fluent in a language and have spent countless hours delving into French and Arabic but have never had the chance to be fully immersed, which I think is what it takes.
In recent years, I fell in love with Scotland and thus wanted to speak Scottish Gaelic. It's a bit more useful than Esperanto but not by much. I believe there are only about 70,000 speakers and even in the heart of Gaelic country on the Isle of Lewis, you'll seldom hear it spoken in the largest town, Stornoway.
Nonetheless, I still listen to lessons on YouTube every Saturday morning and review a page of terms in my Everyday Gaelic book before turning out the light at night. I definitely feel a connection to it that may come from my heritage. It relaxes me to listen and to work on committing words to memory. Sadly, unlike Esperanto, it has very difficult grammar and words change spelling/pronunciation depending on the context. And yet, I persevere and look forward to the day when I can impress my Gaelic-speaking friends with at least a basic fluency.
I'm sorry that you spent so much time on Esperanto instead of Indonesian or whatever. Sometimes, I dive too deep into something, too. Fortunately, you can still learn something else.
I've learned German. While at a post office in Germany last summer, I found myself forced to speak German under time pressure. I was surprised to find that I was actually able to. I had no time to think in English first. It was magical. It was the first time that I felt that I had actually learned the language. I hope you get to experience that soon.
Thanks Derek!
This was so fun to read.
I feel it's your writing style that was less efficient than your usual. Maybe the not-so-logical sequence, or the fun digressions.
So cool.
Derek,
I admire your dedication and determination, and wish you continued success in all your endeavors.
Concerning other languages. There are 3 songs I sing in Spanish, one I sing in Italian, and one I sing in Polish having learned my Vowels. I would really like to be more proficient in those languages.
Thank you for my renewed interest in the subject matter.
Best,
Ernie
You are so productive you shouldn't worry about taking a path with less than desired results, and there is nothing wrong with feeling what you really feel. Being authentic must be worth something, and sometimes calling out "Stupid" may even be necessary for survival.
I'm a technophobe and I don't do apps. I don't give into the FOMO and life goes on per usual.
A lot of interesting data, thanks.
Frank
IMHO it's all about expectations and them clashing with reality sometimes. Not only the conference but also the languages we want to learn. Sometimes the divide is just too big.
Hi Derek,
I am surprised that you did not conclude that you got some value from the experience, which would be the typical response from any personal development guru.
It is a fresh view to hear that you regret from that. I am sure you learnt something, at least that you are able to put into action any challenge, even the most quirky one.
This is why we love you.
As a Swahili speaker from Kenya, I celebrate your interest in Swahili. July 7th is World Swahili Day so I invite everyone to join in the celebrations!
Well, maybe it was worth learning Esperanto for meeting "the rock star" :D. Yeah, I sometimes say that English has too many words. Sometimes the difference in meaning is kind of artificially created and the truth is simpler.
From my experience, I wouldnt recommend Esperanto cause it's also about how often a language offers you an opportunity to use it. I learned Hungarian but I forgot it, I can't say that I speak Hungarian anymore cause I've very rarely had the opportunity to practice it. It's not fun when you always have to pay someone to talk to you. It can never happen with Spanish cause it's everywhere and Spanish speakers are everywhere. It's impossible to forget it and it makes it more gratifying to speak it. Italian is even easier and even prettier but it's spoken only in Italy. Also, its easily confused with Spanish in the head of a non native speaker or both. The communication with italians mostly happens in English or Spanish. Italian was worth it for me though, if only for the old Italian music. German took years to learn well, and it's hard to master, but offers a feeling of job safety. Though learning German comes with the risk of living too long in Germany :).
What an interesting article! I like how you threw yourself wholeheartedly into learning Esparanto & I don't think you should feel bad about it because now you know for sure that it's not your thing & you can move on- Either way you win! You mentioned earlier, that you would be visiting Kenya & I think myself (and your other friends in Kenya) can help you achieve the goal of learning Swahili.
I wonder if everyone saying they don't like the Esperanto crowd (you & those in the comments) would get along & actually enjoy each other... :P The alternative Esperanto crowd, if you will.
I grew up in Canada. I spoke Russian & English at home, and learned French in school for ~8 years (never felt fluent/ comfortable though; hearing my own accent was a big turn off as a perfectionist, but also I didn't spend extra time on it). After high school, I tried learning Spanish for a little, following the same logic you mentioned (so many other people I could connect with), but it fell away.
This past year, I've been learning (Brazilian) Portuguese. It's been such a wonderful beautiful thing. And it fits into my life much better than Spanish or French, I don't have to force it! It's important to choose the language(s) that call(s) you; to listen to that soft whisper.
