From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Wed Feb 28 21:30:51 2007 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Wed, 28 Feb 2007 21:30:51 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1HMdsP-0003c7-S7 for lojban-beginners-real@lojban.org; Wed, 28 Feb 2007 21:30:50 -0800 Received: from bender-mail.tigertech.net ([64.62.209.30]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1HMdsK-0003bz-0u for lojban-beginners@lojban.org; Wed, 28 Feb 2007 21:30:49 -0800 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by bender.tigertech.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id C33607DCA for ; Wed, 28 Feb 2007 21:30:40 -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 9D7977DC1 for ; Wed, 28 Feb 2007 21:30:37 -0800 (PST) Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2007 21:30:34 -0800 To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org From: Carl Lumma Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: learning lojban In-Reply-To: References: <20070228053052.DB4437DAE@bender.tigertech.net> <511FAF64-FAAB-4F36-9D7B-05F743E6F2DA@umich.edu> <20070301030125.6E2717DC1@bender.tigertech.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Message-Id: <20070301053037.9D7977DC1@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: 4062 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... > >Pretty difficult. It's not just a matter of translating the material. >Each course is different and takes into account the grammatical >differences between the target and native languages, as well as the >differences in what sounds are used and how. How important are these effects? And is there even an equivalent in lojban yet? >For example, if we were to prepare a Pimsleur style course in >Lojban we would have to introduce the Lojban concept of sentence >structure (as relations or brivla) in comparison to the English >structure (as nouns with verbs and modifiers). >What I'm saying is that it's not just a matter of teaching >vocabulary. That would be trivial. And not that useful. The >Pimsleur method also teaches how to put the words together -- I >wouldn't quite call it grammar because they don't ever say the >rules right out, you just sort of pick them up. Exactly. Why wouldn't this work in lojban? >I would love to see such a CD made, since the biggest hurdle to >learning Lojban at the moment (I opine) is the lack of good >learning and practice material for the beginner. Indeed. I imagine most people's eyes are glaze over by the third paragraph about gismu and sumti (I've known about lojban since 1999 and I still had to look those up). >As for the sound, I expect this is because there's not terribly much >fluent Lojban recorded out there. My go at recording Lojban is at my >website >http://www-personal.umich.edu/~alexjm/reader0.html Best I've heard to date. I have some "official" Loglan tapes around here somewhere. If I had a cassette player I'd dig them up. -Carl