The problem with widespread Esperanto adoption (in the Western world at least) isn't that English is an easy language, but it's so pervasive of a language. There is a lot of English-language media to study, and a lot of people speak English to practice with. If one person speaks French and another speaks Polish, it would probably be easier and more beneficial for each of them to learn English than each of them to learn Esperanto. And once they do, they'll be able to communicate with others who know English but don't know Esperanto, which is a huge number of people.
I've studied Esperanto in the past and I love the concept, but getting TV shows, movies, and books in Esperanto is much much much harder than getting them in English. Which means people are exposed to English far more often and in more real-life scenarios than they would be in Esperanto.
This is a similar problem with any non-English language, I've found. I speak German and trying to keep up with the language in America is nearly impossible because I can't find any good source of German language books or TV shows or movies here in the US. And beyond trying to legally purchase them, it's difficult to even pirate German language media. It just doesn't exist.
The importance of consumable media should not be underestimated.
My native language is Finnish, which is farther from English than Hindi. But I learnt English at a very young age simply via TV, Games and Movies. And that’s the reason why English skills are so high here in general. It doesn’t matter that English is ”clunky”. It’s so pervasive that it’s hard not to learn it.
I moved to Finland from the UK, and I've been struggling with Finnish for the past few years. But I find the process fascinating, especially now that I'm helping raise a bilingual child.
Currently our boy hears English almost solely from me, and brief moments of TV. Everybody else around him speaks Finnish, and despite that he's fully capable of understanding both his mother in Finnish, and me in English. His speach is an adorable mixture of both "More leipä", "minä haluan jumping in puddles", etc.
That is correct. Also Russian and other Slavic languages belong to Indo-European family. Russian is linguistically closer to English than Hindi, but Finnish is far apart (and is close to Estonian, and more remotely related to Hungarian).
Still, as a native Finn I can get some things from Russian even if I have never studied it, because there is so much common vocabulary.
English is actually useful, because it connects you to a huge culture. Many complain about the spelling, since it's not phonetic, but few recognize the value of that.
Latin in English is recognizable as Latin, Portuguese as Portuguese, etc. A Scot and a Midwesterner may pronounce the same words differently, understand eachother without much difficulty, and spell things the same.
Saw this convincing and entertaining video on the topic the other day:
Thanks for that! It is very entertaining and puts me in peace with English, which so far I was refusing to give a status of a proper language and was degrading to a tool of communication - actually a great tool and I am happy we have it. But this video finally gives some answers about why the spelling is so weird and why reforming it would destroy so much meaning and etymological history in the writing.
Funny how languages evolve.
From now on I will stop complaining about the spelling in English and French :-D
I'd recommend signing up for a VPN in order to get around region blocking, and watching whatever the public television sites in Germany, Austria and Switzerland make available for free streaming online.
Or, if you like podcasts, just switch to German-language podcasts. That's how I keep my French brushed up, and it works a treat.
FWIW, I think the same works for Esperanto. I don't speak Esperanto (yet) so I don't know their quality, but I looked into availability of media recently because I've been thinking of learning it, and it seems that there are plenty of podcasts in esperanto, and even some international news services that do a regular program in esperanto. Not anywhere near as much as English, of course, but it looks like plenty enough to keep a body entertained on the way to B2 level or so.
Yeah, English isn't easy to learn as a language but it's easy to learn in general because as a non-native speakers it's impossible to escape. I had private language lessons for German and English as well as had both languages taught at school since the age of 7, but by the age of ~16 I was only fluent in one - English. I attribute this 100% to the fact that English media and games are literally everywhere, while German ones were a bit harder to come by. If I wanted to explore the internet as a kid it has to be done in English, so my English grew at an exponential rate, despite both languages getting the same amount of learning time.
> There is a lot of English-language media to study, and a lot of people speak English to practice with
This is so important. While I've at some point knew both Dutch and German well enough to hold a basic conversation or read articles, in practice even living in the Netherlands it's hard to find a situation that wouldn't be served just as well (or better, if you're a beginner) by English. There are some benefits, but they're either a rather specific case (inburgering), or only start outweighing convenience of English once you're reasonably fluent (like speaking it in social situations). That's not a helpful dynamic for learning a language.
> This is a similar problem with any non-English language
I had the same issue with Spanish. I studied Spanish one hour everyday for one year, just for the fun of learning a new language. Then I stopped for some reason and I realized I didn't have any opportunity to practice (other than actively learning).
On the other hand, although English is my second language, I consume mostly (American-)English media. I only watch English youtube videos, I read English forums and so on... There is just so much more content available in English that I don't even bother searching in my native language (French).
> I speak German and trying to keep up with the language in America is nearly impossible because I can't find any good source of German language
I find that hard to believe. Nowadays it is so easy to get a lot of stuff online.
> books
For older stuff there is the English Gutenberg or the German Gutenberg site and Wikisource also has some stuff.
And almost all books released in German are available as DRM free ePubs. Sign up to e.g. https://www.ebook.de/ with an email and minimal fake address (they require one even if you don't buy physical books) and pay with paypal.
> or TV shows or movies here in the US.
The public stations put a lot of stuff online. Google for "Mediathek" and the channel name (ARD, ZDF, 3Sat, ARTE, ORF, SRF). Most stuff shouldn't be geolocked and if it is, youtube-dl works also on those Mediatheken, too and if it is really geolocked, try the option '--geo-bypass-country de'. If that doesn't work, get a VPN like NordVPN.
Youtube also has lots of stuff. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funk_(Medienangebot) is a network of publicly funded producers, but it is entirely online, geared towards younger viewers but has lots of informative channels. Two of my favorites are mailab (short clips, topic always something scientific) or kurzgesagt (similar style as xkcd but with colored animations [they are Munich based, started out in English but added German content since being payed for it]). And the best thing is that all those shows are subtitled.
Depending on your age and if you are watching Let's Plays, people like Gronkh and the Rocketbeans might suit you. Or look for German channels on Twitch.
And as others already said, podcasts are big in Germany. Or online radio stations.
Also Netflix now. Of course "Dark" but especially"How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast)" is a great one.
> And beyond trying to legally purchase them, it's difficult to even pirate German language media. It just doesn't exist.
It does. You're just looking in the wrong places. :-)
Mldonkey is surprisingly often still used for that. Also some plain old download sites (granted, that are not that easy to find if you're not a regular on German sites).
Anybody can hit me up if they want some pointers (mail from profile, dingir_bhaak on Twitter, or bhaak on Freenode IRC).
I've studied Esperanto in the past and I love the concept, but getting TV shows, movies, and books in Esperanto is much much much harder than getting them in English. Which means people are exposed to English far more often and in more real-life scenarios than they would be in Esperanto.
This is a similar problem with any non-English language, I've found. I speak German and trying to keep up with the language in America is nearly impossible because I can't find any good source of German language books or TV shows or movies here in the US. And beyond trying to legally purchase them, it's difficult to even pirate German language media. It just doesn't exist.