Learn to count in #Esperanto in tri minutes

(Lernu konti en Esperanto en tri minutoj)

The building blocks:
0 -- nul [as in /dev/null]
1 -- unu [as in unu*ity ;-)]
2 -- **du
* [as in du*ality]
3 -- **tri
* [as in tri*angle (but the "i" is pronounced as in mach*i*ne)]
4 -- **kvar
* [as in quar*tet]
5 -- **kvin
* [as in quin*tet]
6 -- **ses
* [as in ???, but still not difficutl to remeber it]
7 -- sep [as in sep*tember (the 7th month in the Roman calendar)]
8 -- **ok
* [as in oc*tober or *oc*tagon]
9 -- **naŭ
* [as in naŭ*veber ;-)]
10 -- **dek
* [as in dec*ade]
100 -- **cent
* [as in cent*ury]
1000 -- **mil
* [as in *mil*lennium]

Using these building blocks, you count the simplest and most logical way:
11 -- dek unu, 12 -- dek du, 13 -- dek tri, 14 dek kvar--, etc.
20 -- dudek, 21 -- dudek unu, 22 -- dudek du, 23 dudek tri, etc.
30 -- tridek, 31 -- tridek unu, 32 -- tridek du, 33 -- tridek tri, etc.
40 -- kvardek, 50 -- kvindek, 60 -- sesdek, 70 -- sepdek, 80 -- okdek, etc.
123 -- cent dudek tri, 345 -- tricent kvardek kvin, 678 -- sescent sepdek ok, etc.
1010 -- mil dek, 2020 -- du mil dudek, 34567 -- tridek kvar mil kvincent sesdek sep, etc.

Forming ordinals is also really simple (just add an "a"):
1st -- unua, 2nd -- dua, 3rd -- tria, 4th -- kvara, 5th -- kvina, 6th -- sesa, 7th -- sep, 8th -- oka, 9th -- naŭa, 10th -- deka, 11th -- dek unua, etc.


That's all. It was nice and easy, right?


Of course, not just counting is nice, regular and easy in Esperanto. One of the main goals of Zamenhof was to create a language that one can be learned quickly and easily. This goal is already achieved since it way easier to learn it that any natural language.

"145 hours of Esperanto is enough, for a French speaker, to reach a level about equivalent to 1500 hours in English or 2000 in German; showing Esperanto is learned 10 to 13 times faster than other languages" see this Wikipedia page

Even though roughly 1 in 7 people speaks English and also 1 in 7 people speaks Mandarin, most (pairs of) people still don't have a
common language.

If two people don't have a common language, it is more fair, easy and cost efficient to both of them learn Esperanto than to one of them learn the language of the other. (It can be at least 5--6 times cheaper/easier to learn Esperanto for the two of them, than for one of them to learn the other's language as it is 10--13 times faster to learn Esperanto than other languages, see above.)

So it would be perfectly reasonable to teach Esperanto worldwide.

Regardless of this, Esperanto is not an international auxiliary language of the world yet, but that is not the failure of Esperanto. That is the failure of (hu)mankind. We are mostly a bunch of idiots, who are still fight wars, overvalue money against life, hate each other for foolish reasons, etc. So it is not surprising that even the most obvious things takes centuries for us to embrace.

So why bother learning Esperanto?

The most obvious reasons are:
- it is fun to learn it
- it helps learning other languages, see the propaedeutic value of Esperanto
- you gain access to the international Esperanto culture

For example, Esperanto music can be listened at various podcasts such as Muzaiko. There are several good Esperanto music and musicians, one of my favourite is @Jonny M who happens to be also a diasporean.

In this post, you can read my reasons of learning Esperanto.


What is/was your reason to learn Esperanto or why don't you plan to learn it?


How to learn it?

There are lots of resources online. Some notable examples are:
https://lernu.net
https://learn.esperanto.com/en/
Diasporean @Notxor also has some blog posts teaching Esperanto in Spanish.

This post is released as #cc0 thanks to @Miloslav Číž's #cc0challenge convincing me the benefits of that license.
Please, use/remix it as you wish.

#education #world #peace #music #culture #learning

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