Pli koncerne Ana Pana

I am slowly making my way through what is technically the second portion of my introduction to Esperanto. Slowly meaning that I do not do the lessons as often as I should, and not that the lessons are difficult to understand or follow. This portion of the course is designed around a girl named Ana Pana. Whereas the first lesson grouping centers on the travels of an alien named Zam, teaching you fun facts about different locations around the globe. This second set seems to have a similar learning setup, consisting of vocabulary, fill-in-the-blank, and listening exercises. So far, it does not do much more than describe Ana personally. Who she is, what she likes, and where she lives. It is almost too basic for a language that prides it self on simplicity.

Some new things that I am encountering are the brief notes on grammatical clarifications that you will run into in the dialogue. It introduces how to form words (nouns, verbs, etc...), interrogative statements, affixes, and so on. It also has prepositions, which may be a new idea to most speakers of American English.

There is also a section for listening. Comprehension is not the primary focus for this part of the exercise. I mean while it is important for you to understand what you are hearing. The goal is to see if you can transfer what you hear into the correct words.

A new part that I particularly enjoy is the writing comprehension portion. Not only does this give you the opportunity to use Esperanto for practical reading, but also, you have the chance to work on you sentence composition. I think both are key elements to learning a new language. You submit your answers via the website, and a person at Lernu corrects them in about twenty-four hours.

In addition to the answers you submit, you can post any additional comments or questions you have in a designated section beneath the Q & A. My question today was concerning the formation of number phrases, primarily when or when not to make them compound words. Ekzemple, in English we say "eighteen", one word. In Spanish "dieciocho", also one word. However, when I used "dekok" to answer a question about age, I was corrected with "dek ok". Since the correlation is not the same for the teens in this instance, I wanted to know if any of the numbers are written in a compound form. I also asked if there was a place I could practice them. Perhaps a math section, even though I hate those, I think it would be useful all the same.

I added a link to "Landoj kaj Lingvoj de la Mondo", or "Countries and Languages of the World". This is the place to go to get the "official" translations of places around the globe. In addition, if you live in the U.S., it provides the equivalents for all fifty states (sorry, no capitols). In addition, it provides languages spoken in that country. The one for the U.S. is also extensive here including languages belonging to Native Americans as well. Neat!