#learning your conlang

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Learning Your Conlang: Learning Methods (part five)

It is, of course, impossible to make this series a full and complete list of the different ways to learn a conlang, but even if I go on with this series for years, I will never cover all of the different ways that people can interact with a language in a way that helps them internalize it. Neither can I tell you what the way to go is for you. You just have to experiment and keep working with the conlang (or even natlang) that you want to learn and eventually you'll improve. It just takes a few steps and a few missteps to get there.

The reason why I first suggested to learn some sort of other language (or even another conlang!) was so that you could get a feel for what would work best for you when you were to teach yourself your conlang. Learning in and of itself is a process, but many language learners get stuck before they even get started because they get so caught up in what kind of process they are using that they don't actually start to learn the language.

I believe that that problem is even worse with conlangs, because in this case there are so many distractions one can fall prey to. You're (most likely) creating the language yourself, so you can get caught up in working in the technical aspects of the language rather than experiencing it yourself.

In the end, it doesn't matter what method you decide to use as long as you work with the language. It's best to work in many different ways anyways in order to get the best understanding of your language as possible. Once you take the first step to learning your language, it should just roll along steadily. Just keep moving forward and don't get discouraged by your progress (or plateauing). As long as you keep working seriously with the language it should work out for the best.

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Resources and Additional Readings:

http://www.spanish-only.com/2008/07/dont-be-a-quitter/

http://www.spanish-only.com/2009/08/turn-negative-positive/

http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/aim-to-fail

http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/how-to-accomplish-great-things-small-victories-winnable-games

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Learning Your Conlang: A-Translating We Will Go! (Learning Methods - part four)

It can be argued that the goal of creating a language is to be able to translate things into it. Granted, most of us conlangers are doing it for the art of it all, but if you're not able to translate anything into your language, it's not really much of a success, is it? You need to be able to express whatever you want in your language, and sometimes that might include things that you already know how to say in a natural language.

Translating is one of those things that is unavoidable once you start working with a language. You constantly need to think about how you might want to say X in your language, or "what would Y word be?" and so on and so forth. It's also much easier to explain how your language works if you can show someone what it looks like when it's being used. Plus, translating again and again helps you to a) better understand how your language works in an active setting and b) actually be able to understand your language in and of itself better.

Let me explain. One can be creating a language, making up rules and words and such, and might be able to understand everything that happens grammatically, but without using that language in any manner they will probably not be fluent in it. That's where translation comes in. Obviously there are no native materials in whatever conlang this happens to be, but the cool thing about being a conlanger is that you can actually make yourself some native materials. It may be nigh impossible to really immerse yourself within your language, but you can at least make it so if you do decide to write up a grammar or something, there will be plenty of examples. (Plus you can use the sentences or passages you translate in this sort of learning method!)

Translating, while probably not used as much as it has in the last, has been used for specific language learning for years and years. The goal was to be able to translate Latin and Greek classics by learning rules and word lists and using those to translate from the target language text into their native language. "But how can I do this in conlanging?", you may ask. Well, there are a lot of things that people translate within our community.

The Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) is probably the most translated and most well-known of all texts used by conlangers. In fact, you can even see it depicted upon our flag.

While some may debate its usefulness, it has indeed become a tradition to translate this text at least once in a language's lifespan. It is probably a popular choice because it talks about the creation of many languages from one, and because it has a nice variety of different sentence structures and words within it. The passage is as follows (King James Translation):

1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. 2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. 3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. 4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. 5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. 6 And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. 7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. 8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. 9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

Of course, the Tower of Babel is not the only biblical text translated. The Pater Noster, or Our Father prayer, is also chosen frequently, although it has been being used less than something like the Babel Text.

The North Wind and the Sun, which is one of Aesop's fables, is becoming more and more a popular choice for translation. It is a relatively simple story, and is also much better for those who would prefer not to translate a biblical passage.

The passage is as follows:

The North Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger, when a traveler came along wrapped in a warm cloak.

They agreed that the one who first succeeded in making the traveler take his cloak off should be considered stronger than the other.

Then the North Wind blew as hard as he could, but the more he blew the more closely did the traveler fold his cloak around him;and at last the North Wind gave up the attempt. Then the Sun shined out warmly, and immediately the traveler took off his cloak.

