Should you and I learn Esperanto or Interlingua or Ido?

Esperanto flag. From Wikipedia.

Why Esperanto?
Esperanto was invented by Zamenhof who lived in a town where people spoke different languages. He wanted to make communication easier, to improve business and communication and co-operation.

I started learning Esperanto years ago from a correspondence course. Such a great idea - one language which could be used to speak to people from many cultures. Best of all, quick to learn. But eventually I dropped it.

In Poland, when I visited a Jewish cemetery in Warsaw, I saw the grave of Zamenhof, and my interest in Esperanto was revived.

I took up Esperanto again in Singapore, which has four languages, English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil, when I found I could learn Esperanto on Duolingo.

Advantages of Duolingo
When I started learning languages on Duolingo, I tried a dozen different languages. I soon decided that for me, as an English speaker and French speaker, Spanish and Italian were easy to understand.  So I started Spanish.

When reading, German was easiest to say. German does not have the rolled r of Spanish. German intonation is easier. So I started German.

Italian Pronunciation
I struggled with the intonation of Italian. I used to rhyme trattoria with Victoria, until my husband pointed out that the accent is the second to last syllable. i struggled with this until I changed my reference word from English sounding Victoria to Italian sounding Maria.)

Asian Languages and Chinese
These were all a problem, for me to learn, and when trying to teach English as a foreign language. Now was the time to try Chinese on Duolingo. Esperanto on Duolingo was a revelation. Esperanto did not invariably use a and the. Neither did Chinese! I realised that the Chinese (Mandarin) speaking learners were not confusing 'a' and 'the'. The Chinese did not leave out 'a' and 'the' because the speaker was confused which one to use. The speaker did not have 'a' and 'the' at all in their language. I could see that Esperanto would be easier for them to learn. As well as easier for me to learn.

Russian and German seemed to have six ways of saying a and the, like French which has le for masculine, and la for feminine, but plurals for the (like converting the to they or those, as in 'les') as in Spanish. Oh - how much easier to learn Esperanto!

Advantages of Esperanto
1 Esperanto is the most widely learned artificial language.
2 It is logical, made up from root words, mainly from the Latin and French and Spanish and Italian.
3 This makes it both predictable and memorable.
Obviously easy for those speaking English or a Europea first language.
4 You do not have to remember a and the. La is the and you don't need an. But you can't translate back into English word for word. You have to remember to add the an in English if the la, meaning, the is missing before a noun.
5 Diacritics - those little symbols. They tell you pronunciation and reduce the numbers of letters you need. makes writing faster - jus add a little dot to change s to sh,  - but typing is slower if you don't have the diacritics on you r keyboard and have to find out how to load the esperanto or you need to copy the words from Google translate.
6 You can read in Esperanto: the bible, Shakespeare, and a Wikipedia version in Esperanto.

Disadvantages of Esperanto
1 It doesn't sound as good as Italian, or even Spanish.
2 Nor does it key you into any country or culture. However, that is supposed to be an advantage. Esperanto is neutral, not favouring any nationality.

Interlingua
From an article in Wikipedia about the man Alexander Gode (and his influence on Interlingua) I extracted this essential information which sums up Interlingua.

Interlingua flag in Wikipedia. Photo by Architengi, public domain.

Interlingua

I have copied from Wikipedia but made changes for clarity.

Grammar

Interlingua, like English, has a definite article and an indefinite article. The definite article (the) is li, and the indefinite (equivalent to English a, an) is un.
The plural of a noun is made by adding -s after a vowel, or -es after most consonants.^[89]
To avoid pronunciation and stress changes, words ending in -c, -g, and -m only add an -s:
For example:
un libre, du libres,
un angul, tri angules,
li tric, li trics, li plug, li plugs, li album, pluri albums, li tram, du trams.

Personal pronouns

Interlingua has two forms for the personal pronouns: one for the subject form (nominative), and another for the object form (accusative or dative). In short, the personal pronouns in the subject form are:

	Singular					Plural
	first	second	third			first	second	third
English	I	you	he	she	it	we	you	they
Occidental	yo	tu	il	ella	it	noi	vu	ili (illos, ellas)

From a traveller's point of view, it is easier to learn Interlingua, which is my favourite in theory, but more people speak Esperanto, so if you want to correspond on Facebook and visit Esperanto speakers or go to an Esperanto conference, or teach a language to pupils who are not academic or are afraid of trying to learn a language, Esperanto is a good choice. That's why I am learning Eperanto.

Ido

Ido Flag. From Wikipedia

This post is now so long I shall stop here. I hope I have interested you and clarified how easy or difficult it might be to learn these languages. Even if you don't have the time and inclination right now, you might be interested to visit some places connected with these languages and their inventors and speakers.

Esperanto Museum, Palais Mollard, Vienna, Austria 

Places to Visit
Zamenof's grave, Jewish cemetery, Warsaw, Poland.
Zamenhof Museum, Poland.
Esperanto Museum, Vienna, Austria.
Bust of Zamenhof, Esperanto Park, Vienna, Austria.
Esperanto club meetings, Reading, England. (Check dates of meetings online and follow up by phone.)
Esperanto annual conference (locations vary).
Homestays with Esperanto speakers. (Get directory.)

Useful Websites
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._L._Zamenhof
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_between_Esperanto_and_Interlingua
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_between_Esperanto_and_Ido
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_between_Ido_and_Interlingua

readingmuseum.org.uk
http://www.bayeuxtapestry.org.uk

Learn Esperanto:
duolingo.com (Lots of Languages.)
Lernu.net (Devoted to Esperanto. Looks like lernu is an Esperanto word, simple spelling. Read more on the lernu.net website.)

