[lojban] Re: organization of Lojban material

[Alex Joseph Martini <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

> > I would say that Lojban is organized and categorized terribly.
> >
> > stevo
>
> The way the human mind works, it is impossible to do this in a way that will
> please everyone. We shouldn't expect that. Suffice it to say that it's
> "very" organized and categorized, and acknowledge that the goodness or
> badness of that categorization is subjective.
> -epkat
I suppose that 'very organized' is a better description, however what I
was intending to be the focus was not organization of the cmavo but
rather of the gismu & rafsi into standard groups.

If you are familiar with English children's books, many publishers have
'levels' of reading, but each publisher sets up its own idea of how to
divide up the English language. If a child know that he reads at level 3
in one series, he has to start all over again to figure out what books
will be at his reading level in a different series.

Because teaching styles differ, it would be unrealistic to expect to set
up a standard order to teach vocabulary. However, setting up a standard
set of groups would make it much easier for non-fluent lojbanists to
find reading material they will understand. If the categories were
numbered, a book could simply list the categories it drew from. (Reminds
me a little of an ingredients list on a box of cereal...)

I have read several stories of lojbanists who prefer the straight
memorization method for learning vocabulary -- they make up flash cards
and just memorize every gismu straight out. In general, I don't find
that as much information sticks (at least for me) when it is memorized
rather than learned. In high school, I memorized/crammed some vocabulary in
Spanish for tests, none of which I remember today. But the material that
I learned, where I used it in writing and speech and reading and
discussed it and perhaps even explained its meaning, I remember and will
probably not forget soon.

Along these lines, I feel that it is as important to develop basic level
reading material for the beginners and non-fluent as it is to develop a
body of literature for the advanced and fluent, and that agreeing to
some extent on what vocabulary to use will help in this.

mu'omi'e .alex.


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