Learning Esperanto in Six Weeks - Day Twenty

By Kent Roper on 20 May 2014

Saluton!

I'm getting almost to the halfway point in the Learn Esperanto in Six Weeks Challenge. I'm making lots of progress, I think.

My most successful attempt at learning a language quickly was when I learned Italian. The secret was immersion. It was easy, because I spent six weeks in intense study with others trying to learn Italian, and then went to Italy, where almost everyone speaks Italian.

But immersion is a little harder for Esperanto. I have to communicate with my coworkers, my customers, my family, and friends in English. In addition, I don't know anyone who speaks Esperanto.

Full immersion may be impossible for me right now, but here are a few things I'm doing to get a little closer:

I changed my Facebook language to Esperanto. Since most of my friends are Americans, there is still much more English than Esperanto on my page. But now, instead of Like, Comment, and Share at the end of my friends' posts, I now see Sati, Komenti and Konegi.

It's a little thing that won't make much of a difference, but it might help a tiny bit.

I'm forcing myself to think in Esperanto. And when I say, "think in Esperanto," I mean think in Esperanto. I don't think an English sentence and then try to translate it in Esperanto. I'm trying to think in Esperanto.

I'm not able to do this for long periods at a time, but for a few minutes at a time at least, I talk to myself in my head in Esperanto.

I'm listening to Esperanto music. And to be honest I don't understand half of it. But I am training my ear.

One of the ways I am doing this is by searching for the lyrics on Google. I first try to listen to the song and try understand as much as possible. Then I read the lyrics while I listen to the song on YouTube. Then I try listening to the same song without reading the words and try to understand as much as I can.

For example, I found the lyrics to the song below at this website.

I've only done this with a few songs so far. But it is helping me to understand what I hear.

Despite these efforts, I don't think this is going to be enough to be where I want to be at the end of my six week push to learn Esperanto as quickly as possible. I need to find someone who already speaks Esperanto to practice with. That scares me a little, but I need to get out of my comfort zone if I really want to learn.