[lojban-beginners] Re: Newbie Intro

["la cuncuxnas." <thatskotkid@gmail.com>]

I, too, noticed that about the online lessons.  It's something
I've been grappling with lately, actually.  Having run through the
beginner lessons and leafed through the CLL, I feel I have a pretty
decent grasp on the grammar.  I'm not quite able to wrap my
intended message up into an elegant little Lojban ball yet, but I can
make most of the sentences I want and understand most of those that
come to me from others.  The only problem with all that is that I
have to look up nearly every word I use, be it in my own sentences or
in reading others'.  I've resorted to bulling through LogFlash in
lieu of anything more practical.  Very strange that there isn't
ANY vocab-intensive beginners' material out there.

mu'omi'e cuncuxnas.

I think mainly conversational beginner lessons would be great.

I've noticed that the online Lojban beginners lessons tends to focus on the
structure of sentences more than content.  The content is there, of course,
but more for illustrative purposes than anything else.

Back in my high-school and college days I took 4 1/2 years of German and 3
years of French, but never used either, really, and forgot most of what I
learned back then over the intervening decades.  About a year ago I picked up
a first year German book, just to brush up on it, and noticed that it was
more about content than structure.  The chapters are heavy in building up
vocabulary and giving the student the ability to converse in simple sentences
about everyday things.  Delving into the finer points of correct grammar and
whatnot comes later, after the students can already talk (in "baby German")
about Otto, his sister, his father, his mother, their pets, the trip he took
to the store, what he bought, what kind of classes his sister is taking in
school, etc., etc., etc.  Lots and lots of short, single subject, sentences
about really common things that everyone knows about.

The Lojban lessons I've been going through since I started with it (just a
couple of weeks ago) are extremely light on vocabulary in comparison to the
German book, but get into very detailed descriptions of rather complex
grammatical constructions almost right from the beginning.  Without the
accompanying vocabulary, it can be a bit hard to practice what one is
learning about the grammar.  I'm not saying the vocabulary isn't there in the
Lojban lessons, but in comparison to the German book there is a really
significant difference.  Certainly some of this is because at a simple level
German and English are structured very similarly, whereas Lojban is quite
different.  Nevertheless, gaining the ability early on to talk about everyday
things without involving untangling three layers of inserted bridi I think is
important to keeping up students interest.

So I (as a rank beginner, of course) vote that a podcast really focus on
building basic conversational skills first, and grammar skills only
secondarily.

Just my thoughts.

mu'o mi'e la skat.