[lojban-beginners] Starting to learn... but how?

[m.kornig@sondal.net]

Hello!

I believe most people start learning a language by
listening. Listening to others, recognizing and
repeating certain sounds: names, other isolated words,
maybe short phrases. Then, at the same time or
sometime later (it doesn't really matter), they find
out about the meaning: which object or person the
sound refers to, in which situation it may be employed,
etc.

This seems to be the way kids learn their mother
tongue. According to my experience this method
works equally well for adults. In particular if you
can listen to someone who speaks slowly and distinctly,
points at things while speaking and repeats the words
frequently. As a beginner, that's all you need. Some
people refer to this as the "direct" method, I think?

What you don't need is grammar. In fact, teaching
grammar can be counter-productive.

I think Lojban should be tought in the same way, at
least for beginners. And, it could be done online:

(1) many pictures to clarify situations and the meaning
of words (far better than explanations or translations
in English or any other language),

(2) many Lojban sound examples (icons to click on as
often as you wish),

(3) many listening excercises,

(4) lots of opportunities to repeat,

(5) no grammar.

Such learning sites do exist for other languages.

At a somewhat later stage (A1 and higher), you
may want to add excercises where the learner replies
in little roleplays, some reading and writing
excercises, and possibly some grammar...

As the Lojban sound-spelling relations and stress
rules are very regular, a simple system with no automatic
voice recognition at all would be sufficient, I guess.

What do you think?
Martin