[lojban-beginners] Re: Now what?

["Matt Arnold" <matt.mattarn@gmail.com>]

Andrew,

Congratulations on finishing Lojban For Beginners!

There isn't any proofreading process. Someone will announce they've
started translating something, and someone else may or may not read it
and report inconsistencies. They may use the mailing lists and the
channel to receive the latest verdict on the issues. In this way they
undergo a process of simultaneously learning and debugging. I might
use the approach of reading reference texts on a well-established
natural language spoken by hundreds of thousands of people all their
lives. But I'm not sure I would study a completely de-novo language by
looking at texts; I'm afraid it has to be a more interactive process
on the mailing lists and chat rooms so that a lack of compliance can
be gradually debugged. The static texts don't provide this
interactivity.

I can tell you that the Lojban language has not changed all that much
since its creation twenty years ago, so all texts are good to study in
that sense. However, no texts are good to study from another
perspective: Lojban has not existed long enough for anyone to
understand it so deeply that their understanding could not stand
improvement. It's easy to determine compliance with the basic
vocabulary and grammar, and new learners come along all the time, and
they always attempt to translate, and may not do those aspects well.
But even for experts, compliance becomes a very fuzzy concept when it
comes to the more arcane and exotic words and structures Lojban
provides. A committee is still "debugging" those airy reaches of the
Lojban stratosphere by establishing clear guidelines for them; this is
not complete.

Fortunately some projects have been started which will provide a
variety of learning materials that may satisfy your needs. RLNJ.org
may do so before long. Thanks for your excellent inquiry.

-Matt Arnold, aka "Eppcott"
Board Member, Logical Language Group