First of all, did you know that George Soros is a native speaker of Esperanto? Posting this as my status message on Facebook resulted in a whole discussion of the term ‘native speaker’ and if one could be a native speaker (or whatever your preferred term) of a made up language. That’s all very interesting – but seriously! A native speaker! of Esperanto! and also a very influential billionaire! These things can’t be unrelated.
One of my lifetime ambitions is to learn Esperanto. I don’t think there’s a rational explanation for this – I just get really excited – not even excited, GIDDY – at the thought of it. Today I picked up Universala Esperanto Metodo De Doktoro Benson, which is this fabulous book from 1932 with pronunciation guides, an illustrated dictionary, and short stories that I assume I’ll be able to read once I learn according to the good doctor’s metodo. If you want to see something really amazing, I’d recommend clicking on this link, which will take you to a PDF version of the first 20 or so pages of the text.
I excitedly asked Shane last night if we could raise our children to be native Esperanto speakers. His immediate response was, “No, that’d be terrible.” I figure it’s worked out OK for George Soros, though.
latterdaybohemian 
Gratulojn pri via deziro lerni esperanton! (Congratulations on your desire to learn Esperanto!)
If you’re interested in learning resources, there’s getting to be quite a collection on the Internet, in addition to Dr. Benson’s work. Two I like are Kurso de Esperanto (Esperanto for “Esperanto Course”), a freely downloadable 12-lesson multimedia introductory course, and Lernu! (Esperanto for “Learn!”), a website devoted to learning Esperanto for free. The latter has a nice online multilingual Esperanto dictionary (click on “Vortaro” to the right, if not already open), and a collection of free Esperanto courses (click on “Courses” at the top). A good intermediate-level course available on Lernu! is Gerda Malaperis! (“Gerda Has Disappeared!”), written as a short story about a young woman named Gerda who, as you might have guessed, disappears.
When you feel a bit more comfortable with the language, some interesting listening and reading resources are Radio Poland‘s Esperanto section, China Radio International‘s Esperanto section and Radio Verda in Vancouver B.C.
Plej bonan ?ancon! (Best of luck!)
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(Reposting because the first try has a broken link and some garbled characters – please delete the first reponse, and this line in parentheses of this response)
Gratulojn pri via deziro lerni esperanton! (Congratulations on your desire to learn Esperanto!)
If you’re interested in learning resources, there’s getting to be quite a collection on the Internet, in addition to Dr. Benson’s work. Two I like are Kurso de Esperanto (Esperanto for “Esperanto Course”), a freely downloadable 12-lesson multimedia introductory course, and Lernu! (Esperanto for “Learn!”), a website devoted to learning Esperanto for free. The latter has a nice online multilingual Esperanto dictionary (click on “Vortaro” to the right, if not already open), and a collection of free Esperanto courses (click on “Courses” at the top). A good intermediate-level course available on Lernu! is Gerda Malaperis! (“Gerda Has Disappeared!”), written as a short story about a young woman named Gerda who, as you might have guessed, disappears.
When you feel a bit more comfortable with the language, some interesting listening and reading resources are Radio Poland‘s Esperanto section, China Radio International‘s Esperanto section and Radio Verda in Vancouver B.C.
Plej bonan shancon! (Best of luck!)
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I remember looking up the wikipedia article years ago, and reading that there are some people for whom Esperanto is their first language (see how I skirted the “native” problem?” I figure they’re all the children of professors. You and Shane are close enough.
Did you know Jason shares your passion? Maybe Shane should learn ASL with me, and leave you two to your Esperantoness.
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This blog nicely summarizes how native Esperantists come to be, and ends with a cute YouTube video of a real Esperanto-speaking toddler.
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J and I dream of raising a kid who’s (at the minimum) bilingual. So we need to take refresher courses in French and German, and I need to hurry up and learn Spanish!
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