Judith's language learning blog

The 9th of November is a really important date for Germany. Three historic events happened on this date:

A post on the German Pirate Party going from 0 to 9.8% in the recent Berlin state election, and what this movement is about. Politics – don’t like, don’t read.

I don’t often rant on here, but this topic is not letting me go. Skip this if you’re only interested in the language posts.

“From each according to his abilities; to each according to his needs.” I’m the first to point out the flaws of this basic tenet of Communism – I certainly want to be paid more if I can do a job better than the next guy, or if I’m ready to work longer hours. However, in the case of health care, the spirit of Communism is the way to go. There are several issues…

I am back in Germany now, back on regular internet, so it’s time for a post. Today I would like to comment on the movie “Capitalism: A Love Story” by Michael Moore, which I watched the last night before leaving Atlanta.
WARNING: this is not just a movie critique but an expression of my political/economic beliefs, so don’t read if that might offend you.

You might think so, seeing just how much media attention Esperanto has been getting this end of July 2009.

The most detailed coverage comes from Germany’s number-one public TV station ARD, which aired this report on the Esperanto World Youth Congress, with both the reporter and the news host speaking very good Esperanto.

Also very unexpected is this BBC news article about Esperanto with a special focus on its role in reconciliation between Jews and Arabs.

Then, Deutsche Welle published two favourable articles on Esperanto within a single week: Esperantists keep the dream alive, prompted by the Esperanto World Congress now taking place in Poland, and The future of Esperanto looks bright according to our readers, a collection of sent-in testimonials.

Also prompted by the Esperanto World Congress, the British Times Online titled Conference proves that Esperanto can be the language of love. Of course since the conference is taking place in Poland, Polskie Radio also reports on it and the European Jewish Press also reports. Even Chinese Xinhua news agency tried to report about the congress, but mixed up the articles.

EDIT: Another reader informed me that the Taipei Times also had a bilingual article related to the Esperanto World Congress at the beginning of July. Read it here.

EDIT: It seems I missed a lot of nice articles because they were in the countries’ national languages, reaching more readers this way. A brief listing, for those who can read these languages:
Chinese: The missing Xinhua article, in Chinese
French: Radio France Internationale, Libération, several regional papers also wrote about this
Korean: Korean TV station YTN
Lithuanian: Bernardinai
Polish: Lots, search Gazeta.pl for Esperanto for a start.
Portugese: Veja, Acoriano Oriental
Turkish: Salom

UPDATE: The Austrian newspaper Der Standard just published an by the Kuwait Times, by China Daily and by Dawn.com. What’s amazing is that these articles are not copycats, they each seem to have done their own research and their own interviews.

Finally, for reasons still unknown to me, one of the top stories in the Birmingham Mail is about two Esperanto speakers, one from Birmingham, getting married
next year. Would they have been written about if they had been brought together by a shared love of beer?

Esperanto speakers, mark the time. Could it be that journalists are the first to know that Esperanto is hot?

Non-Esperanto speakers, are you curious to see what Esperanto is like now? Try this free lecture, this site with lots of answers or free comprehensive online courses.

Let me introduce myself here in this first post.

My name is Judith Meyer, I’m a 25-year-old German girl living in Berlin with my American boyfriend, Chuck Smith. I originally come from Kamp-Lintfort, a small town near Düsseldorf, but I’ve been living in Berlin since March 2008 and I absolutely love this city!

I have a huge interest in languages, programming, politics, history, philosophy and methods of learning and teaching. My university major is French studies, with minors in computational linguistics (wish I could take that as a major!) and management. I just need to write my thesis to complete my degree, but it’s taking longer than expected because I work so much on the side. I tutor people in German, Latin and Esperanto over the internet, occasionally also French or English, and I work as the project manager of GermanPod101.com, also writing and recording most lessons. When I need a mental challenge, I like to program in Ruby on Rails or play the ancient Asian game of Go.

Read more about my starting point in each of the categories!