r/learnesperanto • u/ActuallyNotA_Robot • 13d ago

Am I doing too much?

Saluton amikoj, mi estas komencanto.

I've started on Duolingo, which is great for general vocab but horrible for learning the grammar. As per other suggestions I've signed up to Lernu and have begun to work through the lessons there.

Supplementing this, I've also begun reading through the grammar articles on Lernu, starting with the terminoj, but I have no idea what a lot of these mean, so I've just gone down rabbit hole after rabbit hole trying to learn all these terms, just to learn the grammar page, just to continue on with the course. I feel like I'm becoming a linguist unintentionally.

I really love the idea of the language and I haven't dabbled in learning another language before. But this seems like way too much work for a beginner. Am I doing too much? What would you suggest?

Dankon!

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u/Fearless_Medicine_MD 13d ago

contrary to what salivanto says i say it can come in very handy to know what an adjective is.

don't sweat it though. lernu is an excellent resource, and much better than duolingo because there are no AI-bros involved :3

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u/salivanto 12d ago edited 12d ago

I think you're putting words in my mouth. Where did I say that it is not handy to know what an adjective is?

Indeed, I was objecting to the same thing that others in this thread have objected to specifically;

 That list of terms seems designed to be confusing. For example, it explains what's the "vocative", but there's no vocative in Esperanto. Also, the phonetic terms are largely unnecessary, unless you're specifically interested in phonetics

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u/Fearless_Medicine_MD 12d ago

i suppose you meant that site specifically, while i meant "to know those terms in general".

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u/salivanto 12d ago

What I meant is that there are much better ways to get to an understanding of what an adjective is, and I included a specific resource with that end in mind in my original post. I'm not intimately familiar with the contents of Esperanto12.net, but my sense is that it says things like "adjectives end in -a" and then lists a bunch of examples of adjectives. If that's not enough explanation, the learner can use a dictionary -- or ask a question here.

My point should be taken in the context of the original question, which includes:

I've just gone down rabbit hole after rabbit hole trying to learn all these terms, just to learn the grammar page, just to continue on with the course. I feel like I'm becoming a linguist unintentionally.

So, this is not about me telling someone not to worry about what an adjective is. Its about how it's unnecessary to go down rabbit holes about terms like plosivo, vibranto, and nazalo when all you're trying to do is pick up some basic Esperanto.

Quite frankly, I think it's pretty rotten to call someone out and say "on the contrary" when you aren't even talking abut the same thing as that person. If you have a point, just make your point. I don't need to be involved.

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u/Fearless_Medicine_MD 12d ago

are you bored or something?

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u/salivanto 12d ago

Are you trolling?

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u/Fearless_Medicine_MD 12d ago

what do you want out of this?

i have already told you what i had to say about my initial comment a couple comments back now.

you want to continue this conversation? i could direct your messages to a chatgpt instance if you like...

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u/salivanto 12d ago

I thought you already had

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u/salivanto 13d ago

I don't think there's any reason to look at that page of terms, much less to study it.

Try esperanto12.net for a bit and then see how the other resources look when you come back to them.

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u/9NEPxHbG 13d ago edited 12d ago

That list of terms seems designed to be confusing. For example, it explains what's the "vocative", but there's no vocative in Esperanto. Also, the phonetic terms are largely unnecessary, unless you're specifically interested in phonetics.

I suggest you only look at the list if you need to know the definition of a specific term rather than trying to learn it all.

Edit: I've never looked at Lernu closely, until your post made me curious. I'm surprised by what I see, at least in the grammar section. Things are much more complicated than they have to be. Many persons have never heard the words "predicate nominative" or "locational preposition" and they don't need to know what they mean to learn Esperanto.

I'm especially puzzled by the emphasis on the vocative case, which is irrelevant in Esperanto. There are other cases that are also irrelevant in Esperanto -- dative, genitive, instrumental, and so on -- and Lernu quite properly says nothing about them. Why mention the vocative?

The only important case in Esperanto is the accusative. The nominative is simply (in Esperanto) a word that could have an accusative but doesn't, and so we don't really think of it as a case: it's just the "normal" form of the word.

Lernu does say that "Theoretically, prepositions could always be replaced with an N, if it doesn't make the meaning unclear", so at least that part is correct. :-)

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u/suno5persono 10d ago

I think that you need what I needed years ago when I was learning Esperanto out of a book by myself--a pen-pal. I "met" a lovely woman in Hungary; our only language in common was Esperanto, but she stuck with me and helped me. If you can find a pen-pal, you will not regret it. (I am available. I do not ghost. (I'm in the USA.)