At 12:51 PM 3/2/2007, you wrote: > >On Mar 2, 2007, at 1:58 PM, Carl Lumma wrote: > >>> What I was trying to say (and apparently didn't express well) >>> was that, in an audio CD course, it would be easier to learn the >>> Lojban >>> terminology a little at a time after teaching some phrases and >>> vocabulary. >> >> What I was trying to say is that I'd rather not learn the >> grammar at all -- I'd just like to learn to speak it. That's >> the real test of a language anyway. All of you who are interested >> in testing the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis can't hope to get any data >> before people are speaking it fluently. >> >> -Carl > >I'm going to assume you mean you don't want to learn any >named grammar. As in, you don't care what the stuff is called, >you just want to learn how to use it. If you don't have any grammar >at all in a course, all you'd learn from it would be a bunch of words >in isolation and rote phrases. That would be helpful for the >intermediate students who already know most of how to make sentences >in Lojban and want to expand their vocabulary, but not ideal for the >beginner. > >If we made something like the Pimsleur style CD, we probably >wouldn't have any reason to name the grammar stuff anyhow. None >of the CDs from Pimsleur that I've listened to do either.
Right! >And that's how you learned your first language, so I find it more >natural than purposely memorizing a set of rules. That's the idea, yes. Not that grammar isn't interesting. In fact I could see myself getting carried far away with this aspect of lojban. But I don't want to let that happen -- it happened to me with music -- I got turned from a practicing musician into a full-time music theorist via my interest in alternate tunings that are impossible to play on a piano. Via a mailing list, whaddyaknow. -Carl