And so the North Wind was obliged to confess that the Sun was the stronger of the two.

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is quite short, but it is good if you just need a sample of just a few sentences. If you would like to do more than that, the entire text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is doable if you are interested in a longer translation along the same lines.

The passage is as follows:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Of course, there are many many more things that one can translate. You are free to fill phrasebooks, come up with your own original text to translate, or even steal some text that you like from someone else (provided that you say where the original text is from). The more you translate, especially combined with other learning methods, will only help you in your quest to learn your language. Translation might seem tedious or boring, but it is helpful in the end, whether you're translating to learn your conlang or just to show it off to others. 

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Resources and Additional Reading:

http://www.arthaey.com/conlang/translationex.html

http://www.fantasist.net/conlang.shtml

http://web.archive.org/web/20090427160425/http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/teotax.html

http://conlang.wikia.com/wiki/Conlang:Translations

http://fiziwig.com/conlang/syntax_tests.html

http://conlangs.livejournal.com/500959.html

http://conlangs.livejournal.com/523944.html

http://www.articleclick.com/Article/Learn-a-Language-Through-Translation/1047671

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/articles/translation-activities-language-classroom

https://celtathens.wordpress.com/2010/08/02/raising-language-awareness-through-the-study-of-translation-part-i/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammar_translation

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Learning Your Conlang: It's Back to School for You! (Learning Methods - part three)

If you're not really up to the whole "flashcard" thing but still want to go old-school, you may want to look into making a sort of text for yourself. Whether you want to call it a formal grammar or just a collection of lessons, writing up some sort of grammatical text that describes how your language works might just help you in learning how everything works. You can then use it to create other things like worksheets if you're so inclined or other learning activities much like those you would find in a classroom.

But what do you include in these lessons? Well, short answer is everything. The long answer is everything to make it a full usable and complete language. Different people have different ideas about what one should be including in a grammar, but most of the time it boils down to:

Introduction

Phonology

Morphology 

Derivational morphology 

Syntax

Semantic fields and pragmatics 

Writing system 

Examples 

Lexicon

Of course, not everyone agrees on this layout, and in fact, Mr. Peterson (creator of Dothraki, Kamakawi, etc.) stated this when questioned about his Kamakawi sections on his website:

"Back when I was starting out, I had the same view of language and linguistics as most ling. undergrads: syntax trees, morphemes, discrete phonemes, etc., and my languages (and their descriptions) reflected that (and suffered for it). Over the years, though, I’ve come to share the opinion that (I think) many in the field are beginning to adopt: that there really is no formal difference between morphology and syntax. Some have taken this to mean that there is no lexicon, and that word-internal rules look pretty much like syntactic trees (see Distributed Morphology). I’ve taken the opposite route to the same conclusion: the lexical machinery that derives words also derives larger units. The goal of both approaches (or one of them, anyway), though, is to eliminate the formal distinction between morphology and syntax. This is why I don’t fret if I don’t see a section describing the “syntax” of a given conlang in someone’s grammar: they’re on the right track. Besides, usually what you see in those sections is just some comments on word order and how to form questions or topicalize a noun… Such things would probably be better discussed elsewhere."

http://conlangery.com/2012/01/16/conlangery-33-suprasegmental/#comment-1373

But in the end, as long as you get your message across it matters little how you decide to organize it, particularly if you are a beginner. If you are just starting out and have little knowledge yet of how language works within the sphere of academic linguistics- a good sign would be if that previous comment by Mr. Peterson sounded like a bit of gibberish to you -then it is fine to stick with the basics until you can understand how else you might want to organize things.

Before you decide to write something up for yourself, I advise you to take a look at multiple grammars for other conlangs. Don't only look at ones for well-known conlangs, but also take a look at amateur grammars. Some of the best examples of good conlang grammars (or grammars-in-progress) I have seen thanks to looking at other people's languages.

A good yet obscure example I personally have run into would be of the conlang Wexamazeovra. If you click the link you can see all of the posts made about the language. If you were to click on any of the sections of the grammar you would see a detailed yet brief explanation of the parts of the language relevant to the section. Although this is far from complete (and the project itself put on an indefinite hiatus), you can gain from seeing how things are organized and set up in a way to be understandable by those not particularly involved with the project.

