Flag of Esperanto. From Wikipedia.
1 Be Bilingual
Being bilingual could stave off Alzheimers for five years. Giving you quality of life. Saving you from sad visits to grannies. Saving the government money.
2 Why Start Language Learning With Esperanto?
If you only speak one language, (English and louder English) and are scared of languages, the easiest is to learn Esperanto. It is a made up language designed as an intermediary language for Europeans.
What use is it?
a) People who learn it go on to learn another language and pick it up faster.
3 Where can I speak Esperanto?
b) You can find or start Esperanto clubs on Meetup. In the UK there is one in Reading.
c) Although no country speaks it, you can join the homestay system and stay with another Esperanto speaker for free for three days to practise the language.
d) Countries like Hungary, whose language has little in common with neighbouring languages, favour Esperanto. Hungary has had Esperanto as an A level.) I bought the Esperato-English dictionary and did a correspondence course in Esperanto. You can see a map of where to find Esperanto speakers.
e) Esperanto speakers hold an annual conference.
3 A sense of achievement
Which languages are easiest? First Esperanto if you are European or speak English. Then Spanish, from that Portuguese or Italian. If you are learning Chinese or Japanese, they are a pair. The written language uses the same symbols, like the no smoking sign and washing symbols, the signs are the same, although the spoken words are different. Bulgarian uses Cyrillic like Russian. Cyrillic combines Greek and Hebrew with new letters. Spoken Arabic and Hebrew are similar. Salaam and Shalom mean peace or hello.
German and Dutch and the Scandinavian languages are a group. Finland has Swedish as one of two official languages. Chinese (Mandarin) is also used in Taiwan, and Singapore. (Hong Kong uses Cantonese.)
Humour In Language
Lots of mistakes in language are funny in retrospect. I wanted trousers in a US department store. They say pants for trousers and underpants for pants.
I asked for rubbers.
'Not stocked here. Try a drug store.'
I found them. I confronted the assistant. 'What's this!'
An eraser.
The American for rubbers is erasers. Rubbers are contraceptives.
Spanish, Italian and Portuguese are a group.
Some simple Swedish words
Swedish - English
1 arkitekt - architect
2 modell - model
3 polis - police
4 pappa - papa/Dad (notice the a, unlike American Pop)
5 professionell - professional
6 syster - sister
7 tomat - tomato
English - Swedish
1 architect - arkitekt
2 Dad/pop/papa - pappa
3 model - modell
4 police - polis
5 professional - professionell
6 Sister - syster
7 tomato - tomat
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