Maybe Esperanto called you for a reason. And maybe you'll find Swahili or Indonesian will weave into your life. Best of luck in listening to the next call/ next whisper.
I've had a similar experience in a different context while studying Buddhism. The first time I visited a Buddhist temple in Rio de Janeiro, I encountered the exact type of people you described. However, not only were they peculiar, but they also lacked hospitality. Fortunately, I had already embraced Buddhism before encountering them.
Hi Derek,
I love this story! It‘s so nice to see how you immersed yourself into learning Esperanto. I wonder if learning the language actually did change the structure of your thoughts?
And you can‘t say learning it was a waste of time.
You might not have liked the Esperanto people, but you would have never met Sonja Lang if it weren‘t for Esperanto. Also you experienced what it‘s like to learn a language and that‘s worth something too!
Can‘t wait to read about your experience with learning Mandarin 🤓
Talk soon,
Niq
What a fascinating journey! While I had heard about Esperanto, Toki Pona is completely new to me. And your thoughts on Indonesian and Swahili are also thought-provoking.
I have been trying to learn German for 14 years and have reached a medium fluency but still crave full fluency. The practicality of a language has never played a role for me. I learned because my ex-husband's family spoke Swiss German. Now, it's more a stubbornness that I'd like to be fully fluent rather than this able-to-follow-50% state I've lingered in. I don't care that most Germans speak English so it's not the practicality for traveling that's driving me - I just want to be fluent in something that is not English. To that end, I enrolled again in a University 2nd year German class to brush up on my grammar. Slowly but surely I am getting there!
I had to read this twice to make sure I didn't miss it.
I don't see why you want to learn to speak in another language.
I just returned from Japan, where I lived as a high school student for a year, and again as a college student, almost thirty years ago.
I wanted to learn Japanese back then just so I could socialize with other humans. Now and then, Japan was a lonely place for me.
This time, I wanted to speak in Japanese because I wanted to model that for my three kids. They learned hiragana the two weeks before going on the trip. And I wanted to have much richer food experiences, which we did. I'll never forget the conversation with the woman who said she lives for Japanese poison blowfish and that was my favorite meal there. And, also, my spiritual path now feels most closely aligned with Buddhism, and back then I was completely oblivious to how much that religion informed the language itself. It's all very beautiful.
I'm curious: why do you want to speak in another language? Regardless, it was a terrific post to read.
Reason #1: something I want to experience: to be conversationally fluent in another language that's quite different from English so that I feel those different paths in my mind or on my tongue. #2: To communicate with people I ordinarily could not. For both of these reasons I think that Chinese is probably the most logical pick for me. — Derek
I imagine that if you hadn't done a deep dive into Esperanto you would have always wondered if you should have. Now you know. Try not to look back too often, except to learn.
Just a brief reflection, Derek. Writing 21 books was nothing. Aside from this nerd climbing Mont Blanc, my greatest accomplishment was learning French.
Native Chinese here, Mandarin and English fluent
Love your work and kind and curious heart.
Hey Derek, great article! As you know, I lived in Tanzania 2010-13, and 3 of my 6 children were adopted during our years living and working there. We're fluent in Swahili, and I must say some of my most joyful moments as a human are exactly as you described.. doing my weekly shop at the local market, with no 'wazungu' (white people) in sight, just conversing in Swahili with local stallholders who became friends. On return visits to Tanzania in 2015, 2017 & 2019, I've returned to that market and reconnected with those same stallholders!
If you're interested in learning Swahili, i'd highly recommend the book 'simplified swahili'. I devoured that in my first 3 months of living in Tanzania, and was able to practice daily via my role as a maths teacher (half my class were Tanzanian, fluent in Swahili and English). I'd tutor them in maths, and they'd tutor me in Swahili as i clumsily practiced!
The swahili stream on the app Duo Lingo is also pretty good!
Learning languages is great because no matter how smart you are, becoming fluent in a new language is fucking hard! As someone who's addicted to learning, I feel that learning languages is one of the few ways we have left of really challenging our brains once we're past university and settled in our careers repeating whatever skillset we've honed.
The time investment is also huge so I recommend people only bother learning languages that they actually plan to use. Don't pick a language because you think it's romantic. For example, I used to study Korean when I briefly lived in Korea in 2017. I even continued studying Korean even after I moved to Vietnam because I felt invested. Sunk cost fallacy. I didn't want to learn Vietnamese because I didn't like i the way it was written or the way it sounded. But once I realized I wasn't going to leave Vietnam, I begrudgingly gave up Korean and started learning Vietnamese. Five years later I'm fluent in Vietnamese and it's made the experience of living in this country much more rewarding.
