Return-Path: Received: from SEGATE.SUNET.SE by xiron.pc.helsinki.fi with smtp (Linux Smail3.1.28.1 #1) id m0tJ1rJ-0000ZUC; Fri, 24 Nov 95 19:24 EET Message-Id: Received: from listmail.sunet.se by SEGATE.SUNET.SE (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.0a) with SMTP id 89AEE259 ; Fri, 24 Nov 1995 18:24:21 +0100 Date: Fri, 24 Nov 1995 10:20:33 -0700 Reply-To: Chris Bogart Sender: Lojban list From: Chris Bogart Subject: Re: serving the needs of Lojban learners X-To: lojban@cuvmb.bitnet To: Veijo Vilva Content-Length: 3378 Lines: 80 la xoses. cusku di'e: >- Being an isolated learner. This inevitably leads to long term progress >stops since it's sometimes very boring to work alone, specially while >learning languages. I'm isolated, too. Up until Logfest this summer, my only contact with other lojbanists was on this list and via email. I found that people were very tolerant and interested in beginning attempts at lojban writing. But not having anyone locally was/is a problem. >I am now reading the refgrammar materials, which is being even harder because >they are very concentrated, more consulting than teaching material, I think. I didn't use the textbook much. I started with the diagrammed summary, then eventually read the refgrammar papers. I read all of them the first time through, not with the intent of learning much but out of curiosity for how the language worked, and I didn't bother remembering lots of stuff. Having read those gave me a good overview so I could go back and look stuff up when I needed it. Then as I started trying to use the language I got frustrated with how hard it was to look up things I vaguely remembered from the refgrammar, so I made myself a grammar "cheat sheet" that summarizes everything in tables and charts in about 10 pages. It's extremely worn and tattered and sits next to my computer most of the time, along with some printed out gismu and rafsi lists. >Finally, sorry for this too long and out-of-the-subject posting. This isn't out-of-the-subject! It may be a problem that people think of the mailing list as if it were a small room in which everyone participates in the same conversation. If you stick your own subject line on top you can talk about anything at all, and it won't be off topic -- people who aren't interested will skip it. I would suggest that people who want to see more beginning-level text and discussion here, start their own subject, and put EASY LOJBAN TEXT or something on the subject line. Then people who respond ought to restrict themselves to the less-bizarre aspects of lojban -- i.e. avoid mex, termsets, jai bau, stuff like that. Actually if we were really ambitious we could come up with some more strictly defined subsets of Lojban and different conversations could limit themselves to a particular level to keep things accessible to everyone; furthermore we could use the subsets as a basis for graded texts and even have the future textbook adhere to their ordering. Something like this for example: Level I Lojban - "Basic Lojban" Uses only the first 400 gismu (in the Logflash file order) tanru a certain list of well-accepted lujvo, plus -mau, -rai... mi, do, ko'a, mi'o ma'a do'o le, la, lo, cu, nu, ka, ni, du'u pu, ba, ca, vi va vu, zi za zu .e, .a, .o, .u, .anai, joi .ui, .oi coi, doi, co'o, mi'e Level II Lojban - "Street Lojban" The first 800 gismu Lujvo made from 4/5 letter rafsi 50 or 100 very common 3-letter rafsi A few more attitudinals all logical and non-logical connectives relative clauses and phrases da evidentials Level III Lojban - "Standard Lojban" All gismu, lujvo and rafsi entire tense system bo, sei All attitudinals zo'u Level IV Lojban - "Academic Lojban" termsets MEX letteral shifts ...? ____ Chris Bogart \ / http://www.quetzal.com Boulder, CO \/ cbogart@quetzal.com