If you're not sure where to start at all, perhaps you might be better off starting with something smaller, like an outline of your conlang. There are even templates out there for you if you're not sure what to include, although they might include terminology you might not know.

Once you have that information down, you can study straight from that text or maybe you might want to make some more fun lessons from it. It's all up to you. Working from a strict grammar might be a bit more difficult than other methods if you're not used to working like that, but people have been learning languages through this method for decades before we had things like Rosetta Stone and other programs. So, if you're not sure where to start, why not try this? It involves doing pretty much what you'd be doing already to share information with the rest of the conlanging community.

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Resources and Additional Reading:

Mark Rosenfelder. The Language Construction Kit. Yonagu Books, 2010.  

http://zompist.com/kitwrite.html

Examples:

Toki Pona: http://bknight0.myweb.uga.edu/toki/lesson/lesson0.html

Quenya: http://folk.uib.no/hnohf/qcourse.htm

Kamakawi: http://dedalvs.com/kamakawi/ty/main.html or http://dedalvs.com/kamakawi/main.html

Wexamazeovra: http://conlangers.freeforums.org/wexamazeovra-f17.html

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Learning Your Conlang: An Old System with a Modern Twist (Learning Methods - part two)

Humor me for a moment and think back to any language classes you might have had in your schooling experience, whether in your native language or a foreign language. Do you remember anything in particular that you did while learning (or expanding) your skills in that language? Perhaps you did worksheets, or translation or speaking activities, but there is one thing that I can almost guarantee almost everyone- and I say almost because I know for a fact that I was too lazy to do so -crammed using notecards before a test. Surprise surprise! That's what I'm talking about this week.

Before you decide to unfollow the blog and close the tab, just listen. I don't necessarily mean pounding vocab word after vocab word into your head like you're studying for the SATs. I'm talking about something that is similar to that, but much much more effective for those who have the patience for it.

Spaced Repetition learning systems (hereafter referred to as SRS) are essentially flashcards. Digital flashcards that you can use to review or learn your material. Of course, in order to use this method you absolutely need to have 'native' materials. By native, of course I mean documentation. I've said it before, and I will say it again, you must have all sorts of documentation to do anything! In this situation, many different kinds of sample translations will be best for you. The sentences shouldn't be long, but they should use different types of sentence structures so that you can get a well-rounded knowledge of your language and its grammar.

But why would this do anything? You're just memorizing sentences, right? Well, not quite. You're learning the grammar and vocabulary in context. There's no translation on the back of the card for you to memorize. You just have your particular sentence on one side and you judge yourself by how well you think you understood that. The good thing about using SRS rather than traditional flashcards is that it helps you out. The items you score higher on it shows you less frequently and the items you score lower on will come up more frequently. Of course, if you are just a beginner, using SRS might be a bit difficult at first, but once you have something to work off of it goes astonishingly fast.

So what would you be using with this SRS thing? Well, you've got a few options (and not all of them are included here, so do your own research before deciding for sure!):

Supermemo - supermemo.com

From what I hear, this is the original SRS client. Unfortunately, you do have to buy a license for this and sometimes it takes a bit of fiddling with, but it is worth mentioning just because most SRS programs are based off of the same algorithms that Supermemo uses.

Mnemosyne - mnemosyne-proj.org

Mnemosyne is a very lightweight client that can pretty much do anything. I personally used this one more than Anki, but it's up to you. In order to use images and sound you will have to mess around with some HTML, so if you're not comfortable with that you might want to either forgo images or sound or try a different client.

Anki - ankisrs.net

Anki is the most popular of all the SRS clients. There is a huge community using it and the program is really quite flexible. You are also able to download decks of cards or plugins or even sync your deck with the Anki server so you can study away from home! New versions of Anki are released pretty often too.

Even if you're not completely comfortable with the idea of studying notecards, I do urge you to at least try it out. Just take a few minutes every day for a week going over your deck. Then you can decide whether or not it is doing something for you. Some people don't like SRS and some people love it. Learning a language- whether conlang or natlang -is all about being flexible and working how your brain wants to work in order to learn the best you can.

