[mycorrhizal]

One practical use that has been studied (only a little) is to use Esperanto as a stepping stone to learning other languages. Essentially the idea is that you can first spend a few months learning Esperanto and that might actually speed up the total time for learning a "third" language. I believe school systems in both the UK and France have experimented with this, both with promising results.

[yorwba]

When you actually look at those "promising results" you'll notice that they come about by cherry-picking, not controlling for confounders (like Esperanto teachers using better teaching methods) and wishful thinking. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14848019 , which I wrote some time ago when the same topic came up.

I don't doubt that Esperanto is easy to learn, but there's no evidence to suggest that learning Esperanto helps more with learning another language than spending the same time learning that language instead.

[myth2018]

I'm not aware of any controlled studies bringing evidence on this as well. But there seems to be lots of anecdotal evidence.

One may argue that people who learn Esperanto are naturally inclined to language learning anyway, but what you actually see is people who allegedly have always struggled with languages and, after giving Esperanto a try, they begin to find more effective ways of learning foreign languages in general.

It worked for me at least.

[em-bee]

i think the point is that your first foreign language is harder to learn because you are unfamiliar with the idea and the process. the time and effort it takes can be demotivating.

once you learned one language, learning others should be easier because you have overcome that first mental challenge.

introducing esperanto as that first foreign language should provide some early success that motivate the students in their language learning.

that's the theory anyways. we do need some more studies to verify that.

any second language makes it easier to learn a third one.

[mycorrhizal]

Thanks for the link and extra info! You have definitely looked at this more carefully than I have.

[myth2018]

Chinese schools used to teach Esperanto during the 80's. I've asked some esperanto speakers about it and some of them say that Esperanto was seen as a bridge to learning English and other western languages, which are of course very different than chinese languages.

If you feel interested, google about Esperanto propaedeutic properties.

[porpoisely]

We used to have a stepping stone to learn other languages. It was called latin. For some odd reason, we stopped teaching it in our public schools here. But the wealthy private schools still teach latin and give their kids and enormous leg up in their studies.

[ghaff]

As someone who took Latin in high school, the stepping stone argument always felt a bit disingenuous. There seemed to be a component of not wanting to admit it was being taught primarily because it was part of a traditional Classics education among Western upper classes. As opposed to a useful skill of some sort.

I have absolutely nothing against traditional Classics though I’m not sure how good a fit they are with typical US public high schools today. However I’m pretty skeptical that a few years of Latin—as opposed to Spanish, German, or French (which I also took) or something else entirely—is a uniquely good use of time.

[porpoisely]

I absolutely agree with spanish, german, french or any other language being a good stepping stone to learn other languages. Not only that learning another language helps you better understand your own language.

However, what makes latin special is that spanish, german, french, english and many european languages have significant history with latin as a language and has been tremendously influenced by latin. And it's not just language. Much of science, literature, music, math, etc has strong latin roots.

If there is one language that offers the most bang for the buck, it's latin. It's something every kid should be taught in my opinion, especially in the west since latin influenced nearly every language and academic field.

[em-bee]

any second language is a stepping stone to later languages. by the time you learn latin and then french, you might as well have learned french directly and then german or chinese.

esperanto is different because it is easier to learn, so instead of taking years to mastery, you are done in a few months, and teachers can focus on proper learning techniques without fearing that students get demotivated because it takes so long. then you can apply those techniques to the next languages and hopefully come out ahead

[ghaff]

To echo others, I would need to be convinced that learning a synthetic language that, for most of us, will never have any direct practical use has some unique pedagogical value. For me, learning an actual language, however imperfectly, that has a history, literature, and in many cases current speakers and culture seems far more interesting. But, then, I never had any interest in learning Klingon or elvish either.

[em-bee]

right, we need more research to verify that theory.

[qwerty456127]

Is learning Esperanto then Dutch faster than Spanish then Dutch for an English or speaker?

[em-bee]

that would be an obvious yes because esperanto is easier than spanish.

but also, dutch is similar enough to english that learning spanish will not help you much at all, other than that third language effect which can be had with any other language too.