Travel Information
Trains run from Paddington, London, to Reading.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Town_Hall
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Museum
visitbritain.com
visitengland.com
visitlondon.com
https://www.gwr.com/plan-journey/stations-and-routes/london-to-reading
http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2018/05/frank-talk-about-learning-esperanto-if.html
https://events.duolingo.com/u/mw3qbu/ Contact Rico, the ambassador.

https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2019/03/where-to-see-statues-of-zamenhof.html
Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, speaker, teacher of English and other languages. If you would like a talk or workshop on Esperanto and learning languages, why you should be bilingual, or any other travel subject, for entertainment, after dinner, or business, please contact me.

I have several posts on Esperanto.

 Please share links to your favourite posts.

Translating European and Romanian Names - Red, Maria, Michael and more

Problem
How do you recognize a personal name in Romanian?

Answer
The good news is that, unlike German, proper names have capitals and ordinary nouns start with small letters.

Reading and Saying Names
First the good news. Most Romanian names look similar and sound similar to English names.

Now the bad news. There are slight variations which may confuse you.

Story
I was learning Romanian on Duolingo. I saw J O A N A . Easy, peasy, I thought. That must be Joanna. Wrong. It translates as Jane.

If you go into name websites, or have studied names, you will appreciate that the basic biblical names and names from olden times and the Hebrew and Greek and Roman languages have numerous variations all derived from one word.

The language is phonetic - same as it sounds, so redundant letters are dropped. That means losing double letters (except when showing plurals?)

SAME SAME!
Women's Names The Same In Romanian and English
Alexandra - Alexandra
Daniela - Daniela
Maria - Maria
Sofia - Sofia

Men's Names The Same In Romanian and English
David - David
Gabriel - Gabriel

Romanian - English
ROMANIAN MEN
A n d r e i - Andrew
C r i s t i a n - Christian
L u c a - Luke
M a r c u - Mark
M a t e i - Matthew
Michael - Mihai

ROMANIAN WOMEN
A n a - Anna
A n g e l i c a - Angela (Same in Romanian and Italian. Not surprising, as Romanian means from Romans, who were Italian.)
C r i s t i n a - Christina
I o a n a - Jane
Maria / Mary - Maria

English - Romanian
ENGLISH MEN'S FIRST NAMES
Basil - V a s i l e (More in the older generation.)
John / Jon - Ion
Luke - L u c a
Mark / Marc - M a r c u
Matthew - M a t e i
Michael - Mihai
Peter - P e t r u / P e t r e (Spell in Romanian like the French / European spelling of metre for meter and theatre for American theater.)
Stephen / Steven - S t e f a n

ENGLISH WOMEN'S FIRST NAMES
Angela - A n g e l i c a (Same in Romanian and Italian. Not surprising, as Romanian means from Romans, who were Italian.)
Christina - C r i s t i n a
Elizabeth - E l i s a b e t a / I s a b e l l a
Jane - I o a n a (Not Joanna but Jane)
Sarah - I can't find any translation into Romanian. However both Italian and German use the simplified version S a r a.
Susan - S u s a n a

Easy to remember ROMANIAN SURNAMES:
Albu - White
L u p u - Wolf
N e g r u - Black
M o l d o v e a n u - from Moldova
P e t r e s c u - Peter's child
R o ș u - Red
Ursa - bear

One popular Romanian surname is P o p a meaning priest. (Like the Jewish origin name Cohen means priest.)
P o p e s c u means priest's son or daughter.

Tips on Translation and Names
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_name
To translate names into any language go to
http://www.namepedia.org/en/firstname/translate/
While researching the name priest and Cohen I found a website which analyses the endings (suffixes) of many European names used in the USA:
http://www.jewfaq.org/jnames.htm

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author, speaker, language teacher. Please read my previous and future posts and when you find a favourite, share it with family, friends and colleagues.

Angela Lansbury - how many people with my name and yours?

Duplicate Names
To all my friends called John Smith and other popular names. I know how you feel. I am Angela Lansbury.
Travel writer and photographer. Author and speaker.

I am not the actress. I would like to be an actress. But I am not a professional actress. Yet.

I am not the only person who shares a name with somebody else. That's why the first thing they ask in court is to give your name and address. Hospitals occasionally give the wrong medication or operation to people with similar names. Mortuaries give the wrong bodies for burial or cremation. Sometimes parents are given the wrong baby.

British royalty give members of the same family the same name. The bane of every schoolchild is remembering Henry V, VI, VII, VIII. The americans like to call parents and children senior and junior.

First Names
In France it is usual to call a girl Marie, then add another girl's name. In Spanish countries you find Maria is the variation used.Variations on biblical names appear around the world in the spelling of the local area.

Family Names
There are six million people called Singh, several million called Modhammed, Patel, quite a few thousand called Lim, Singh, Wong.

Combinations
John  is a common English boys' name. Smith, the man who did ironwork, was a common family name.  The combination John Smith used to be said to be the commonest English name. I find a dozen of most people I look up on LinkedIn and Facebook.

So I am lucky there are only four people called Angela Lansbury. One actress. Two writers. One other.

The other author, so far as I know, writes novels and lives in France. I live in English speaking countries such as England and the USA and Singapore where I taught English. I write how to books and articles, speeches, comic poetry and songs.

English words
You may wonder why I spell out out and explain so many English words. That's because my blog readers include those in America, Russia and around the world. I hate having to go off and look up words when I am reading other people's blogs. I can remember learning new words from the age of 11 onwards at grammar school.

Never mind the three syllable and foreign words. I have had to explain one syllable words such as the word prop to a Korean and plot to a girl from China.

Among my many hats and talents, I teach schools, workshops and private pupils as a home tutor or on Skype. I have taught in England and Singapore. I have taught English language and literature, English as a Foreign Language, speech training for public speaking and presentations, and occasionally French.