# Does Esperanto help you learn other languages? The evidence

Source: https://esperantopedia.org/learn/esperanto-and-other-languages/
Language: en
Updated: 2026-11-09

> Does Esperanto help with other languages? School studies since the 1920s report gains, but a 2018 review found no measurable later benefit.

**Possibly, but nobody has proved it.** Reports from school projects between 1948 and 1982 say that pupils who spent a year or two on Esperanto caught up with, or passed, classmates in French or English. The best-controlled recent work, in English primary schools, found that Esperanto was easier to learn than French for beginners but gave no measurable advantage in later language awareness or later French. The older studies were small, often run by supporters and weakly controlled, and no large randomised trial exists. The effect is called the "propaedeutic" (preparatory) value of Esperanto.

## Which studies exist?

| Study and place | Design | Result | Limits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Halloran (1952) and Williams (1948–1965), Egerton Park school, Denton, England | Pupils who took a year of Esperanto before French compared with pupils who took French only; a psychologist, J. H. Halloran, reviewed the programme | Williams concluded his Esperanto pupils did as well as or better in French. Halloran agreed only that pupils with lower language aptitude gained | Williams himself called his conclusions impressionistic; groups not fully comparable; one school |
| Thorndike and colleagues, Columbia University, USA (1925–1931) | A large language-learning study; the Esperanto point is reported as a side observation | A class that spent a school year on Esperanto instead of French was reported to have overtaken a parallel French class a year later | Known to us only through secondary descriptions; unclear what was measured |
| Somero school, Finland (1958–1963) | Esperanto before German in a school experiment | Reported faster progress in German | We found no original data; known through summaries by Esperanto supporters |
| Paderborn model project, West Germany (February 1975 – July 1982), run by Helmar Frank | 602 pupils in the Paderborn district, 41 learning groups, school years 3–4, two lessons a week; English began in year 5 | Compared with classmates who had not taken the course, the Esperanto pupils made about 20% fewer errors on an English test at the end of year 5 and about 40% fewer at the end of year 6 | Voluntary extra class, so parents and pupils chose it; no random assignment; reported by the project's own institute |
| Alan Bishop, Australia (report 1994–1997) | Secondary teachers rated pupils, without knowing who had learned Esperanto in primary school | Pupils with Esperanto were rated as more motivated and better in speaking and overall achievement | Teacher ratings, not tests |
| *Springboard to Languages*, England (2006–2011), evaluated by Barton and Bragg | Five-year case study, mainly one primary school, 12–74 pupils per phase, with small comparison groups | Pupils coped well with tasks on unfamiliar languages and sometimes matched older pupils | Groups not matched for ability or background; cannot show another language would not do the same |
| Tellier and Roehr-Brackin, University of Essex, England (2013) | 28 pupils aged 8–9 assigned at random to Esperanto or French, 22.5 hours over a school year | Esperanto was easier to learn; effect sizes larger in the Esperanto group | Very small sample; the study measured learning of the languages themselves |
| Tellier and Roehr-Brackin (2013, 2017) | 225 pupils aged 11–12 grouped by earlier schooling; 178 pupils aged 8–9 given 20 hours of German, Italian, Esperanto or Esperanto with explicit grammar work, then French | No lasting advantage in language awareness or in later French; Esperanto groups were more even in performance | In the second study a small gain for Esperanto with explicit grammar work disappeared in the smaller sample that finished the project |

The sources behind each row are in the list at the end. The Paderborn account on English Wikipedia also says the Esperanto group matched the comparison group in English by year 7 and led it in year 8, citing a report by Frank; we could not find the original data for that part.

## What does the strongest evidence say?

The 2018 review by Karen Roehr-Brackin and Angela Tellier covers work in England from 2006 to 2016. It separates two kinds of projects. Programmes without comparison groups, such as *Springboard to Languages*, show only that teaching children something about languages is better than nothing. Studies that compare Esperanto with other languages are more informative, and their results are, in the authors' word, sobering.

Esperanto was easier to learn than French for novices and seemed to make results more even across pupils. But it did not produce measurably greater language awareness or greater success in learning a later language, and it did not make up for low language-learning aptitude. This is the same conclusion we reach on [Why learn Esperanto?](https://esperantopedia.org/learn/why-learn/).

## Why might it work?

These are hypotheses. The reasons researchers give are:

- **Regular grammar.** The [16 rules](https://esperantopedia.org/grammar/16-rules/) have no exceptions, so pupils can see how a grammar works without being buried in irregular forms.
- **Transparent word building.** Roots, prefixes and suffixes keep fixed meanings ([word building](https://esperantopedia.org/grammar/word-building/)), which may help pupils notice how words are made.
- **Awareness of language.** Seeing a clear system may make pupils notice patterns such as plural endings and word classes in other languages.
- **Early success and motivation.** Quick progress and pen-friend contact with pupils abroad could raise confidence. Teachers in the Springboard evaluation said this, but they were reporting impressions.

Only the first of these has some support from the studies: Esperanto was in fact easier to learn. The rest have not been shown to cause later gains.

