[lojban-beginners] Re: learning lojban

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

On Thursday 01 March 2007 11:37, Karl Naylor wrote:
> Intuitively, I would like to see this emphasised right at the
> beginning of Lojban beginners' courses -- "don't try to look for nouns
> and verbs in this language, nor for any other concepts from other
> human languages you know.  Looking for predicate calculus concepts is
> probably OK".

There are nouns and verbs in Lojban, and also conjunctions, prepositions, 
articles, and pronouns. There are other parts of speech that don't exist in 
English, such as the predicate marker (which exists in Tok Pisin), 
terminators, and spoken quotation marks. There are no adjectives or adverbs 
in Lojban, and nouns and verbs are used very differently.

German is too close to English (if you're learning German, already knowing 
English) to compare learning Lojban to a Pimsleur German tape. You might 
compare it to learning Turkish or Ojibwe.

English is a nounish language, while Lojban is a verbish language. (I don't 
know the proper terms.) Consider "clock". If I use "clock" as a verb, it's 
not something a clock does; it's something done using a clock. But if I use 
{junla} as a verb, it is something a clock does: it ticks out time intervals 
with some precision, using some mechanism (or electronism). And if I use the 
Navajo word as a verb, it is something a clock does: it moves slowly in a 
circle.

phma