From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Wed Feb 28 19:01:34 2007 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Wed, 28 Feb 2007 19:01:34 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1HMbXx-00010L-Nv for lojban-beginners-real@lojban.org; Wed, 28 Feb 2007 19:01:34 -0800 Received: from bender-mail.tigertech.net ([64.62.209.30]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1HMbXs-000105-05 for lojban-beginners@lojban.org; Wed, 28 Feb 2007 19:01:33 -0800 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by bender.tigertech.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 578667DDA for ; Wed, 28 Feb 2007 19:01:26 -0800 (PST) Received: from Nietzsche.lumma.org (dsl017-048-211.sfo4.dsl.speakeasy.net [69.17.48.211]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by bender.tigertech.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6E2717DC1 for ; Wed, 28 Feb 2007 19:01:25 -0800 (PST) Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2007 19:01:22 -0800 To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org From: Carl Lumma Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: learning lojban In-Reply-To: <511FAF64-FAAB-4F36-9D7B-05F743E6F2DA@umich.edu> References: <20070228053052.DB4437DAE@bender.tigertech.net> <511FAF64-FAAB-4F36-9D7B-05F743E6F2DA@umich.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Message-Id: <20070301030125.6E2717DC1@bender.tigertech.net> X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new-20030616-p10 (Debian) at tigertech.net X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.3 (2005-04-27) on bender.tigertech.net X-Spam-Status: No, hits=1.8 tagged_above=-999.0 required=7.0 tests=FORGED_RCVD_HELO, MSGID_FROM_MTA_ID X-Spam-Level: * X-Spam-Score: -2.5 X-Spam-Score-Int: -24 X-Spam-Bar: -- X-archive-position: 4060 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: carl@lumma.org Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@lojban.org X-list: lojban-beginners >Neither of these are interactive, but they are more or less the >standard way to learn the language. A project called ICSL (Intensive >Course in Spoken Lojban) was working on making a more interactive >course based on conversations in comic strip format, but it's been >stalled since December or so. It would be great to have a Pimsleur-style audio course. One of the existing courses could be simply translated into lojban and released as mp3 on the web. How hard could this be, I wonder... I must say, I find the sounds I've heard so far rather uninspiring. I don't know whether to chalk that up to poor speaking or poor- sounding language, or maybe just internal resistance I need to get over. The process of taking phonemes from the World's languages smacks bogus to me, but I'm not aware of any concrete model/example of phoneme sets being fine-tuned in natural languages, so I can't make much of a case yet. I'm also a bit put out at the use of traditional punctuation marks for something else. I'm about to try and read about what that something else is. Thanks everyone for the pointers so far, -Carl