u/roman_reelangcom

We’ve recently gotten surprisingly good results transcribing Esperanto from all kinds of videos - monologues, interviews, street interviews, different accents, background noise, etc.

So we're curious whether there’d be interest in something built specifically around watching comprehensible Esperanto.

The idea would be a scrollable feed of short Esperanto videos, graded by difficulty. We mark words according to frequency, like if they’re among the 500, 1,000, or 2,000 most common Esperanto words so learners can quickly see which unfamiliar words are actually worth learning.

We recently built this kind of app for Spanish and are working on Portuguese, but Esperanto would be more of a passion project for us.

So I’m curious: Would you actually use something like this?

And if you already watch Esperanto content, where do you find good beginner/intermediate videos? YouTube channels, Shorts, TikTok accounts, interviews, creators, etc. would all be really helpful.

If there’s enough interest to build it, we’d also love to find a few Esperanto speakers/learners willing to test the app, since our own Esperanto definitely isn’t good enough to check everything ourselves.

Just to give you an idea of what the Esperanto watch feed app would look like, take a look at the Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Arabic, German, Japanese, Dutch, Hungarian or Polish versions, or any other natural language you know or are stuyding (picked a few random ones so you don't have to navigate yourself)

I've always felt like underrepresented languages are missing from so many apps, and when they do offer them, the content is thin and sparse.

While technology is just not there yet to transcribe artificial languages like Esperanto and ancient ones like Ancient Greek, anything else is fair game!

Most of you know by now that Part 3 comprises three question sets, and the examiner has to pick two sets. If you're below band 6.5, they go for the first two “easy” sets; if you're in band 6.5 territory, you will get asked questions from one of the first “easy” sets and the last “challenging” set. This set is what usually makes or breaks you. If you rise to the challenge, you're more likely to get, say, a band 7. If you don't, you'll get a 6.5.

One way to understand what they want from you is to consider the language functions you're supposed to demonstrate for each question.

Let’s say your Part 2 topic had to do with spending time by the sea or near bodies of water. A final Part 3 set is then likely to have a question that will probably go like this:

Marine resources

• speculate on: what advantages might come from exploring the sea further

They won’t actually use the function words in the question prompts. You’re expected to pick up on them yourself.

Now consider the last function: speculate on. To answer this kind of question well, you might need to perform several language functions:

• Express probability: There’s a chance that we might uncover valuable natural resources or discover new marine species.
• Make predictions: It’s likely that new marine species will be discovered.
• Give cautious opinions: I would imagine that exploring the deep sea could lead to scientific advances in medicine, energy, or climate research.
• Discuss potential benefits: One potential benefit is that we may gain a better understanding of ecosystems we currently know very little about.
• Show uncertainty: It’s hard to say exactly what the advantages might be, given how little we know about the deep sea. I would hazard a guess, however, that further exploration could open up new possibilities in science and environmental protection.

You catch the drift. Always ask yourself: What function am I being asked to perform here? List examples? Agree or disagree? Consider? Suggest?

If you actually check off those boxes, you should do better on the test. Hope this helps!