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Resources and Additional Reading:

http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/aim-to-fail

http://omniglot.com/language/srs.php

http://www.spanish-only.com/2009/06/srs-practice-srs/

http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/popping-bubblewrap-tips-for-better-srs-sentence-items

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Learning Your Conlang: Learning Methods (part one)

So you're finally ready to learn, you think? Got some experience with language learning under your belt and some impatience with having to wait to start? Well, then, just take a moment to breathe. Because we're finally talking about something that brings you one step closer to learning your conlang: learning methods.

As I mentioned before, the reason why I did a whole spiel (and miniseries) on learning a more mainstream conlang was because you need to experiment with different methods of learning and find what works best for you. It's not really all that good to trust what has worked for you with a natural language because there is just so much more available native materials for natlangs. If you had just relied on the sorts of things that you used when learning, say, Spanish or something, then it will be a surprise to see that you can't really use all of the same input methods because of the sheer lack of things to choose from. Especially if you are learning your own conlang. Unless you have made hours and hours of "native" material to study off of, an input-based method is not going to work all that well. Even if you are fond of that sort of thing (as I am myself).

That being said, documentation is on your side here. Make sure to document everything you can about your language before you start to learn it. As mentioned in previously, if you do not have a well-enough-developed conlang then you are sinking yourself from the beginning. You need to have something to learn, and if you are planning on making it up as you go then you may not be as well-prepared to learn your conlang fully and efficiently as if you decided to complete as much as you can to get a full overview of how the language works as a system. This doesn't only include things like basic phonology, vocabulary, or general syntax and word ordering. This also includes things such as stress pattern and other oft-overlooked items for a newbie conlanger.

But if you're confident that you have all that down, that you've learned enough about how you want to personally learn your language and you know how it works enough so that it is not only usable in a real-life context but you don't have to wing it every time, then it's time to start discussing how you're going to choose to learn this language. There are many different ways to decide how to go about this, so let's take a look at just a few of the methods you can learn to help you in your conlang learning.

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References and Additional Reading:

http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4709&PN=1

http://joe-perez.com/blog/2011/07/the-indescribable-happiness-of-learning-a-constructed-language/

http://conlangs.livejournal.com/408243.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/02/010222075152.htm

This is more of an article of interest rather than a specifically related post.

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Learning Your Conlang: Learning Mainstream Conlangs (part four)

Now, it would be wrong to discount the two more recent conlangs that have gained not only notoriety within non-conlanging circles and communities behind them. That is why in the last post of the Learning Mainstream Conlangs miniseries I will be going over them at once. Just please note that I myself have not tried to learn Na'vi or Dothraki, so do your own research if you are interested in learning either language. Now that that is dealt with, on with the post!

The first conlang we are looking at would be Na'vi, a conlang which came into view in 2009 with the release of the film Avatar. It was created by linguist Paul Frommer  and the base wordlist that Frommer used to create the language had a sort of "Polynesian flavor" to it. It contains unusual features such as ejective consonants and a lack of voiced plosives (like b, d, g) since it was intended to be an alien language.

Learn Na'vi Forums - forum.learnnavi.com

No matter the language r subject matter, looking at or joining in on conversation on forums are usually a good bet. There are many subforums, both about Na'vi and other subjects. If you are interested in joining more a community around the language, this might be a good idea.

Na'vi in a Nutshell - learnnavi.org/docs/Navi_in_a_Nutshell.pdf

While in my first read-over I noticed a few statements that were a bit... problematic for those who fall on the more descriptivist side of the language debate, but it is a good enough overview of the basic grammar. I would advise that if you want to use this as a resource to look over linguistic terms first. There are some concepts beginners may be unfamiliar with.

Definitive Na'vi Dictionary - eanaeltu.learnnavi.org/dicts/NaviDictionary.pdf

This one is pretty self-explanatory. It's a dictionary. Good for looking up vocabulary. Some knowledge of IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) recommended.

Na'vi might be an alien language, but there are plenty of people lining up to learn it. Granted, there probably is not as much interest in the language as there was in 2010, but there still is a community around the language. Paul Frommer himself even keeps a blog about the language for those who want to learn it or learn about it.

