Excerpted from Mia Esperanta Vojaĝo blog post

  January 9, 2015 Prequel

    I remember in school when we used to speak Pig latin and Cheap Oriental.  I actually honestly was pretty good at speaking them and did a fair job as understanding others too. Although rusty I can still do a fair job them.  But I am interested in learning a real language.  I if I am to learn a new language it needs to be easy and to follow its own rules. Even though I have wanted to learn another language I am a slow learner and find it very difficult.  So I went about to find an easy language to learn. 

    I know I live in the states but I hate English as a language , and I am FAR from alone. It really needs to be a dead language.  I welcome a world with only one language. 

   I have tried Spanish but could not get anywhere with it.  I wanted to learn Spanish to converse with some local Brothers but by pea brain just could not do it I found Spanish very hard as it just adds a different set of exceptions to the rules.   But I still wanted to learn a new language.  I need to learn a clean language that does not have all the exceptions to the 'rules' and complicated sentence structures.  I did some research to find a better language to learn and found Esperanto.  It has repeatedly been referred as the easiest language to learn.

   Esperanto uses common roots to many languages from Romance and Germanic languages, grammar from Slavic languages. This done by design to try to make it easier to learn. It was once hoped it would be a common politically neutral language for everyone and was once discussed as such by the UN but of course that did not happen.  But anyway I find it is much easier to learn than my previous attempts at spanish of which there are also word similarities.

Free lessons on Lernu.net

   So here we go:  Mia Mi am learning Esperanto kaj decided por write ĝi down mia vojaĝo in a novo blog. Most of ĝi will start in English but over time mi want ĝi por slowly merge into an all Esperanton journal el mia voyaĝo.  Mi lernas Esperanton kaj decidis noti my Vojaĝo.

     La plejparto de ĝi komencos en la angla sed kun la tempo mi volas malrapide kunfandi en cxiuj Esperanto taglibro de mia vojaĝo.*

    *Google translation, (Mi mal-responsible por this translation.)* Mi decided to start ĉi novo blog por future poŝtoj as I leno ĝi.

January 12, 2015  

     The course at DuoLingo is really coming along as it is almost 70% done at this point and nearing 10,000 students with 9834 already waiting for class to begin.  We look forward to using Duolingo when it starts, but happy we are getting a head start with the other educational options.  Its estimated launch is around March 18th 2015. (Update: it is done and well liked by the EO community)

   There hope the beta live online proficiency test that DuoLingo now has in English will spread to other DuoLingo language courses.  I have doubts I could even pass the English proficiency test and I have lived with the language my whole life.  I can really see it being a difficult language for someone to learn as a second language.

    We still have a long way to go before we can say we know the language at all, but we really do like our progress so far. It is so nice to learn a language that spells every word exactly as they are pronounced or is that pronounces words exactly as they are spelled.  Well, its all correct when the language follows all of its own grammar rules.  I also like that many of the root words are already familiar as English already uses many of them in one form or another. This helps to learn it a lot.

   We will get back with more progress as time goes on. Mi estas tre feliĉa pri nia progreso ĝis nun.

July 31, 2017 

   Yesterday I revisited DuoLingo and practiced some Esperanto.  I did quite well, especially for not practicing it for quite some time. I was quite encouraged.  If I had another speaker around me I could really pick it up.

    There are times when I am caught up with other more important studies, and I can only do so much sitting up at a piano bench practicing music.  I am often limited to sitting reclined with my legs elevated.  These may continue be good times for me to practice Esperanto.  I do enjoy the experience of learning another language,  I just wish one of my friends would take an interest in it.  Kathy my Wife has not been able to learn it as she likes and for another local Brother, the time was just not there for him.  I don't care I still enjoy the experience of learning a language, a language that follows its own spelling and pronunciation rules completely and consistently.  

I had fun with Esperanto but now just waiting to learn the perfect language in the new system.