From lojban-out@lojban.org Thu Oct 03 15:58:09 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojban-out@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_1_1_4); 3 Oct 2002 22:58:09 -0000 Received: (qmail 84333 invoked from network); 3 Oct 2002 22:58:09 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.216) by m12.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 3 Oct 2002 22:58:09 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO digitalkingdom.org) (204.152.186.175) by mta1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 3 Oct 2002 22:58:09 -0000 Received: from lojban-out by digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.05) id 17xEyI-0004v4-00 for lojban@yahoogroups.com; Thu, 03 Oct 2002 16:01:30 -0700 Received: from digitalkingdom.org ([204.152.186.175] helo=chain) by digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.05) id 17xExg-0004uV-00; Thu, 03 Oct 2002 16:00:52 -0700 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Thu, 03 Oct 2002 16:00:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from manyas.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr ([139.179.30.24]) by digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.05) id 17xExc-0004uL-00 for lojban-list@lojban.org; Thu, 03 Oct 2002 16:00:48 -0700 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by manyas.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 64BE812B5C for ; Fri, 4 Oct 2002 01:57:25 +0300 (EEST) Received: from bilkent.edu.tr (ppp148.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr [139.179.111.148]) by manyas.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 42FA812AAC for ; Fri, 4 Oct 2002 01:57:22 +0300 (EEST) Message-ID: <3D9CCC87.6040000@bilkent.edu.tr> Date: Fri, 04 Oct 2002 02:02:31 +0300 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:0.9.8) Gecko/20020204 X-Accept-Language: en-us MIME-Version: 1.0 To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: Lojban in 12 weeks? References: <2C28C415-D6B7-11D6-BC3D-003065D4EC72@optushome.com.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed X-Virus-Scanned: by AMaViS snapshot-20020300 X-archive-position: 1886 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: robin@bilkent.edu.tr Precedence: bulk X-list: lojban-list X-eGroups-From: Robin Turner From: Robin Turner Reply-To: robin@bilkent.edu.tr X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=116389790 X-Yahoo-Profile: lojban_out Nick Nicholas wrote: >The Lojban brochure includes the claim: "A working vocabulary including >the complete set of 1350 root words takes about 8.12 weeks of study at >1 hour per day." > >Robin.CA's apophthegmatic response on the Wiki errata page: "Bullshit". > >I'm inclined to agree, actually, and have gone on record as saying that >we short-change Lojban when we claim it is an easy language to learn >--- it clearly isn't, and even if you learn the gismu in 12 weeks, that >in itself doesn't mean all that much. > >But I'd like to solicit opinions on this. Should this guesstimate be >excised from the Level 0 document? What has people's experience of >Logflash-like programs been in the past few years? > This results will vary enormously from person to person, depending on their general vocabulary-learning potential and their predilictions for vocabulary-learning techniques. Personally, I'm pretty hopeless at vocabulary retention - I have an impressive Turkish vocabulary because I live in Turkey and am married to a Turk who doesn't speak much English, but I learnt about 2,000 words of Chinese at university and forgot almost all of them within a few months (for most sutdents, "final exam" is a powerful psycho-linguistic cue meaning "You can forget all of this now"). As for the brochure, I'd suggest dropping the "Lojban is easy to learn" bit. It _is_ easier to learn than any natlang which isn't close enough to your native language as to qualify as a dialect (e.g. Italian for Spanish speakers), but _no_ language is easy to learn, and a lot of conlangs are easier than Lojban, especially if their based on the general class of languages your native language falls into (e.g. Esperanto for Europeans). In the end, I think people successfully learn languages out of practical necessity (e.g. immigrants), idealistic commitment (e.g. Esperanto) or a weird personal obsession (e.g. Elvish). robin.tr -- "We do not imprison ourselves with laws, or impoverish ourselves with money" - Iain Banks Robin Tunrer IDMYO Bilkent Universitesi Ankara 06533 Turkey www.bilkent.edu.tr/~robin