Getting Started with Esperanto

You may not find an Esperanto school nearby, but it is still easy to get started

Image by Adam Lapuník from Pixabay

While Esperanto has a flag, there’s no “Esperanto Land” to visit: Esperanto is a language that belongs to everybody, not just a limited group of people at a certain geography.

It is, though, easier to find other Esperantists in some parts of the world, especially in Europe, but you can get started with the language no matter where you are.

If you are interested in Esperanto, I would suggest that you start by checking out Wikipedia’s pages about the language – they give you various useful information, and also many links to other places to visit:

Wikipedia: Esperanto

The next step is to find a local organization, since that will bring you in touch with other esperantists, and probably also guide you to more information and courses that you can take part in. Wikipedia has a page in English with the names of many organizations, but each of them does not necessarily have their own page on Wikipedia, making the links to them red (meaning that the links are there for future use but do not work right now). However, the similar page in Esperanto is full of links to the organizations’ pages in Esperanto, which in general all are there by now, so I suggest that you look at both of the overview pages – the English one to see what exists, and the one in Esperanto to find a link, so you can get in contact:

Wikipedia: List of Esperanto organizations (in English).

Wikipedia: Esperanto-asocio (in Esperanto). Look for the section called “Landaj Esperanto-asocioj” to find a link to your part of the world (I’m sure you’ll understand what is written there, even if you haven’t learned Esperanto yet).

As an example, I looked at the Esperanto-asocio page to find a link to Listo de landaj Esperanto-asocioj en Eŭropo, and there a link to Sveda Laborista Esperanto-Asocio – which is one of the Swedish organizations. The page has a link to the organization’s official homepage (“Oficiala retejo”), and various other links that you can try out. The page itself is, when going this way to it, in Esperanto, but there are a couple of other language versions of it, that you can choose in the top right part of the page. Near the bottom of the page, there are links to categories that this page belongs to, including Svedaj Esperanto-asocioj – clicking on it will give you a category page for all Esperanto organizations in Sweden, that are represented on Wikipedia. One of them is Sveda Esperanto-Federacio, which I’m a member of.

It is written there, among other things, that their “Interretejo” (Internet) address is esperantoförbundet.se, which is a website in Swedish. Nevertheless, if you are in Sweden, you’ll quickly find on it the “Klubbar och grupper” link to a page showing the local clubs and groups, including the groups in Stockholm, Malmo, Gothenburg, and Uppsala.

And there you go! If you live in Malmo, just make contact to the main organization and/or the local group, and you are on your way to become a true Esperantist :)

I should admit that the way of finding information on Wikipedia can be a bit daunting at times. Of course, you can also just search with search words, or you can browse your way along other paths, but considering that everything on Wikipedia has been put there by volunteers, in their spare time, as they knew it and found the information interesting, I still think that it is quite a source of information. Just give it a chance, and you’ll find info about your local area as well.

You can also try googling “Esperanto” along with your local city name, etc., and this way find a local club.

The reason for me to promote these clubs and organizations is that this is a language! A language is best learned by talking it, using it, and best with some other people.

But you can also go a different way, through courses or course books.

I can recommend looking at the book called Teach Yourself Complete Esperanto, which has audio files on the Teach Yourself website, to help you get used to listening to the language.

The free course at Lernu.net is a great way of getting started as well, and is assisted by the social network/forum and other resources, such as a dictionary, that are also present on that same platform.

Duolingo has an Esperanto course too, and it can be a fun way to get started, especially if you are not used to learning languages, as it is arranged as a game. Duolingo requires you to create an account, but there is a free tier, and the app exists on both the web and smartphones, which offer different features for the free tier – just a hint, as you can then try the other one if you feel that one is too limited. Or you can pay for if, of course, to enter a higher tier.

Many other courses exist – often arranged by the local clubs (yet another reason for joining such one). In Sweden, Esperanto has during some years been available to study in high-schools, as an election language, along with Spanish, French, etc., and therefore there have been developed some study books, called “EPoGo: Esperanto por gimnazianoj” – which are available through esperantoförbundet.se (as part of their starter pack for new members) – based on the Swedish language.

I could imagine that something similar may exist elsewhere. In any case, during the years, several other study books have been published, often based on English, and these can be found where books a bought, today probably mostly on Amazon.

Some of the places you can find links to sources and forums are on Reddit: r/learnesperanto and r/Esperanto.

Amikumu is a mobile app that you can use to see who is nearby, to practice languages with. Not only Esperanto, but it works for this language too.

And, finally, I will add a couple of dictionaries to this information, because dictionaries are always good to know with any language you are trying to learn:

Vortaro: Esperanto to Esperanto dictionary

Lernu.net: It was mentioned before, but has also a built-in dictionary

That’s something to get started with – enjoy your journey!