This experience gave me a great appreciation for the large percentage of the world that is bi- or even tri-lingual. The amount of effort that it takes to become fluent in even one language beyond your mother tongue is massive. Native English-speakers have no idea how pretty much everyone else in the world has to struggle. It takes years of practice to even be able to hold a coherent phone conversation in a language that's not yours!
Nice post derek! I liked how you were so into Esperanto that you went all in to another country for the conference. Crazy. I too once tried to learn japanese and spanish from duolingo but left it halfway. Maybe some day I will pick them again just for fun.
Hello Derek,
I had a similar experience with Esperanto. The People in groups and conferences where nice people, just not my kind of people. They where beating on a different drum.
interesting experience. i've only came because of being interested in toki pona but your story is really fascinating, i'm gonna say you were very lucky to meet Sonja Lang out of nowhere like that. Although i'm not really interested in Esperanto, i respect your determination and it encourages me a little to delve deeper at it, even if your results ended up being dissapointing. i guess i'm more into simplistic languages anyways. :)
I have always loved the sound of Swahili. I see the extreme usefulness of Mandarin. The list of languages I'd love to learn grows the longer I think about this. Thank you for stoking a fire that has been smoldering.
So interesting to hear your journey learning languages as an adult, Derek. I speak seven languages, five of which I learned as an adult. Thankfully for me, I chose to focus on languages that I could use in real-world settings: Spanish, English, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, and Dutch. The choice of what language to learn is unique to each person. For me, two primary reasons have been 1) having an affinity for a certain culture or country, and 2) proximity between languages, e.g., Portuguese and Spanish.
I was exposed to only one language as a child, Spanish. However, my language adventures are continuing now with my kid. He's growing up in West Virginia exposed to three different languages: Spanish, English and French. He's 11 months now and is starting to say words in all three languages. So, his experience with languages will be vastly different than my own. To be continued.
The comparison of languages like Esperanto, Toki Pona, Swahili, and Indonesian highlights their unique qualities and global appeal. Esperanto, a constructed language, aims for international communication, while Toki Pona is minimalistic and philosophical. Swahili and Indonesian are natural languages with regional influence, known for their simplicity and wide usage in Africa and Southeast Asia, respectively, making each language valuable in different contexts. 다낭 풀빌라
My wife and I spent a couple of weeks in Bali, and studied Bahasa for a couple of months before we went. The Balinese people are sweet and kind. They all speak Bahasa (Indonesian) as well as Balinese. They were so tickled that we had bothered to learn some conversational Indonesian that they also shared the Balinese words with us. And when you greet a Balinese person in their native tongue, they are even happier and kinder than they normally are.
I strongly recommend a visit to Bali with some Bahasa study beforehand. It was one of my favorite life experiences. As a musician, you will likely also appreciate the Gamelan Music and Kechak Chanting. I was totally disoriented by our first Gamelan concert, but fascinated.
Thanks for sharing your adventures with us!
I read this whole article thinking Esperanto was a joke or a metaphor placeholder for some other takeaway. Shame on me and thanks for teaching me something new!
Maybe it is! ☺ — Derek
Derek -
If you ever need Indonesian lessons so you can converse daily please let me know. I too grew up and moved around to different countries as a a child, and the habit still stuck with me as an adult.
Look forward to helping.
BW,
G
Someone said that a teacher couldn't discuss complex topics in Esperanto.
In any case, it's probably because he doesn't have a good command of the language, since Esperanto can express any nuance of human thought, even more precisely than natural languages.
Esperanto is perfectly suited for discussing complex scientific and philosophical topics. Thanks to its logical structure, regular grammar, and a highly productive system of affixes (prefixes and suffixes), it allows for the creation of precise terminology to express all the nuances of human thought, science, and technology.
Here are the key points about its capabilities:
Scientific Precision: Esperanto possesses a specialized technical vocabulary in fields such as chemistry and physics, used in academic journals and texts. Its derivation system facilitates the creation of technical terms (e.g., ĉelo - cell, evoluado - evolution).
Philosophical Capacity: As a rich and nuanced language, it is used for philosophical and humanistic debates, with a strong historical connection to movements of thought, linguistic justice, and ethics.
There is no point in studying complicated languages, which require years of life to speak correctly, when Esperanto can be mastered in 6 months.
By the way, I've read that many people recommend learning Mandarin... A tonal language with pronunciation and writing that's impossible to learn and requires years of dedication.
I guess these people have too much time on their hands...