NASK 2009. A bunch of uloj playing cards.

Bonvolu venigi la portiston, laŭŝajne estas rano en mia bidejo.
Please send up the hall porter; there appears to be a frog in my bidet.

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Tonight I sat in my living room and watched five of my fellow students playing cards. They were from Austria, Israel, Italy, the United States and Colombia. They had no common language except Esperanto which they spoke with glee. The game was a lot of fun for me to watch.

I can't recall the last time I ever played cards.

Does old maid count?

The American wondered aloud, How do you say to 'cut the cards' in Esperanto?

I searched my dictionary and found the word: Miksi.

Then he cut the cards in Esperanto.

Since I am living 24/7 ( actually, when I am asleep I am unconscious but who knows..) with 30 Esperantists I have now, after six days, begun to think and function in this language.

Most of the people who work in the college manghejo ( mangh= eat, ej= place where something occurs [j is pronounced as a y so 'ey'], -o = noun: mangh+ej+o = eating place) are Hispanics. They speak with each other in Spanish. I spoke with them in Spanish from day one and now they refuse to speak any other language with me.

Yesterday I spent 45 minutes copying an Esperanto text during lunchtime. The lady who is in charge of the eatery yelled at me in Spanish.

Why are you so late today?

Today the lady who served me was Chinese.

I asked her in Chinese whether she spoke Mandarin.

She was speechless for a while. When she recovered she asked where I was from. I certainly couldn't be an American since I knew some Chinese. After all, Americans are world-reknowned for their reluctance to embrace other languages than English and, in many cases, not even English.

Does "Hey, you," , " Whatever", " Like...." as 90% of one's vocabulary count as fluent English?

We spoke in Mandarin.

She gave me an extra helping of hash browns she was so happy.

Maybe I should continue with my Mandarin studies.

Curiously, one country that has a large number of Esperanto speakers is China. The Chinese government broadcast a series of Esperanto lessons on national TV many years ago. Some of those millions of people are still studying and using Esperanto. China Radio International, the official radio station of China, which broadcasts in many languages in order to reach overseas audiences ( sort of like our Voice of America or the BBC) has a daily one hour broadcast in Esperanto.

Their programs are downloadable daily via the net.

Here is a link for the China Radio International site in Esperanto:

http://esperanto.cri.cn/

I just checked the site.

They have the latest world and national ( Chinese)news headlines, tourism, economics, social life, material on Esperanto in China and the world, as well as a lot of interesting cultural materials on China. Today they have a special video in Esperanto on the Chinese Esperanto poet, Mao Zi Fu, who died in an auto accident in 1985. She apparently is quite well known in China and was a prolific author.

I never heard of her.

If I didn't know Esperanto I still wouldn't know about her.

In our conversations here I have learned so much first-hand about other cultures, the personal experience of people from around the world, literature from many lands, religions, history, etc. etc.

Esperanto has opened the door to the whole world for me.

Esperanto malfermigis la pordon al la tuta mondo por me.

In Esperanto all words are built up from little wordlets just like the word word+let = wordlet. You just put these little pieces that express certain meanings together and, voila, you have a word that every Esperantist en la tuta mondo understands ( komprenas).

Facile? ( pronounced: fa tsih leh) Easy?

Here is an example using the above sentence. Look at the Esperanto sentence above as I break each word down for you and then rebuild it.

Esperanto mal( opposite of whatever follows; thus, bona =good, mal+bona = bad), ferm( to close), ig ( to make something happen, in this case to make something open) ( is= past tense for all verbs and persons) [ so mal+ferm+ig+is= opened] la = the, pordo= door, (+n= the direct object , ex. I saw the dog. I saw what? the dog is the direct object here) al= to, la= the, tut=all, whole, -a= adjective, mond=world, o= noun, por= for, mi= me.

Esperanto has opened the door to the whole world for me.

Esperanto malfermigis la pordon al la tuta mondo por me.