## What does the evidence not show?

- **No large modern randomised trial.** Duncan Charters wrote in 2015 that a definitive controlled study of several hundred students in different settings over several years was still awaited.
- **Small samples and unmatched groups.** The early experiments had experimental and control groups that were not always comparable, and reports that were brief or anecdotal. This is the view of the 2018 review, which cites earlier critics such as Dan Maxwell (1988).
- **Enthusiast organisers.** The Paderborn, Finnish and Thorndike results reach us mainly through people who supported Esperanto. A Paderborn colleague warned at the start that any positive result would be doubted; that does not remove the doubt.
- **Self-selection.** Where parents chose the extra class, as in Paderborn, motivated families may explain part of the gain.
- **Shared vocabulary.** Because many Esperanto roots resemble Romance and Germanic words, some benefit for French or English may come from familiar words, not from "learning how to learn".
- **Few peer-reviewed papers.** Several key reports are school reports or newsletters, not journal articles.
- **Unclear against a fair rival.** The Springboard authors say their design cannot show whether another language, taught with the same awareness activities, would have done as well.

The criticism is part of a wider debate, covered in [criticism of Esperanto](https://esperantopedia.org/about/criticism/).

## What does this mean for learners and teachers?

Do not count on Esperanto to speed up your next language, and do not rule it out either. It is reasonable to use it as a short, low-risk first course: it is quick to start, and you can see how a whole grammar fits together. The studies say little about adults, who have hardly been tested.

If you want to try this, follow the [study plan](https://esperantopedia.org/learn/how-to-learn/) and the free [12-lesson course](https://esperantopedia.org/learn/course/), which takes about 6 to 9 hours. Our page on [how long it takes](https://esperantopedia.org/learn/how-long/) covers the learning-time studies.

Teachers who add Esperanto to a school should add explicit work on how languages are built, and measure the result. The Essex studies suggest that this form-focused work, more than the language alone, may be what matters, and the question is still open.

## Common questions

### Does learning Esperanto help you learn other languages?

It may, but this is not proven. Several school projects report gains, but the best-controlled studies found no measurable advantage in later language awareness or later French, only that Esperanto is easier for beginners.

### What was the Paderborn study?

It was a project at the University of Paderborn, Germany, led by Helmar Frank from 1975 to 1982. It gave 602 pupils in school years 3–4 an Esperanto course before English, and reported fewer English errors than classmates. The class was voluntary and the results come from the project itself.

### What is Springboard to Languages?

It is a programme in English primary schools that combines Esperanto with language-awareness activities. A five-year evaluation (2006–2011) found that pupils coped well with unfamiliar languages, but it could not show that Esperanto was better than another language.

### Is Esperanto easier than French for children?

Yes, in the Essex study of 28 pupils aged 8–9, who learned it faster than French. That does not show that it makes later French easier.

### Is Esperanto a good first foreign language?

It can be a good short first course because it is easy to start and the results are even across pupils. For a language you need for study or work, the evidence does not show that taking Esperanto first saves time.

## Sources

- Karen Roehr-Brackin and Angela Tellier, ["Esperanto as a tool in classroom foreign language learning in England"](https://doi.org/10.1075/lplp.00013.roe), *Language Problems and Language Planning* 42(1), 89–111, 2018; [University of Essex repository](https://repository.essex.ac.uk/24243/) (Halloran, Williams, Thorndike and Kennon, Bishop; the 2013 and 2017 studies; the review's conclusions)
- Duncan Charters, ["The teaching and learning of Esperanto"](http://indecs.eu/index.php?s=x&y=2015&p=288-298), *Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems* 13(2), 2015 (Williams at Egerton Park, Halloran, the call for a controlled study)
- J. H. Halloran, "A four-year experiment in Esperanto as an introduction to French", *British Journal of Educational Psychology* 22(3), 200–204, 1952; Norman Williams, ["A language teaching experiment"](https://doi.org/10.3138/cmlr.22.1.26), *Canadian Modern Language Review* 22(1), 1965 (as cited in the two items above)
- Karen Roehr, [*The Springboard to Languages evaluation project: a summary report*](http://repository.essex.ac.uk/5991/1/Repository_Roehr_2012b_EAB.pdf), University of Essex, 2012, summarising Amanda Barton and Joanna Bragg's five reports for the University of Manchester, 2006–2011
- Angela Tellier and Karen Roehr-Brackin, ["The development of language learning aptitude and metalinguistic awareness in primary-school children: a classroom study"](https://www1.essex.ac.uk/linguistics/publications/errl/errl62-1.pdf), *Essex Research Reports in Linguistics* 62(1), 2013
- Universität Paderborn, "Erfolge des Paderborner Modellprojekts: Sprachorientierungsunterricht für Grundschüler" (H. Frank and colleagues), in *Namen, Nachrichten, Notizen*, c. 1982: [digital copy](https://digital.ub.uni-paderborn.de/download/pdf/503016.pdf) (602 pupils, 41 groups, 1975–1982, error rates; also mentions Thorndike and the Finnish experiment)
- Wikipedia, [Paderborn method](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paderborn_method) (Frank's design and later years, citing his report) and [Valeur propédeutique de l'espéranto](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeur_prop%C3%A9deutique_de_l%27esp%C3%A9ranto) (Thorndike 1925–1931, Somero 1958–1963, Bishop's project in Melbourne); the French article is itself flagged for weak sourcing
- Our pages: [Why learn Esperanto?](https://esperantopedia.org/learn/why-learn/), [How long does it take to learn Esperanto?](https://esperantopedia.org/learn/how-long/)