Задача по теме: "Понимание основного содержания прочитанного текста"

A. Esperanto is the easiest language to learn. In terms of hours, it takes four times less to learn Esperanto than any other European language. The words sound familiar to anyone who knows a European language. Esperanto has one definite article and no indefinite articles, nouns have no gender, and all the verbs are regular. The number of verb forms is very limited. And, apart from the simple vocabulary and structures, Esperanto was designed as culturally neutral.

B. L. Zamenhof was a polyglot - he spoke more than ten languages, including French, English, Spanish, German ahd Russian. It looked like the easiest way was to choose one of them and make it a common language. L. Zamenhof, however, didn’t like that idea. He realised that the differences in the language structures and logical patterns were too big. Another reason against that decision was that choosing one language as an international one would put the speakers of all other languages at a great disadvantage.  

C. A Polish doctor Ludovic Zamenhof became famous due to the language Esperanto which he invented in the late 19th century. At that time Europe suffered from conflicts caused by national and ethnic differences. L. Zamenhof dreamed of a tolerant world, free from wars. He believed that a common language could help promote understanding between people from different cultures and maintain peace.  

D. L. Zamenhof believed that it was very important to make the universal language easy to learn and speak. In 1887, he published a book about the structure and vocabulary of the new artificial language (which did not have any name yet). L. Zamenhof wrote the book under the pen name Doktoro Esperanto. People who started learning the new language referred to it by the name of its author — Esperanto, which translates as “one who hopes.”

E. Today, Esperanto is still alive and is used in different parts of the globe. According to the research, people have different reasons for learning Esperanto. Some people take it as a challenge of learning a new skill. The others support Zamenhof’s idea of common peace which can be reached by means of a common language. There is an international community of Esperantists and the ability to speak Esperanto gives you access to this community. 

F. There have been a few other artificial languages in the world but Esperanto is still the most popular one. The number of Esperanto speakers is about two million people. Some of them know the language well enough to be called advanced users and some are just beginners. According to Zamenhof’s idea, Esperanto was supposed to become a universal Second language for the people of different countries. L. Zamenhof never meant his language to replace any of the national languages.