[lojban-beginners] Re: Difficulties and frustrations

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On 11/1/05, Thomas White <winterwhite9257@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> .i mi do rinsa mu'i le nu do co'a tcidu le mi samclupa sezyskinoi
> (sound-byte heard from Nick Nicholas's webpage)
>
> I you welcome because the-event you [initiative] read my
> computer-type-of-loop-type-of-homepage
>
> Using square brackets and re-typing it to break it into his spoken
> rhythm, it comes out like this:
>
> [.imido rinsa]*pause*[mu'ilenudoco'atcidu]*pause*[lemisamclupa]*pause*[sezyskinoi]

Notice that the pauses come after each brivla, i.e. each segment has
penultimate stress. In writing, this is where you would have to write
spaces if you don't indicate stress by other means.

> Yes, lojban is 'audiovisually isomorphic', but I had to write it down,
> break it up, and re-read it to separate it into understandable
> concepts.

Were you really able to get all the sounds right without figuring out
the words first? I think it normally works the other way: mostly we
distinguish the sounds that make up a word only after we've
recognized the word.

> One that particularly loses me is [mu'ilenudoco'atcidu].

I think that's normal with unfamiliar words. When I heard it for the
first time, I got everything except {samclupa} and {sezyskinoi}, which
are not common words. I could figure out they were lujvo, but I got
the rafsi wrong.  The cmavo there are all pretty frequent, I had
no trouble with them.

>  How many lojbanists have actually 'conversed', either
> face-to-face or over the phone/skype? What seems more 'natural' to the
> speakers?

I have, both face-to-face and over the phone. In both cases we managed
to converse, exhange opinions and understand each other, but not really
fluently. I don't think anyone can say how truly fluent lojban will sound
like yet.

mu'o mi'e xorxes