[lojban-beginners] Re: Now what?

[ANDREW PIEKARSKI <totus@rogers.com>]

Thanks for your responses everyone!  I guess I'll start with Terry the Tiger (because it's short) and then either Alice in Wonderland or The Little Prince (because they - unlike Robin's la nicte cadzu - have English versions to which I can refer).  Mailing lists and chats are not an alternative - the frequency and commonaility of messages are too low to be useful (at least for beginners). 

However, perhaps for the last time, I would like to make an appeal for ONE 'officially approved beginners text' (understanding that it may be too early for you to have a generalised proofing process for all texts).  Put yourselves in my shoes, guys.  I see a lot of texts.  I see some are unfinished, some have errors, some may be easy, some may be difficult.  So I ask for advice, but I don't know who is who - so which advice should carry greater weight?  After all, I could write something in lojban, post it on the wiki in good faith - and turn off the next generation of potential lojbanists!  I think one 'approved' text would solve a lot of future problems.

I'm surprised nobody answered my questions about the CLL (or Reference Grammar) and the xorlo issue.  So once again: when will XORLO be approved, what is the process and when will the CLL be updated?  Obviously, lack of approval is causing confusion.  I looked up names of countries on Wikipedia.  What did I find?

- lo kadnygu'e
- le pongu'e
- la jugygu'e

Which article is the right one?

- Andrew Piekarski


----- Original Message ----
From: "Turniansky, Michael" <MICHAEL.A.TURNIANSKY@saic.com>
To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org
Sent: Thursday, April 5, 2007 1:25:56 PM
Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: Now what?


A word on Berenstain Bears (which I translated):  It's true that I
marked it "only proofread to this point", by which I meant only that I
hadn't gotten anybody else with more knowledge than me to read through
it past that point, offer corrections, etc.   However, at least at the
level of _grammar_ it is valid lojban (I worked on it over the course of
almost a year, so the latter parts (those after the cubs start their
homework) are much more fluent (in my opinion) than the beginning).  I'd
be happy to have you read it, and if there're parts that are confusing,
etc., to answer any questions you may have (on or off list).

  For a complete short story, you can also read my (later) original work
"Terry the Tiger Visits the Big City" on the tiki (la teris. po'u lo
tirxu cu vitke zi'o le barda tcadu).

   The are other (i.e. not my) works like "The Snake" on there which are
complete, to the best of my knowledge....

                     --Mike "gejyspa" Turniansky


-----Original Message-----
From: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org
[mailto:lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org] On Behalf Of ANDREW
PIEKARSKI
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2007 12:48 PM
To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org
Subject: [lojban-beginners] Now what?

Hi everybody!

I've just completed Lojban For Beginners and want to move on.  The
question is: what's the best way to go?  I think that what I will
probably do is the following three things in parallel:
1) Work on vocabulary (I'll try Quizlet).
2) Read through the on-line Lojban Reference Grammar.
3) Work through some texts.

However, I've encountered some problems, so some advice from you
experienced guys would really come in handy!  Please note, I am not a
linguist, software programmer or mathermatician, so some of the past
English-langauge responses in this mail-list are difficult to follow
(technical jargon etc).

So here are some of the problems:

1) There are a lot of texts available, but whenever I click on one, it's
either incomplete (e.g. Everyday Lojban, The Prophet), or it hasn't been
completely proofed (e.g. Berenstien Bears), or the translation was done
by some mysterious CV machine (e.g. Alice In Wonderland) and presumably
has not been proofed by a human.  Now what I need is a completed text
that is EASY (that's why I tried the Berenstein Bears), COMPLETE and
PROOFED (how does the proofing process work anyway?). So, in addition to
enlightening me on the whole text thing, please suggest some texts for
me.

2) The on-line Lojban Reference Grammar is superbly written and should
be easy to follow.  However, I understand that the section on articles
has not been updated with the Xorxo change (when will it become official
and when will Lojban For Beginners and the Reference Grammar be
updated?) and that there are actual errors in it (or is that just in the
printed version?).

As a general comment (please correct me if I am wrong), my impression is
that lots of things get started, but few get completed before some new
thing gets started instead.  I would love to see one easy, complete and
proofed text recommended for beginners.  Sorry, but computer games
(which I undersatnd are using up considerable Lojban resources) as an
early learning tool do not turn me on.  We all learn in different ways.

Regards to all

Andrew