Esperanto at Stanford University

Other resources for learning Esperanto, The International Language

Other courses available

What if you can't, or don't want to, come to classes? Then check out these alternatives. I am listing online resources which should make taking either my course, or solo study much easier.

Free Online Courses

lernu.net - This site is getting rave reviews. Perhaps my class will be made obsolete? Just look for the word "English" and get started there. If you use this resource, please let me know how it goes.
Duolingo - Very popular! I used it up to a point. I think it's fine for learning vocabulary. You can also learn grammar, but only from use, not by rule. Nevertheless, it's a huge entry point for a lot of people into Esperanto.

Free Postal Mail Courses

FREE postal course from Esperanto-USA - They list lots of other ways to learn and sell textbooks as well as dictionaries, works of fiction, CDs, buttons, etc.

Dictionaries

Great reference: BUTLER I used to recommend this Esperanto to English dictionary by Montagu C. BUTLER. I still would, but it's out of print. In any case, he died and it hasn't been updated since 1967. My favorite part of it was it's "compare" mark. This dictionary was so good it was worth just sitting down and reading like an interesting history book. I'd look up something, and find "compare to" where he would list words that sounded alike, or were spelled alike, or were "false friends", etc. I learned a huge amount about languages reading it. Obviously, it's hard to find now. In 2014 people made this online version which fixed typos, spelled out abbreviations, etc. It's still good, but becomes older everyday. Nevertheless, give it a look.
USE THIS: There are many different dictionaries available from the Esperanto-USA bookservice. But if you want to start with something online, then use ViVo. This is a way of searching multiple dictionaries at once. It's really the best, but if you're new to Esperanto the interface can be confusing. It even has ways of searching in other languages. Too complex to explain here, but it's a gateway to other online dictionaries including ReVo, PIV (the "OED" of Esperanto), Wikipedia, Majstro, and many more.
Others use the dictionary on the Lernu.Net website, marked "vortaro" on the right hand side of the main page.

Online generally

As of this writing, 2022 sep 26, Google lists more than 583 million pages with the search term "esperanto" (2010 sep 5, 50 million). Frankly, a huge amount of that is junk. Unfortunately, until you learn how to find worthwhile sites, you may wind up at sites with bad usage, more questions than answers, or just plain dead-ends.

So, i recommend starting from sites that are of high quality and hope you don't get too lost in the wilds of the 'net.

General

Esperanto-USA.org - Best starting place for someone in the USA.
Enrike Enrike lives in Fremont, California, and is still a very active member of the community. Due to Covid, his site is a little stale, but mostly still good. He comes to class sometimes too. :)

Easy Reading Material

USE THIS: uea.facila.org There are tons of "easy" reading sites, but this is the best. It's meant to be a place for easy reading, for adults . The articles are about all kinds of subjects (but you have to find the ones that are interesting to you). They now include someone reading the short articles, so you can hear how it's supposed to sound!
For completeness, i have nothing against kid's book sites. I've even had some parents successfully bring their kids to my class. The best kids site was "Infanoj Ĉirkaŭ la Mondo" but seems to have died :( . Check with Esperanto-usa.org for their written and audio materials. Or check Archive.org for icxlm.org .

Social Media

There are, of course, tons of Esperanto groups on Facebook, Twitter, Discord, etc. But, the interesting ones, to me, are non-commercial, and utilize Esperanto as their working language. Remember that non-commercial means that your stuff is not only more private, but it's MUCH QUIETER there. There is no need to tell you about things that make you go crazy, to make you click more. You only get messages you want... or, at least, potentially want.

MiaVivo.net This is definitely the best at this time. It's a completely translated-into-Esperanto social media site. I'm on here, but like all of them, i only go when i feel a need (once a day, to once a quarter). Decent people, enough activity to be up to date, and civil discourse (at least i haven't run into any nonsense... and i have a tendency to be where the fighting is!).
As an advocate of open-source, non-commercial, federated, and decentralized 'net, i highly recommend Diaspora for a Facebook-style social media experience (Google stole their ideas, when Google tried to create a social media site), and Mastodon for a Twitter-like experience. For example: esperanto.masto.host .

News

These sites are NOT easy Esperanto. Most journalism is written at a level for the largest audience. These sites have information that is written at a very high level in Esperanto. Esperanto itself is meant to facilitate communications.

Monato Monato = "Month" magazine. It uses Esperanto, but is generally not about Esperanto.
Le Monde Diplomatique - This is very high level translations of an already very high level French Language newspaper, published in many languages.

Unfortunately, it's a lot of work to keep a website running and up to date. Only a handful receive payments at all, and all of those are not making enough to live on. So, many sites die because the provider doesn't get enough feedback of any kind, to make it feel like it's worth it. Esperanto on the 'net is in "chicken or egg" mode. More people need to be actively using the sites, but most sites don't even get found by Esperanto speakers until it's too late. There are more than enough users of Esperanto to keep things going, but they need to be more active, and dedicated to keeping things going.

Esperanto.Org > Esperanto at Stanford