Of course, just because Na'vi has gotten out of the conlanging spotlight does not mean that there hasn't been another language to take its place. In fact, there is a newcomer who is getting a lot of attention by those who want to learn. The language in question is Dothraki, created by well-known conlanger David J. Peterson. We've discussed one of Mr. Peterson's conlangs, Kamakawi, last week. Dothraki was commissioned through the Language Creation Society for the television series Game of Thrones.

At this point I am finding very few resources for learning Dothraki, even fewer than Na'vi, but that may be because there has been less time for it to really get out there and get well-written learning materials (other than those that Mr. Peterson have made for the show itself)

Learning Dothraki on the Dothraki Wiki - wiki.dothraki.org/dothraki/Learningdothraki

This wiki seems to have all of the information currently publicly known on the language. Since Game of Thrones is still airing, there is still much Dothraki that we have not seen. This wiki page has pages on the different things you would need to know about the language.

It's a bit difficult when the languages have not been around for as long as something like Klingon (which also was a language used in television/movies), but i you really want to you could learn something like the above if any other mainstream conlangs don't interest you. Just have fun with it and choose what you are most interested in. Whether its one of the languages I have suggested or something else, if you put a little work into it soon enough you'll be playing scrabble in Sindarin or writing to your Lojban penpal!

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References and Additional Reading:

http://www.learnnavi.org/

http://www.learnnavi.org/docs/Navi_in_a_Nutshell.pdf

http://eanaeltu.learnnavi.org/dicts/NaviDictionary.pdf

http://podcast.conlang.org/2010/04/interview-with-paul-frommer/

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1977

http://www.dothraki.com/

http://dothraki.conlang.org/press/

http://wiki.dothraki.org/dothraki/Learningdothraki

http://whatsnext.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/06/language-creation-for-game-of-thrones/

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Learning Your Conlang: Learning Mainstream Conlangs (part three)

Even if a person does not know what a conlang is or has no knowledge of something like Esperanto or Sindarin or any of them, chances are that they will know of one conlang. That, my lovely readers, would be Klingon, language of the Klingon people from Star Trek. Of course, the Klingons do not call it "Klingon". The true name of the language would be tlhIngan Hol. And you don't have to be a Trekkie anymore to learn it. (Although that makes it a hundred times cooler.)

Klingon is a more difficult choice of mainstream conlang to learn, especially when compared to Esperanto, but it also is more interesting and foreign and could help a lot with finding new and interesting ideas to perhaps incorporate into your own conlang. It is also useful to learn something more different and unusual like Klingon because it may make it easier when you are learning your own (presumably easier) conlang.

noH QapmeH wo' Qaw'lu'chugh yay chavbe'lu', 'ej wo' choqmeH may' DoHlu'chugh lujbe'lu' Destroying an empire to win a war is no victory, and ending a battle to save an empire is no defeat.

But just as warning: as mentioned before, there are some... weird features in Klingon, for lack of better phrasing. When one is learning Klingon, it is very important to keep the following in mind:

The Latin orthography is quite unusual in that uppercase and lowercase letters stand for different sounds. So while q may stand for an aspirated voiceless uvular stop, Q stands for a voiceless uvular affricate.

Speaking of phonology, the actual sounds of Klingon are...not what is to be expected. There are gaps in the phonology, particularly in the area of velar plosives (Klingon has none) and sibilants (it only has one sibilant, /ʂ/), and some of the sounds that Klingon does have are a bit difficult for some.

The grammar of Klingon itself is a bit difficult, with 29 total suffixes for nouns in five classes and even more complex verbs. The syntax is also a bit unfamiliar with the most common word order being object-verb-subject, the complete opposite of English.

Klingon's lexicon does not contain many words that you might want to use. It takes some creativity to say certain things with Klingon's limited vocabulary and grammar.

Nonetheless, if you would like to take on the challenge (and I encourage you to if you are interested at all!) here are a few resources I was able to find online Please note that I have not tried to learn Klingon myself seriously, so check them out for yourself:

Klingon Language Institute - kli.org

I couldn't just not mention the KLI. It is The Place to look if you are interested in finding out more about Klingon and the community of speakers and learners interested in it. They release a quarterly journal called the HolQed as well as provide resources about the language.

