[lojban-beginners] Re: Site for beginners

[Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>]

On Monday 21 December 2009 20:13:11 Oren wrote:
> Part of offering help to language learners is presenting flexible
> techniques; some people prefer flashcards, some prefer fill-in-the-blank
> questions, some like to read a lot of examples. Some like to see grammar
> spelled out, some like to grab colloquial usage and eventually come to
> understand the rules. Some people don't really know their preference.
>
> One idea for the simplest data model I can imagine that allows freedom in
> learning is:
>
> Lojban Sentence Submission (by anyone): lojban, natlang, and comments on
> one page
> Use a blog-like web-page format of sentence case-studies with associated
> comments to provide a web-accessible learning database for lojbanistas
> (anyone interested in lojban).
>
> Scenario 1
>  * Lojbanists who already know their stuff can put submit lojban sentences
> with either/both linguistic, thorough glosses and natural language
> (possibly multilingual) renditions.
>  * Beginners can search by keyword, vocab word, grammar, etc. They find the
> sentence, they ask a question in the comments, and something like what
> happens on this mailing list gets recorded in an easily visible webpage
> form
>
> Scenario 2
>  * Beginners can submit a lojban sentence and an attempt at natlang
> translation, or vice-versa, or even just a natlang sentence they want to
> know how to say in lojban.
>  * Lojbanists fill it in, and use the comments to discuss, like this
> mailing list, any tricky grammar points etc.
>
> Scenario 3
> (maybe a bit more fun)
>  * Same as scenario 1 or 2, except the lojban sentence leaves a _____ blank
> to be filled in. A lojbanist might use this to write a 'textbook problem'
> or to overcome jolban writers block, and a beginner can use this technique
> to answer questions, or test the expressive limits of lojban.

This sounds like a great idea!

Here's my idea of a way to teach rafsi: For each gismu and selrafsi cmavo, 
make up several sensible words using the rafsi. For each word, list the 
meaning (doesn't have to have the full place structure) and the expansion 
(veljvo). For instance:

jupku'a	kitchen	jukpa kumfa
vimku'a	bathroom, restroom	vikmi kumfa
vimstizu	toilet	vikmi stizu
viktsispa	mistletoe	viknu tsiju spati
na'itsi	samara	nalci tsiju
nilvikmretci	viscometer	ni viknu merli tutci
mipstu	hiding place	mipri stuzi

With these, you can get the similar-sounding rafsi and the rafsi that could 
have belonged to either of two gismu or vice versa straight. You can know 
that "vik" is the rafsi of "viknu" by remembering "viktsispa", whose seeds 
are covered with goo (they also happen to be excreted by birds, but there's 
no "cpi" in the word).

Pierre
-- 
I believe in Yellow when I'm in Sweden and in Black when I'm in Wales.