Why do you need to learn Esperanto? This is a question many people have when they hear about Esperanto. Find out more about the personal, linguistic and social benefits of learning Esperanto and whether it makes sense for you to learn Esperanto.
What is Esperanto?
Esperanto is an artificially constructed language that was created by Ludwig Zamenhof in 1887, is easy to learn and has a very regular structure. Zamenhof lived in a culturally diverse city and had the dream of uniting people through a common world language alongside their mother tongue.
The language itself is designed to be easy and quick to learn, so that it can act as a bridge between people with different mother tongues. Most people think that one month of intensive learning of Esperanto is enough to have everyday conversations and make new friends.
Although Zamenhof was not able to achieve this goal, as this artificial language was not able to establish itself as a general world language, the language at least fulfils a similar function today, as the Esperantist society is very open to foreign cultures and other languages. But Esperanto can also be very useful for learning other languages.
Why you should learn Esperanto
Learning Esperanto is fun and because it is a simply constructed language spoken by people of different linguistic backgrounds around the world, it is relatively easy to learn. Just as learning Latin is a help when studying other languages, Esperanto also provides a good basis, with the difference that the language is still in use.
Making it easier to learn other languages is one of the main advantages of Esperanto today. First and foremost, the learner's self-confidence is boosted immensely when they learn to speak a completely new language fluently in a short space of time. When you learn a language in no time at all and can use it to speak quickly, you overcome the inner inhibitions that try to convince you that this is too difficult. It removes the mental block that some people can feel when learning languages.
Similar to Latin, Esperanto provides basic grammatical knowledge that is very helpful when learning other languages.
Esperanto introduces a minimum grammar that changes words when they appear in the accusative case. If you have no experience with languages that have such word changes, you will learn the principle in a simple and logical way and without irregularities. However, it is interesting to note that despite this, some people who learn Esperanto still find the accusative ending difficult, even though they speak far more complex languages.
A small addition to this point is that learning a language, however simple it may be, is also character building. You develop intellectually and create consistent habits for yourself that also have an influence on other situations in life.
However, many people who have learnt Esperanto find that the grammatical advantage is quite limited. Grammatical understanding alone does not seem to be enough reason to learn Esperanto.
Case study: Learning Esperanto dramatically improved results for French students
The value of learning Esperanto for learning other languages has been proven by several studies. One well-known example saw students with one year of Esperanto followed by three years of French. The results were then compared with a control group who had four years of French instead of Esperanto.
Conclusion: In summary, it was found that among the less intelligent students, those who had learnt one year of Esperanto achieved better results after three years of French, without devoting additional learning time to this language during their three years of study.
Disadvantage: Esperanto is not useful in everyday life
If you already speak two languages, Esperanto won't cost you much time. In contrast to a national language, however, this does not open a big door, but rather many small doors. In every country you will find a handful of Esperantists who would be happy to meet other Esperanto enthusiasts. It's a kind of hobby. Finding them is another matter: you will hardly meet anyone by chance on the street, but almost exclusively through the Internet in targeted groups that share the same interest.
Esperanto is for people who see themselves as citizens of the world and want to get to know other like-minded people. At the moment, the language is just as "useful" as Latin for everyday communication.
How many words do you need to know to speak a foreign language?
