[lojban-beginners] Re: learning lojban

[Carl Lumma <carl@lumma.org>]

>>>> It would be great to have a Pimsleur-style audio course.  One
>>>> of the existing courses could be simply translated into lojban
>>>> and released as mp3 on the web.  How hard could this be, I wonder...
>>>
>>> Pretty difficult. It's not just a matter of translating the material.
>>> Each course is different and takes into account the grammatical
>>> differences between the target and native languages, as well as the
>>> differences in what sounds are used and how.
>>
>> How important are these effects?  And is there even an
>> equivalent in lojban yet?
>
>Sorry -- what effects? Do you mean like sound shifts?

Let's say I took the Pimsleur German course and modified it so
it didn't "take into account the grammatical differences" between
German and English, or "what sounds are used and how".  Would
it be a big deal?  Or is the success of the course 99% due to
the simple fact that it makes you listen to and repeat simple
phrases in the language?

>I expect I wasn't very clear on "differences in what sounds are  
>used". I meant the differences between Lojban sounds and English
>sounds --two important ones are how you say the vowels and the
>{x} sound in Lojban.

It seems like a translation of an existing Pimsleur course would
give a great starting point for a lojban course, at least.

>>> For example, if we were to prepare a Pimsleur style course in
>>> Lojban we would have to introduce the Lojban concept of sentence
>>> structure (as relations or brivla) in comparison to the English
>>> structure (as nouns with verbs and modifiers).
>>> What I'm saying is that it's not just a matter of teaching
>>> vocabulary. That would be trivial. And not that useful. The
>>> Pimsleur method also teaches how to put the words together -- I
>>> wouldn't quite call it grammar because they don't ever say the
>>> rules right out, you just sort of pick them up.
>>
>> Exactly.  Why wouldn't this work in lojban?
>It would definitely work, I just meant to say that it would be a little
>more work than just translating an existing CD into Lojban. I started
>to work out some ideas in the shower this morning, and you probably
>could translate an existing CD but just change the commentary.

Exactly.

>For example, in the Mandarin Chinese CD, when introducing the phrase
>"Do you speak English" and the Mandarin translation the narrator points
>out the pitch of each word, since it's important in Mandarin. He also  
>points out the word {ma} which makes a question in Mandarin. In Lojban,
>you could say {xu do se bangu la lojban} as well as {mi se bangu la
>lojban}, and point out that {xu} makes a yes/no question in Lojban.

Gotcha.

>I actually would have
>preferred to see Lojban introduced with the natural language notion  
>of nouns and verbs first.

Me too.

>> I have some "official" Loglan tapes around here somewhere.
>> If I had a cassette player I'd dig them up.
>> -Carl
>Do you have a friend who has a cassette deck? Lojban and Loglan are
>close enough structurally that, if the Loglan tapes are good, we  
>could follow their format pretty closely.

Not that I can think of...  There actually is one in my car,
but the road noise pretty much kills any attempt to learn a
language.  Maybe I'll try sitting out front of my house a
bit this weekend.  When the neighbors ask what I'm doing I can
freak them out even more by telling them!

-Carl