From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Thu Sep 15 18:40:11 2005 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Fri, 16 Sep 2005 10:53:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.52) id 1EG5D0-0007eI-Sv for lojban-beginners-real@lojban.org; Thu, 15 Sep 2005 18:40:11 -0700 Received: from rwcrmhc11.comcast.net ([216.148.227.117]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.52) id 1EG5Cv-0007e7-Pf for lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org; Thu, 15 Sep 2005 18:40:10 -0700 Received: from [192.168.1.100] (c-67-160-188-198.hsd1.or.comcast.net[67.160.188.198]) by comcast.net (rwcrmhc11) with ESMTP id <2005091601400101300h3r70e>; Fri, 16 Sep 2005 01:40:01 +0000 From: Scott To: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: Newbie Intro Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 18:39:59 -0700 User-Agent: KMail/1.7.2 References: In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200509151840.00078.scottr@synthiotics.com> X-Spam-Score: -2.6 (--) X-archive-position: 2098 X-Approved-By: rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@chain.digitalkingdom.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@chain.digitalkingdom.org X-original-sender: scottr@synthiotics.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org X-list: lojban-beginners > ... Please express your opinions > about what kind of content you want it to have. > Should it be strictly spoken in Lojban? No. Nothing but Lojban would have a sort of quirkiness to it, but I think would tend to limit the listeners beyond an initial "that's kind of cool, but I have no idea what's being said" sort of reaction to those who've been involved for quite a while. > Or mostly English? No, then it wouldn't really be a Lojban podcast. > Or repeating every statement in both languages? Or something in between? I think that's a good idea. > Would you like beginner lessons? Coming from a newbie: absolutely. Any lessons that don't involve the words "klama", "nelci", "melbi", "karce", "zdani", and the other gismu that pervade the online beginner lessons would be a plus. Not that those aren't good words in and of themselves, but they get covered TO DEATH in the online literature. > Would you like world news headlines in Lojban? Sure, although their translations should also be made available. > Would you like to hear the adventures of a xenoarcheologist exploring the > advanced language inscribed on the walls of a subaquatic deathtrap built by > an extinct alien civilization, which turns out to be Lojban? Heh. Um... ok... :-) > What would get you to subscribe? I think mainly conversational beginner lessons would be great. I've noticed that the online Lojban beginners lessons tends to focus on the structure of sentences more than content. The content is there, of course, but more for illustrative purposes than anything else. Back in my high-school and college days I took 4 1/2 years of German and 3 years of French, but never used either, really, and forgot most of what I learned back then over the intervening decades. About a year ago I picked up a first year German book, just to brush up on it, and noticed that it was more about content than structure. The chapters are heavy in building up vocabulary and giving the student the ability to converse in simple sentences about everyday things. Delving into the finer points of correct grammar and whatnot comes later, after the students can already talk (in "baby German") about Otto, his sister, his father, his mother, their pets, the trip he took to the store, what he bought, what kind of classes his sister is taking in school, etc., etc., etc. Lots and lots of short, single subject, sentences about really common things that everyone knows about. The Lojban lessons I've been going through since I started with it (just a couple of weeks ago) are extremely light on vocabulary in comparison to the German book, but get into very detailed descriptions of rather complex grammatical constructions almost right from the beginning. Without the accompanying vocabulary, it can be a bit hard to practice what one is learning about the grammar. I'm not saying the vocabulary isn't there in the Lojban lessons, but in comparison to the German book there is a really significant difference. Certainly some of this is because at a simple level German and English are structured very similarly, whereas Lojban is quite different. Nevertheless, gaining the ability early on to talk about everyday things without involving untangling three layers of inserted bridi I think is important to keeping up students interest. So I (as a rank beginner, of course) vote that a podcast really focus on building basic conversational skills first, and grammar skills only secondarily. Just my thoughts. mu'o mi'e la skat.