Nun la reala lernado komencas!
It’s taken me nearly 100 days but I have finally completed the Esperanto tree on Duolingo. Between Duolingo’s course, Lernu’s dictionary, and Memrise’s various Esperanto courses I feel I’ve obtained a good enough understanding of the language to call myself a beginner. I say I only qualify as a beginner because I now have a fairly solid understanding of the grammar and a large enough vocabulary to write somewhat complex sentences. That doesn’t mean I can write sentences without making numerous grammatical mistakes and I don’t always select the correct word to accurately translate my thoughts. But I’m not at a point where I can start holding simple conversations and understand a lot of written material I come across.
What is truly remarkable about this is that I have gotten this far using only free online tools. The true value of the Internet, in my opinion, is the commodification of information. A free (to you) education on almost any subject is available to anybody with an Internet connection. While it’s true not everybody has an Internet connection the current availability of information is far greater than it was before the Internet. In time Internet connectivity will likely become commodified to such a point that almost everybody who wants to be connected will be connected. The future is looking to be pretty fucking awesome.