Anyone who has wanted to learn a language that belongs to no single nation will find a patient guide in this book. Esperanto was first presented to the world in 1887 by L. L. Zamenhof, and in the years since many textbooks have been written to help beginners reach a working knowledge of it. Helen Fryer’s The Esperanto Teacher is arranged as a course. It opens with the alphabet and the sounds of the letters, then moves lesson by lesson through vocabulary and grammar, always with the practical aim of making the learner able to read and write. Because it was intended for study, the recording is something like a class: listening gives you the sound of the language while the structure builds gradually. Seventy recordings, about eight hours, for the curious and the persistent.
Introduction
The international language Esperanto was first published in 1887 by L. L. Zamenhof, in a book that appeared under the name Dr. Esperanto’s International Language. The word Esperanto itself came from the pseudonym under which Zamenhof first published it, Doktoro Esperanto, meaning one who hopes. His hope was that a simple, regular, neutral language could help people of different nations communicate. In the years that followed, many teaching books were produced for English-speaking learners, and The Esperanto Teacher by Helen Fryer, dated 1907, is one of them.
The book is organised as a course. It starts with a title, a presentation, a preface, a note on how to use the book and a statement of the origin and aim of Esperanto. Then comes the alphabet with the sounds of the letters, followed by a series of numbered lessons. Each lesson introduces new words and points of grammar.
A recording of a language textbook is naturally a special kind of listening. You will hear the lessons read aloud, with Esperanto examples as well as English explanation, and the sound can help to fix pronunciation. It is best to use the recording alongside the text, if possible, and to pause and repeat.
The book has seventy files and runs for about eight hours. It was read by LibriVox volunteers. It is a good choice for anyone interested in constructed languages, in the history of Esperanto, or in learning the basics of the language in the way early twentieth-century students did.
Public domain
Helen Fryer died in 1907: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
