3rd gen native Esperanto speaker: Nicole! Posted by Chuck Smith on Jun 18, 2013
Some people don’t believe that native Esperanto speakers exist. Would you then believe that I’ve found a third generation native Esperanto speaker?! Nicole Klünder’s great-grandfather learned Esperanto, taught it natively to his kids, who taught it natively to his kids, who taught it natively to Nicole… awesome! It seems that it’s now becoming a tradition…
iOS Esperanto keyboard review: Ĝusta Klavaro Posted by Chuck Smith on Jun 11, 2013
Last night, I was enjoying watching Apple’s Keynote about their exciting, upcoming products, including the new design and features in their upcoming iOS 7 operating system (the operating system that powers the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch). On the language side, it will even come with Dutch, Italian and Korean dictionaries as well as a…
How artificial is Esperanto anyway? Posted by Chuck Smith on Jun 4, 2013
I always find it curious when people say that Esperanto isn’t interesting, because it’s artificial. The most prominent time I encountered this objection was during a visit of the European parliament building in Strasbourg (France), where many interpreter booths are set up to translate between the various EU languages. On the side, the tour guide…
Polyglot Conference in Budapest Posted by Chuck Smith on May 22, 2013
Greetings from Budapest! This weekend I attended the Polyglot Conference here. There were people in attendance from all over the world, giving lectures on such varied topics as Learning endangered languages through music to How conflict management works in bilingual situations. There were also an introduction to Esperanto by Eva Fitzelová and the non-profit organization…
How Esperanto Changed My Life Posted by Chuck Smith on May 15, 2013
I had no idea where Esperanto would take me when I started learning it in February 2001. At the time, in a small city in Pennsylvania, I thought, “I’ll do the first lesson of this free online course. If it’s lame, I’ll have lost an hour of my life. If it’s interesting, it could open…
World Esperanto Exam Day: June 8 Posted by Chuck Smith on May 9, 2013
Did you know that you can take an Esperanto exam to prove that you can read and write at a certain level? On June 8, people will be taking Esperanto exams around the world, which are legally recognized by the Hungarian state. Hungary makes sense, because 5,000 people receive diplomas there every year to prove…
Live Esperanto concert videos Posted by Chuck Smith on Mar 1, 2013
If you want to know who is giving concerts in Esperanto these days, here is a collection of concert videos that can also serve as an introduction to Esperanto music. Many of these were recorded very recently, during the Youth Esperanto Week (event for young people between Dec 28th 2012 and January 4th 2013). Presenting…