Across the globe many people set themselves the ambitious task of studying various languages, with English taking up the largest share of attention. Such people's success is obvious when we consider Australia's multitude of migrants using English as a second language. But of all the non-English-speaking-background migrants I know – and such friends I knew when overseas – none has tried to learn their target languages by, well, trying to find an easier, artificial language instead. They just get on with the job.

Why should Australia be an exception in this regard? Though it seems not entirely alone, if we reflect on Henriette's comment about disappointing Japanese efforts at English. But would the comparison flatter Australians for their two generations' efforts at Japanese? And that without Japan's consistently notorious anti-migration record and sometimes stagnant demography. These cases merely re-emphasize the need for leadership in this area.

I understand the value of innovation in language teaching in decades past: language lab drills, frequent use of character/flash cards, and even meditative techniques with recordings of word association. More recently, various interactive projects offer promising means for students' free engagement with vocabulary. But why is the task deemed so hard that so many Australians approach the challenge by trying to find ways around and away from it?

Then, of course, there is the invaluable recourse to in-country study, where students should be excised entirely from their first language, leaving no choice but properly immersed engagement. An important issue here is the selection or entitlement for people so cleared for in-country study. I saw too many cases where Australians so tasked went to great trouble wasting time with other westerners so they could speak English regularly. This happened because workplace politics and a mercenary, anti-meritocratic education system overloaded in-country programs by despatching people quite unsuited: the wasted opportunities (and money) were obvious, while the diplomatic results were less so, but probably significant too.

But notice how the above practical concerns of language study apply little, if at all, in advocacy for artificial “universal languages”.

When i meet an esperantist from another country, and we don't know each other's tongue, using esperanto is so easy, compared to having to search for words in a dictionary and then align them in "my" way (often wrongly).
What about the "false friends" ? Newly arrived in Australia, i ventured to say "i demand..." Explosion of indignation "Oh, you DEMAND ! You come here, and YOU DEMAND !" I should have said "May i ask, pray, beg of you.." I got trapped by a word which, to me, was quite familiar.

I think of Esperanto as a multilingual dictionary, carried in my head, with enough simple rules to put the words together.

Reading magazines from many different countries is to me such a pleasure. From Finland to Bresil, from Beijing to Sweden, etc. In 1997 i attended in Adelaide the "Esperanto World Congress" and was deeply moved at this "miracle".

Of course, there are those Esperantists who fully master the language and can enjoy poetry, and classic literature, both in original Esperanto and in translation from many languages (from Chaucer to Goethe to ... The Little Red Book... to the Bible translated directly from Hebrew by Mr. Zamenhof himself, even our own Nevil Shutte..

Esperanto, oft accused of "having no culture" gives access to almost all of them, straight from "the horse's mouth"..

Which reminds me that for translators one of the great difficulties is to deal with idioms. Bye for now, or i'll be ejected again !

To Viking13

Thank you for alerting me to the australian meaning of "decimal" and "metric". I fell into the trap. In my french Larousse dictionary, "metric" is "ensemble, système des poids, mesures et monnaies ayant pour base le mètre". One more example of the "false friends" one can encounter when translating "natural" "national" languages. I did mean to refer to the decimal currency introduction which was deplored and resisted (prices will go up !) A jolly jingle was created - click the shears -
In come the dollars and in come the cents
to replace the pounds and the shillings and the pence.
Be prepared folks when the coins begin to mix
on the 14th of February 1966.

http://www.rba.gov.au/Museum/Displays/1960_1988_rba_and_reform_of_the_currency/introducing_the_new_decimal_notes.html The article tells us that the notes were well received.. i wonder whether the author of this article had been around the shops.