Learning materials. Secondary links

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Books

This book will teach you about how to read and use Lojban; what the different types of words and grammatical constructs do, how to use them and interpret them; how to express yourself in Lojban. It will not, however, teach you vocabulary, style, spoken flow, nor other aspects involved in really learning about and using a human language.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Since the publication of the full grammar there has been a change to the semantics of Lojban articles known as xorlo. These changes simplify the grammar in that aspect and are not difficult to grasp. Please keep this reform in mind when consulting the official reference grammar, as it was effectively published before the approval of xorlo.

Multimedia. Pronunciation guides

Word lists and dictionaries

Translators and parsers

Learning Materials Wish-List

Talking to Lojbanists. Live support

  • https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/Lojban-beginners - the Lojban mailing list where you can ask any questions.
  • A chat where you can make friends and ask for help for learning Lojban (in #ckule tab seen in the upper part of the screen on that page).
  • The just mentioned chat is the best way to practice real-time Lojban conversation Lojban IRC provides an excellent informal meeting place for conversing quickly in Lojban. It is beginner-friendly, as well. The IRC channel can be reached by opening this page. There is #lojban channel tab on that page for basic discussions, #ckule tab for questions from new learners and #jbosnu tab for discussions in Lojban only. By clicking on those tabs you can see new messages and reply to them. Here is an IRC cheat sheet for people who are learning Lojban.
Many Lojban students find the Lojban IRC chat room to be very valuable for getting their questions answered quickly when there are others around on the network. One can also try practicing their Lojban with others in a reasonable approximation of conversational speed.
  • http://facebook.com/groups/Lojban/ Facebook Logo Mini.svg - the group in Facebook.
  • In the previous places you can find people to join voice chat sessions, as well. See Lojbanic Phone Group for more information.
  • The three main forums for persistent, threaded conversation are presented as both web forums and e-mail mailing lists, using Google Groups.
  • The Lojban General Mailing List is probably still the best way to reach a broad cross-section of the Lojban community for active discussion. It has about 500 subscribers, and has existed more-or-less continuously since 1989. Any conversation at all about or in Lojban is on-topic for this list. For discussions specifically about learning the language, the Beginners list is a better choice. For discussions solely in Lojban, there's jbosnu, but it's got a much smaller subscriber list.
  • The Lojban Beginners Mailing List is for discussions related to learning Lojban. Anything about how to understand a part of the language, how to learn it better, study tools, actual teaching sessions, and so on, is on topic. Nothing else is.
  • jbofanva is a mailing list for translation projects.

Choose a source of vocabulary

The Lojban books and games teach you how to use Lojban, but they don't help you learn the whole vocabulary. For that you will need Word Lists, and flashcard sets from a site such as memrise.com, which is probably the most popular online flashcard site with Lojbanists. Another flashcard site gaining popularity among Lojbanists is Anki (downloadable; Lojban decks are downloadable within the program) and Quizlet (it's online; register and join the Lojban group; downloadable from Quizard on iPod/iPhone and from Kaka Flashcards on Android devices). Also, take a look at the jbovlaste dictionary and its (unfortunately) English-only user-friendly frontend vlasisku. You will need to have read a little, from one of the learning texts, about Lojban to know what kind of words you need to learn and thus how to effectively search for definitions.

A Tatoeba.org database has a large collection of sentence in Lojban.

There's also beginning to exist a set of vocabulary lessons, but they have just entered pre-alpha.

Read Lojban texts

Try reading a progression of proofread (proofed by at least one Lojbanist in addition to the author) Lojban texts, starting with short-and-easy through to long-and-difficult. For example, read Terry the Tiger (you can listen to this one too!), then one of the Berenstain Bears books, for example The Berenstain Bears and the Prize Pumpkin, then The Little Prince. For conversational text, try Everyday Lojban and Phrasebook.

Get started following a class

As it happens, fall 2011 semester contains the first Lojban Class at Rice University. Following that page will give you resources associated with the class. ALSO! Any even partially experienced Lojbanists willing to help / refresh should follow the class and notify Joe Anderson (in IRC chat his name is djandus) of any issues. There is also a thread with the same title on the mailing list.

What's next?

Try writing poems in Lojban.

Continue memorizing the vocabulary and using Lojban as much as you can! Chatting with the community can help you with this. Once you know what words you want to learn, you could try additional memorization software to vastly improve your vocabulary. Chatting regularly on the Lojban IRC channel is another way of using your vocabulary in real time. Some start blogs or diaries, others translate music.

Writing a personal diary or performing translations, are other possibilities.

Lojban means different things to different people; for some it is a linguistic curiosity - a test-bed for language experimentation; for others a way to expand their mind or discipline their thought; the desire for precise expression; a new way to look at languages; a fun way to meet and communicate with friends; entertainment; a challenge; art; software application; the list goes on! What will Lojban mean for you?

la laxma'i spaji spaji, the bilingual Lojban/English blog, can be helpful for learning both how various English idioms may be translated into Lojban, and how to use a wide range of Lojban cmavo (mainly in a narrative tone).

Presenting Lojban

Other resources

There are various ways of learning Lojban unique to the individual learning it, but to help you get started here are some suggestions. There are also learning materials available in non-English languages.