[lojban] Re: lojban's difficulty

[xah lee <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

i think that's a good argument. Though, on the whole i'm inclined to 
think that lojban is quite more difficult to learn because of its 
predicate logic basis. ... don't have particular points now, but 
perhaps will post later on.

the lack of materials of lojban is so very true. I so much hope there's 
material like other foreign languages. (i.e. hello, good morning, how 
are you, where's the bathroom) The existing texts are all pretentious 
and computer sciency.

i also agree very much the ideas by Christopher Zervic. (below)

 Xah
 xah@xahlee.org
∑ http://xahlee.org/

On Sep 8, 2005, at 4:54 PM, John E Clifford wrote:

The main problem with oearning Lojban is the
almost complete lack of teaching material.  We
have some devices for pounding in vocabulary --
which some people have found helpful but as many
have found totally useless (and which are
misleading in the form given).  Given some
reasonably decent teaching devices (or better, of
course, some teachers)Lojban is no worse than any
0other language.  The sort of classifications to
which xah lee points are just Lojban's version of
what in other languages comes up as gender or
some similar thing (but, by the way, you don't
need {loi}; {jisra} is "a quantity of juice" with
the quantity uspecified so {lo jisra} is just
some quantity of juice, just what is wanted.  To
be sure, juice is one of those things where it is
hard to tell individual quantities  from
collectives of quantities, so {loi} also works.)

...

-------

	From: 	  zervic@gmail.com
	Subject: 	[lojban] Re: lojban's difficulty
	Date: 	September 9, 2005 7:20:00 AM PDT
	To: 	  lojban-list@lojban.org
	Reply-To: 	  lojban-list@lojban.org

On 9/8/05, John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> The main problem with oearning Lojban is the
> almost complete lack of teaching material.

The existing materials are full of highly artificial specimen texts. A
wider body of translated literature, and original literature will
help. Translating a movie script, something current, would help to
develop a useable speaking pattern.

I can see where LfB can be intimidating. For example, the section with
loi and le and all the numbers is very confusing - and that's chapter
FOUR. I don't know that a more 'natural' or Pimsleur-type approach
would be ideal, so something new, in the middle, should fill the need.

Most language instruction texts start by teaching the pleasantries -
hello, thank you, you're welcome, good morning, good bye, etc. That
type of thing is common to every person, and expressions that they use
daily and can remember easily. Then even someone who knows nothing
more than coi, do mo, ki'e, and co'o can say "I know a little Lojban"
and thus feel some connection to the community as it were. Lord knows
that's the case with Esperanto.

Each successive lesson should blow the learner's mind only slightly. I
realize however that the tendency whould be to teach the whole scheme
as a scheme, but the problem with that is that Lojban would for the
most part be unuseable until the whole scheme was learned.

One other problem with the schematic approach, some people start to
get the idea that "hey, I like this but I think I know an even better
way to express that" and launch a reform project rather than remain in
the Lojban circle.
--
Christopher Zervic, Esq.


 ☄ 


To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org
with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if
you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.