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Date:         Fri, 18 Oct 1996 08:50:33 -0600
Reply-To:     Chris A Bogart <cbogart@INDRA.COM>
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From:         Chris A Bogart <cbogart@INDRA.COM>
Subject:      Re: A couple of questions...
To:         lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
In-Reply-To:  <199610180953.DAA07190@indra.com>
Message-ID: <845651623.4719.0@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Status: R


On Fri, 18 Oct 1996, William Westlake Jr. wrote:

> I downloaded a version of LogFlash but i'm not sure it's current.  Also,
> I'm not sure where I should begin in a study of Lojban. Should I use
> LogFlash to start getting a handle on some of the vocabulary or should I
> concentrate on other more technical languages...Any suggestions? :-)

This is what I would recommend:

  - There's some paper out there, I forget the name, that's a quick
      overview of the grammar, touching on a lot of different topics.
      Read that first.  If you pay close attention to the examples you'll
      pick up a little vocab by osmosis.
  - Skim the reference grammar, or at least the chapters that look
      interesting.  Come back and re-skim or read parts of it
      whenever you get curious about something.
  - Find some short, easy texts in Lojban (there are some in the
      textbook) and practice reading them -- at first you'll need to
      look up most of the words -- but that's a great way to learn
      vocabulary
  - Try translating English sentences into Lojban -- like some
      favorite quotations -- something difficult but interesting.

Memorizing vocabulary is boring for me at least, and very difficult,
but I can spend hours trying to translate something, and learn a
lot more, and not be bored with Lojban at the end of it.

Another thing that helped me was putting together a cheat sheet
with the most important cmavo sorted, grouped, listed, and explained
-- it made me think about how they all relate to each other, and
of course it's been very useful since then.  It's about 10 pages
long, and *extremely* dog-eared now.

Chris