Esperanto

[GrandPiano]

I'm guessing that a distinct "oh-ee" or "oo-ee" would be oi or ui, while oj or uj would be more of a digraph. Likewise, I would guess that "ej" would be pronounced like "ey", and "ei" would be pronounced like "eh-ee"; "aj" would be pronounced like "eye", and "ai" would be pronounced like "ah-ee".

Also, from and English standpoint, I find it pretty funny that "question" in Esperanto is "demando".

EDIT: How should a double consonant (such as the double "r" in "superrigardo") be pronounced?

EDIT2: Am I correct in guessing that, like how nouns always end in "o", verbs always end in "u" (e.g. "sendu" and "provu") and adjectives and adverbs always end in "e" (e.g. "bone", "korekte", and "denove")?

[Bogdan]

I'm guessing that a distinct "oh-ee" or "oo-ee" would be oi or ui, while oj or uj would be more of a digraph. Likewise, I would guess that "ej" would be pronounced like "ey", and "ei" would be pronounced like "eh-ee"; "aj" would be pronounced like "eye", and "ai" would be pronounced like "ah-ee".

Also, from and English standpoint, I find it pretty funny that "question" in Esperanto is "demando".

EDIT: How should a double consonant (such as the double "r" in "superrigardo") be pronounced?

EDIT2: Am I correct in guessing that, like how nouns always end in "o", verbs always end in "u" (e.g. "sendu" and "provu") and adjectives and adverbs always end in "e" (e.g. "bone", "korekte", and "denove")?

Ugh, about the counsonant I'm not exactly sure how to pronounce it. I would pronounce it with a longer r sound personally.
Don't think verbs are always end with u, for example: mi estas, not mi estu. Li loĝas (note, letter-x is a replacement for that special letters, such as ĝ from loĝas -> logxas) or even the one from my avi, which is ripari, not riparu.

Found something on google explaining them:

6. The VERB does not change for person or number. Forms of the verb: present time takes the ending -as; past time, -is; future time, -os; conditional mood, -us; command mood, -u; infinitive mood, -i. Participles (with adjectival or adverbial meaning): present active, -ant; past active, -int; future active, -ont; present passive, -at; past passive, -it; future passive, -ot. All forms of the passive are formed with the aid of the corresponding form of the verb esti [English to be] and the passive participle of the required verb; the preposition with the passive is de [English by].

Source: http://donh.best.vwh.net/Esperanto/rules.html

[GrandPiano]

Oh, I see. (I knew about the x convention thing btw) Any tips on the ĥ sound?

(BTW, for those of you that want to copy/paste these sounds, the ˆ is called a "circumflex" (different from a caret, ^), and ˘ is called a "breve", so you can search "<consonant> with circumflex" or "u with breve" for those special characters. Or you can just use the x-convention. Whatever you prefer. Also remember that the round breve ˘ is not to be confused with the pointy caron ˇ, and the pointy circumflex ˆ is not to be confused with the round inverted breve ̑ .)

[Oranjui]

I don't know for sure, but the website makes it seem like "h" is like the hard English H sound, as in "hat," while "ĥ" is more like, if you're familiar with it, German (and also in several other languages) CH sound - the one that kind of sounds like you're clearing your throat. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_velar_fricative
Just want to confirm, is "c" more of a "tss" sound where "s" is more of a soft "sss" sound? Or am I getting this wrong?

[GrandPiano]

Yes, c is a "ts" sound. (Ĉ, on the other hand, is equivalent to the English "ch")

Also, I am familiar with the German "ch", so I'll go with that. I can imagine that the horo/ĥoro thing can get confusing if you don't know what you're doing. (Horo means hour and ĥoro means choir)

EDIT: Wikipedia says it can also represent the voiceless uvular fricative.

EDIT2: So not only is ĥ a difficult sound to pronounce, but it's the least-used sound in Esperanto (least-used, mind you, not least-common; the least-common letter seems to be ĵ), which means I don't get much practice with it.

Although, apparently people have made up k-words to replace ĥ-words. For example, tekniko instead of teĥniko, and kemio instead of ĥemio. There's also koruso instead of ĥoro (because koro is already taken). I don't know if this is still used nowadays, though.

[Oranjui]

Is anyone still doing this?

Also anyone reading this who isn't still doing this should start

[Bogdan]

I do when I have some time and/or I am not a lazy idiot.
I was searching to see if there are any communities around, but shamefully couldn't find any in Romania. :S

[Oranjui]

Esperanto is now in open beta on Duolingo.

[GrandPiano]

I got an Esperanto book from the library a little while ago. I guess now's the time to open it.

[Oranjui]

Bump again because even though we all speak english among other languages, I still think it would be really cool to see this become an actual thing here if we can get people to really commit and go through with it. (I regrettably haven't.) I guess it's not really the most practical thing in the world, but it's something to do. It's something fun. It's interesting (dat history/theory doe), exciting (learning a new language? I mean, many of you have done it before, maybe to learn English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, or something else, but I'm fairly certain nobody here knows Eo. I just think it'd be really great for us all to embark on something like this and support each other along the way, providing motivation and conversation and stuff. Iunno.), and at least potentially useful (travel? maybe jobs? entertainment? exercising your brain/language learning?). Plus, as far as languages go, esperanto is pretty much as easy as it gets. _{wow that was a poorly written motivational speech, thanks being up at 3:45am}

So why not? Even if it's just for the hell of it. Anybody in?