I would claim that "knowing the principles" of Lojban (or any
other language for that matter) is not important for a beginner.
But you did say you wanted to show them the "basic functions" of Lojban (as well as the phonetic things etc.).
Beginners usually don't care about such things. They just want to
learn to speak at a very basic level. They don't need to know
principles. [...]
> In fact, I plan not to use grammar words at all. I won't try to explain
> the term "gismu" and will not use words like "noun", "adjective", "article",
> "verb", etc. [...]
> In fact, I believe knowing (or learning) principles
> is not helping much. For most learners it's juch a waste of time...
Actually, if people want to
learn to speak a language at a basic level (rather than simply memorizing a set of words), they *do* have to learn some basic principles. People won't be able to deal with basic English expressions if they don't know the grammatical function of
e.g. "not" or "-ed".
You could say non-Finnish speakers don't usually care about the Finnish vowel harmony. But the Finnish language *beginners* do have to care about such things. Likewise, Lojban beginners do have to pay attention to the fact like { melbi } doesn't function like those natlang adjectives "
schön, herrlich, beau, merveilleux, mooi, heerlijk". Even if they don't know what the grammatical terms for these parts of speech of their language are, it does not stop them from distinguishing e.g. "beau" from "
beauté", from having such an almost instinctive discernment, since they already have in mind the general principles of their language. And it becomes problematic if they *blindly* apply their principles to take in Lojbanic part of speech, because, as Matt pointed out, they will later have to *unlearn* it. And that is precisely what you want to call *a wast of time*.
(You can't really say that learning the grammar of the language you want to be able to speak is futile. Indeed, a language is a *system of principles/grammars*. And that reality should not conflict with your conviction of intuitive learning materials (which I appreciate), because what you're going to teach people with these materials has to be going to be "how to use these words", a guidance, which is a collection of principles, which is the grammar.)
If the target of your list is "people who has never come across Lojban and neither sure whether he/she is really going to start learning it", then your list may not necessarily be particular about the grammar. BUT, if the target of your list is "Lojban beginners", it's crucial that they at this stage don't remain completely ignorant of the place structure, of the fact that "chaussure" or "Schuh" cannot be a genuine equivalent of { cutci }. Otherwise, a Lojban beginner, who wants to begin to understand what Lojbanists say, would be baffled in his *closed paradigm* when facing something like { ta te cutci ti } and wouldn't even be able to recognize what to exactly look up in order to analyse it, first of all: the end of the road. If he had already been hinted about the existence of the place structure beforehand, though, he could have said to himself "Oh, let me see what's going on in the place structure here".
Being aware of the place structure in Lojban is not a peripheral knowledge; it's an *essential* knowledge. What's more, it's one of the most unique features of Lojban. There's no reason why we shouldn't tell people the notable characteristic of this language when we want to introduce it to them. Simplicity is often vital for an introduction; but most of the Lojbanists would not agree to stay *completely* mum about the nature of part of speech in Lojban.
Vid, I know that this may sound like a mere provocation to you
and others who appreciate grammars, structure and principles
of languages and who are used to learning languages that way.
But I strongly believe most (ordinary) people just don't learn
languages that way...
Appreciating grammars does not make you extraordinary. A language grammar isn't necessarily something exclusively academic & scholarly. Actually it should be a pretty ordinary thing. It's something which ordinary people don't want to lack too much if they want to communicate with others in the corresponding language community. Those who don't sufficiently appreciate the grammar would risk the quality of communication.
What's your definition of "learning"?
If it isn't that people learn languages by acquiring a series of grammatical principles... if it isn't like that, then *what* do they learn?
Vid