From BobMichael@aol.com Tue Jul 12 19:31:42 1994 From: BobMichael@aol.com X-Mailer: America Online Mailer Sender: "BobMichael" Message-Id: <9407121931.tn327523@aol.com> To: lojbab@access.digex.net Date: Tue, 12 Jul 94 19:31:36 EDT Subject: New to Lojban Status: RO Hello all! As a closet conlang constructor, I've enjoyed reading the lojban and conlang groups for a few weeks. Though I've yet to really follow the more technical posts here, I wonder if you could help me with a couple of general questions: 1) Though lojban is more a linguistic exercise than a tongue intended for everyday speech, is there a "Conversational Lojban" primer. You know, ordering a restaurant, hello, goodbye, "this suit is not clean!" I for one would have an easier time grasping the language if it could be applied to everyday situations. Might draw others into its study, too. 2) Lojban seems to be a rather terse language (I like that!). Do you have any idea how many syllables it takes to translate an English passage of say 100 syllables into lojban? Far prefer lojban to Esperanto, which seems to me very verbose and exhausting for even the simplest utterances. Thanks in advance for humoring a newcomer. Best to all. Bob Michael