Re: for non-English native Lojbanists

[Goran Topic <topic@STUDENT.MATH.HR>]

> Based on a discussion on conlang list, I have a simple question.
> Are there any non-English native Lojbanists who can read Lojban text with
> equal or greater ease than English text (or even close for that matter)?

Native Lojbanists??? :) :)
Sorry, no... I kind of grok the grammar now more or less OK, but my
vocab is not very good (pretty weak, in fact...) and I have to look up
things in the dict a lot, if there are any words in the text I don't
see every day. So, things are, although muchmuch faster than a year ago,
still pretty slow, barring trivial sentences, like: .i lo jufra pe dei
frili se ke tcidu je jimpe mi

> Is there anyone (Goran?) who feels they could write a Lojban snetence or text
> with as much competence or confidence as they have that they can write a
> grammatical and clear English sentence?

Nope, still not. I can write lojban sentence, even a text, but I am
confident that there *must* be numerous errors in there somewhere, while
I can write English knowing that, though my language *is* imperfect,
there are many natives that couldn't write a simple sentence without
losing track of grammar or spelling. Just watch Usenet. :) But, I trust
that given enough time and use of the dicts, I can express most concepts
reasonably well. Can't compare that to English. If I were to scale my
langs by competence, my natlang being 1, English would be around .9, and
lojban around .3-.5 (grammar: English .95, lojban .8, vocab: English .8,
lojban .2) There is nothing to force me to learn the words, 'cause there
is (still) absolutely no one here but me learning the lang. Can't speak.
Can't get enough practice.

> I'm going to guess that the answer is still know, but figure it is worth
> asking.

Yeah... :)

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