From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Mon Jan 19 09:38:41 2009 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Mon, 19 Jan 2009 09:38:42 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1LOy5B-0003PY-RI for lojban-beginners-real@lojban.org; Mon, 19 Jan 2009 09:38:41 -0800 Received: from mail-bw0-f21.google.com ([209.85.218.21]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1LOy59-0003PM-6c for lojban-beginners@lojban.org; Mon, 19 Jan 2009 09:38:41 -0800 Received: by bwz14 with SMTP id 14so8680926bwz.10 for ; Mon, 19 Jan 2009 09:38:32 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:to :subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type :content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; bh=hPIB2QQ6CSJKmTZiipRl4vIwfXmk3TgGoukTsqss1Ug=; b=L2kdplnftGqI8Vap3KrHV7A4N1kC+amoIfGdg/MmaM0XYF/DkrOpoe+/Asll2sV5Re tIUVt/I5hXdy3tjSueA4BqJPUfOTHjMl5AyOVam73w2+aoxmSsBlYE5haTsHXwVI7Mvd RUTwopD/C/vVTulUMaisHhj12msDwTn1/x1mc= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version :content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition :references; b=VZw0v5kbh9KMAzY9gXVtxjucGeDHmnhYKv7GEUiVZ+L87kNyUDYIzNvqUcdQX5IU7O 9yg9oIgfpvOGk3mV0KCkqytljb0nsgCtioOJwxxY4UWGDlFJ/xmBADX4Xb8sv/dHXy7Y Y6IDbVFGq/hW7KlLtJKkhplZRYvLtxTBkfKGo= Received: by 10.223.109.148 with SMTP id j20mr2561367fap.43.1232386709623; Mon, 19 Jan 2009 09:38:29 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.223.109.195 with HTTP; Mon, 19 Jan 2009 09:38:29 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2009 12:38:29 -0500 From: "Brett Williams" To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: Recommended method of learning... In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: X-Spam-Score: -0.0 X-Spam-Score-Int: 0 X-Spam-Bar: / X-archive-position: 1231 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: mungojelly@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@lojban.org X-list: lojban-beginners On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 4:34 PM, Zen Holy wrote: > I've recently gotten more serious about learning lojban in the last > couple days and have been wondering what others would recomend I do to > learn the vocabulary. fi'i jbopre (Welcome, Lojbanist!) The hardest part of the vocabulary to learn is the gismu. The cmavo seem like a very confusing collection at first, because there are a bunch of different categories of grammar, but after you get used to the selma'o (after you've read CLL a couple of times, for instance) then what's hardest about them for a long time is the few selma'o (BAI, FAhA, UI) with a lot of words. Until you know the grammar, the cmavo list is not a useful reference. It's useful as mnemonics once you know what the words mean. But you shouldn't expect for instance to look up "ke" and understand it from the definition "start grouping of tanru, etc; ... type of ... ; overrides normal tanru left grouping". It's useful though if you come across "ke" and you blank on it, you don't know if it's an attitudinal or a number or what, and then the definition reminds you it's that tanru grouping thingy. If you need to look up a cmavo that you don't understand its grammar, look it up in the CLL (under chapter 20 I think it is, by selma'o). BTW selma'o = se cmavo. I like to say that to nintadni often because it took me years to realize it. Also brivla = bridi valsi, gi'uste = gismu liste. I guess in general be alert for lujvo you may have learned before realizing they were lujvo! It's a good opportunity to effortlessly pick up some rafsi. That's basically how I'd recommend learning the rafsi, is by learning lujvo. If you think about it, the rafsi have got to be a proportionally pretty small task: Only some gismu have short form rafsi, and to learn the rafsi of a gismu you only have to learn which letters are chosen for the rafsi. In a way you don't even have to learn three letters, because a gismu is five letters, so you can learn just which two letters aren't included. And every lujvo you learn can teach you two rafsi. So I think rafsi come naturally if you let them. But lujvo are of very minor importance anyway except in literary Lojban. That's one thing you should realize is that there are different kinds of Lojban written in different places. Even those of us who are relatively fluent still have trouble reading the literature; I don't know anyone who doesn't read with a dictionary. On the other hand, IRC Lojban is very light and conversational and routine (which isn't to say that deeper use of the language doesn't happen there occasionally). YouTube Lojban is just starting to develop, and I would expect it to end up even simpler at first, since we have to speak even faster. So the main thing is to learn the words that you encounter. There's a group mind we have going on here in jbogu'e. No one knows all of the gismu, but we do know a lot of the same ones as each other. It's almost entirely an unconscious group process, so far: We each look up gismu we say to each other that we don't know, and we of course tend to say the ones that we learned from each other, so some words are the words that are well known and often spoken. Off the top of my head, here are some that would be worth looking up right away if you don't recognize them: cusku, tavla, gleki, xamgu, djica, zmadu, zdani, citno, melbi, bangu... bangu (language) will often come up in conversation, bongu (bone) you'll encounter in literature or not at all (unless this mention triggers a bongu frenzy). In summary, here is what I think about learning Lojban vocab: Learning cmavo is really learning the grammar, except for a few piles of words to gradually dig through (many of them thankfully quite unpopular). You shouldn't intentionally study lujvo and rafsi at all, not for a long time anyway, but it won't hurt to pay attention to lujvo that come up and their rafsi. The body of the task is the gismu. It won't hurt to study them with flashcards, but it won't succeed in teaching you to recognize every one of them, either. So do that for fun, but also focus mostly on the gismu you encounter most often in actual use, and learn them well. Learn "cusku" inside and out; you'll need that one. And do speak with us somewhere. I'm on Twitter now as @selckiku and all of my tweets on that account will be in Lojban. There's also an account there named @gismu which is regularly tweeting gismu, so that might be helpful. There are a few little islands like that around with a tiny amount of Lojbanic activity, and I'd like to see us develop at least a few of them more. Mainly though the IRC channel is still where it's at. The mailing list is where it's at for literary Lojban, and #lojban on Freenode is where it's at for street Lojban. :) mu'o mi'e la se ckiku