Klingon Language Resources - klingon.org/resources/languages.html

This page has links out to other resources that you may or may not find useful. In my opinion, if I was looking for a page of resources online I would probably deem this the most acceptable one and go from there to find what I need. It has links to everything from mailing lists to the Klingon Language Certification Program.

Klingon Wikibook - en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Klingon

I recently found this wikibook, but it looks like a good place to start if you are not sure where to go from. It doesn't seem like it is completely finished, but as for basics it might work. It also has good background information on Klingon, which is always nice.

You can also always go out and get something like The Klingon Dictionary by Marc Okrand as well. Klingon might not be the first choice of some as a conlang to learn, but it is really is interesting and if I personally had more time I would totally try to learn it. Unfortunately, as far as I know, Klingon does not have the same amount of different lessons and teaching or learning resources as something like Esperanto, but why not try anyway? There are plenty of fun things to do in Klingon from reading Hamlet to watching opera and much much more. Just try it out. yIghoSDo'! (Good luck! Or literally, go onward with fortune!)

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References and Additional Reading:

http://www.kli.org/

http://www.klingon.org/resources/language.html

http://www.frathwiki.com/Klingon_language

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Klingon

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/klingon.htm

Sample translation and picture from here.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/10873/klingon-as-a-second-language

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Learning Your Conlang: Learning Mainstream Conlangs (part two)

If you have been around the conlanging community for any period of time, you have probably heard of Esperanto. If you haven't, where have you been? It's only (arguably) the most successful conlanging project thus far. It has native speakers, for crying out loud! Can't get much better than that. But I am not here to talk about the history of Esperanto or its successes and failures in achieving its goal or even the affects it has had on the conlanging community. That's a story for another post. Today we are here to think about how learning Esperanto might help us when we decide to learn another language further down the line.

So, why learn Esperanto? Disregarding the fact that it has speakers all around the globe, Esperanto is, quite simply, an easy language for us to learn. And by us, I mean speakers of an Indo-European language. It is an extremely extremely Eurocentric language. But for our use as English speakers (as I assume you are if you are reading this blog in English) it will be no problem.

As I went over in our last post, learning one language can help you in learning other languages. It flexes the language learning muscle, so to speak. Plus it opens you to a whole new area of the conlanging community that you may or may not be interested in: the Esperantists. Now occasionally Esperantists may get some flak about the whole artlang vs. auxlang debate, but to be honest, most of the people I have met through Esperanto were very nice and open to speaking in it. You also get the chance to meet awesome people you may not have before. And I promise that they are not all militant superfans.

The next question one must ask is simple: How do I learn Esperanto? Luckily for you, there are many many resources online. It all depends on what you are most comfortable with. Here are just a few that I have personally used:

Lernu - en.lernu.net

Lernu is a website with various lessons at different skill levels. It also has resources like multilingual dictionaries and a chat service that lets you speak with other Esperanto learners. It also has a community of its own and various stories and native materials. If you're not sure where to start, give lernu a try.

"Free Esperanto Course" - pacujo.net/esperanto/course/

This personally was my introduction to Esperanto. I started out with these lessons and then went on to self-teaching. (Although I will admit that I never got my diploma from this. But I did learn the basics.) If you are a beginner and are comfortable with emailing someone lessons, I recommend trying out this course.

Kurso de Esperanto - www.kurso.com.br/index.php?en

This one is a program for your computer with various lessons on it. It even includes pronunciation/listening exercises and music with the sorts of things you could get in the other lessons. It may be worth looking into if you want to make sure you have it spoken right. Or if you just want to use a computer program. That works too.

And of course, there are many other ways to learn. From books to watching native media (and yes there is native media nowadays) and much more, Esperanto is easy to find if you look for it. Plus, if you're an average English-speaking language learner and work hard enough you should be pretty proficient in a few weeks. Enough so to be able to talk to others on the spot online. And then once you feel comfortable with Esperanto and think you are finally ready to learn your conlang, you can take the methods that worked best for Esperanto and apply them to your own lessons!

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References and Additional Reading:

http://www.esperanto.org/angle/kiel.html

http://esperanto-usa.org/?q=node/55

http://www.micheloud.com/fxm/la/la/esperanto.htm

http://en.lernu.net/

http://pacujo.net/esperanto/course/

http://www.kurso.com.br/index.php?en