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Eitan_Zohar comments on Learning languages efficiently. - Less Wrong Discussion
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Why did you learn Esperanto? Has it been useful to you?
From back when I learned Esperanto, I remember talk of a study that showed that learning Esperanto for 1 month and then learning French for (say) 11 months results in better French than just spending the whole 12 months learning French. No link, might be apocryphal.
On further investigation, it turns out that there's an entire Wikipedia article on this effect, listing 14 different experiments. Many of them seem old, small, and non-rigorous, though.
I defy the data. I wouldn't care if you did have a citation, but I doubt it's a real study, too.
Williams, N. (1965) 'A language teaching experiment', Canadian Modern Language Review 22.1: 26-28
http://www.essex.ac.uk/langling/documents/elct/2013/esperanto_tool.pdf
Also explains why there's no copy online.
Because it's interesting and easy, and the idea of "let's all speak a common neutral language" is one I can get behind.
Not very useful, no, but I enjoy learning languages. It made me more confident towards learning other languages (specifically, it's simple grammar rules made me re-evaluate my rejection of memorizing German grammar), was an interesting social activity, and I got to travel with the Pasporta Servo program (free housing for other Esperantists), got to chat with weird people, etc. A bit like LessWrong :D