Re: questions

[Richard and Sharon Nylander <rsnylander@earthlink.net>]

D.H.Rosdeitcher wrote:
>
>  Hi. Recently I got interested in learning lojban and I have questions for
> anyone here who'd like to share information.
>

coi David.  I'm relativly new to this too, but since no one else has
ventured to answer you, I'll do what I can.

> Does lojban really help clarify communication and thinking?
>

Some people may has opinions, but my impression is that no one speaks
fluently enough to decide.

> What problems do English and other natural languages have that lojban does
> not have?
>

Well, the biggie that they like to talk about is that it is
"syntactically unambiguous," if that has any value to you.  I'm no
linguist, but there are some pretty cool things that I've never seen
before: a very rich tense system; a system of attitidinal indicators
(the equivilent of "wow") that will knock your socks off; and logic up
the wazoo.

> What are some good resources (books, classes, etc) for starting to learn
> lojban?
>

I don't know how long you've been hanging out here, but you've obviously
been to the website, or you wouldn't have found your way here.

There are limited resources available.  You have to be pretty
self-motivated to learn Lojban.  That's not to discourage you.

The primary component you need is the reference grammar.  You can
download a copy from the website, but you will want to buy the hardcopy
("The Complete Lojban Language") eventually.  The electronic version is
not the same as the hardcopy.  The hardcopy (sometimes called "the
Woldemar codex") is THE authority with regards to grammar.

The other thing you need to study is the vocabulary.  As far as I know,
the best, or at least fastest, way to do that is to use logflash, which
can also be downloaded from the website.  There are two flavors:
logflash 1, which teaches the gismu (root words) and some cmavo
("little" words - equivilant to "the" and "to"); and logflash 3, which
teaches just cmavo.  You'll want to start with logflash 1.  My personal
recommendation - read up on the morphology of lojban, and speak the
lojban words as you see them while using the program.


The only other thing you need is lots of stuff to read in lojban.
There's very little that is readable to a beginner like you or me on the
website.  But by staying subscribed to this list, you can get short
paragraphs, often written at a level that a beginner has a chance to
translate in a few minutes.

Hanging out here is educational, even when the arguments get heated,
simply because you get to see the same words being used repeatedly.  I
don't think I'll ever forget what djuno means (or at least the two
possible definitions - don't ask :-)

The thing I started trying recently is to keep a journal in lojban.
That's where the rubber meets the road.  By doing that, you force
yourself to start remembering and applying what you've learned.  You
also get to see what you need to study most in order to express
yourself.  (The answer, in my case: study lojban.)

Good luck.

co'o mi'e rik