ruth3209:The correlatives can be a bit of a hurdle at the beginning, but you will certainly get the hang of them soon.

Very true. I had enormous difficulties with the correlatives at first. They all looked the same to me, clear up until the day they didn't. Just keep going, and eventually they will stick.

(I always think of the "am" in "kiam" as in am/pm, so a "time" word. That's how I initially always remembered it.)

Oh yeah; one of the first conclusions about the language I came to when I was first learning it was that there are way too many words that start with "a" and end with "aŭ." I told my lingvohelpanto for Ana Renkontas that we need a whole course just on those words! I think the hardest ones for me were "almenaŭ" and "apenaŭ." It took me a long time to get it straight in my head that "alpenaŭ" is not a word!

But don't get discouraged, it just takes time and practice for the words to stick firmly in your head. Eventually you get it down.

Rugxdoma:

kaŝperanto:I also came up with weird mental ways to learn some words, like "anstataux" kind of sounds like a botched pronunciation of "instead of".

This is not a weird mem at all. Anstataux is from the German words an + statt. The English word is built of more or less the same elements: in + stead. In both cases a preposition and place.

But you are right, one should not be afraid of weird rules, if they are helpful and not confusing when you have got many of them.

Interesting; it makes sense why I thought of it like that after all.

I agree that there are too many an-, -aux words that look too similar.
It's confusing for beginners, including me.
The correlatives are also very confusing.

And words with different affixes are also confusing sometimes.
Even the dictionary can't help you.
e.g. type "Information" in the vortaro gives informaĵo, informado and informo
If you back track the Esperanto words, they all give you the same English word "Information"
You can't really figure out what's the difference between these three words...

usayarE:I agree that there are too many an-, -aux words that look too similar.
It's confusing for beginners, including me.
The correlatives are also very confusing.

And words with different affixes are also confusing sometimes.
Even the dictionary can't help you.
e.g. type "Information" in the vortaro gives informaĵo, informado and informo
If you back track the Esperanto words, they all give you the same English word "Information"
You can't really figure out what's the difference between these three words...

The correlatives may be confusing at first for some, but having such similar words makes them infinitely easier to learn. The table of correlatives is one of the few aspects of Esperanto that I found very easy to pick up, but that's just how my mind works.

True, typing in the translations of those words into the Lernu! dictionary won't be of much help to you. However, you probably shouldn't go to the Lernu! dictionary to learn affixes like that. Go to one of the courses or find an explanation of the affixes themselves somewhere, and applying them to the words in the dictionary will be much easier.

Yes, the table of correlatives makes them easier to learn, the same as the table of times of English verbs makes them easier to learn. But after, you must learn when to use particular times, and some times are not in the table (as "I am going to ..." - it is not a time in the textbook of English for Russian, but as I know, it is in the one for Spanish - "yo voy a ..." ).
In Esperanto correlatives "kiu" may mean "who" or "which"; "tuj", "ĵus", "nun" are not in the table of correlatives instead of "ĉi tiam", which is seldom used.

"Informaĵo" is the thing ("aĵo" ) that informs.
"Informado" is the action ("ado" ) of informing.
"Informo" can be "informaĵo" or "informado" - information.
"Informisto" can be translated "informant" or "informer".
Both "-ilo" and "-isto" in some cases can be translated to "-or/-er". You must learn suffixes to understand which word to choose.

usayarE:I agree that there are too many an-, -aux words that look too similar.
It's confusing for beginners, including me.
The correlatives are also very confusing.

There are those who, inappropriately, assert that Esperanto has "part of speech marking," meaning that every part of speech is marked with a distinctive ending. This is only partly true, and to emphasize it excessively is inappropriate, in my experience. For example, words ending in -aŭ can be in three different parts of speech. What is more suitable is to teach beginners that some X parts of speech end in Y (with their inflections), not that every word ending is Y is X part of speech.

Also, I concur that the "correlatives" table is not as "easy" as some Esperantists seems to think. To this day, I sometimes have to look at a printed sheet (or look at an online vortaro) to determine which correlative I need to use in what position. This is the reality of the situation, not according to the wishful thinking of those who do not have the problem.

For correlatives and affixes, I have to check the tables constantly too.
As for whether a table is helpful, it's controversial.
To a certain extent, you just rely on checking the table,
in the end, you can't learn it by heart.
You can probably get used to the more commonly used correlatives like -iu, -iel fairly quickly,
but every once in a while when it comes to cxiom, ties, nenie, ajn etc., you go back to the table again...

Anyway, it just takes time to learn a language.
Use it more, and give it some time,
most people should have no problem, especially for the case of Esperanto.
I think the correlatives of Esperanto are already very systematic.

If I'm reading correctly, it seems people are saying they are learning each whole correlative? When I learned them, I found it easier to do it by the parts first: ki- what, i- some, -om quantity, -am time, ktp. Then once I had somewhat of a handle on them, started learning the whole words: kiam when, iom some, ktp. At least then I could parse out what they mean.

usayarE:For correlatives and affixes, I have to check the tables constantly too.
As for whether a table is helpful, it's controversial.
To a certain extent, you just rely on checking the table,
in the end, you can't learn it by heart.
You can probably get used to the more commonly used correlatives like -iu, -iel fairly quickly,
but every once in a while when it comes to cxiom, ties, nenie, ajn etc., you go back to the table again...
I think the correlatives of Esperanto are already very systematic.

Of course you learn by checking the table at first, but the reason the table aids some people in understanding is because of the "mix & match" nature of the correlatives. Like makis said, you learn what each part means: ki- means 'what,' -om means 'quantity,' etc. Then you take those parts and match them to get the desired meaning. Perhaps some people's minds are more naturally attuned to this way of learning, which is why some people find it easier than others?

sergejm:Yes, the table of correlatives makes them easier to learn, the same as the table of times of English verbs makes them easier to learn. But after, you must learn when to use particular times, and some times are not in the table (as "I am going to ..." - it is not a time in the textbook of English for Russian, but as I know, it is in the one for Spanish - "yo voy a ..." ).
In Esperanto correlatives "kiu" may mean "who" or "which"; "tuj", "ĵus", "nun" are not in the table of correlatives instead of "ĉi tiam", which is seldom used.

I'm not totally sure what you're getting at about the 'table of times' for English verbs, but I agree that the table of correlatives doesn't show you the proper usage for the correlatives in question. The proper usage of the correlatives is one of the few things I still have to look up pretty often (Being Colloquial in Esperanto is a godsend in this respect), but as far as memorizing the words I found that the table caused me to learn the correlatives faster than I learned other aspects of the language, like the prepositions.