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Saluton Tim! I first came across Esperanto from my dad and a satirical poltical party broadcast (random I know!). From this, I created an account on Lernu and started learning the language on Duolingo about 2-3 years ago, but lost motivation and interest. Since a few weeks ago, my interest is well and truly rekindled. The more I learn about Esperanto, its history and ideals, the more I fall in love with it. I have a lot of self doubt in terms of learning languages (my track-record isn't great). At the moment though I'm determined to prove to myself that I can become fluent in a different language. The plan I have in mind to learn this time round is daily use of Duolingo, work through Complete Esperanto, self-exposure to Esperanto songs, videos podcasts and comics and work on Lernu a few times a week. I'm also actively looking for conversation partners, preferably via Skype. When I feel brave enough (hopefully in about 4-6 months, I'm hoping to push myself and go to an actual meeting and converse with local enthusiasts - perhaps even at the EAB!

Catch 22 is about right, I think, Rhys. I know of thorough translations which exist but permission for which was subsequently declined, meaning that the work won't see the light of day. Frustrating for the translators and a reason underlying why I personally won't translate ahead of securing permission to publish. But then that puts you in the difficult position of then having to produce something at the appropriate level within a time frame. I don't think people in general realise how difficult and time-consuming translation is if it's done correctly. There's a reason that most professional translators translate into their native languages rather than from them into a learned one. In our case, we're all translating into something which isn't our native language. That makes the job harder. As Edmund pointed out earlier regarding La Krubalo and a soon-to-be-announced book, there are often additional complicating constraints. Those books rhyme and really heavily on single-syllable words, which we don't tend to have in Esperanto outside of pronouns, prepositions and numbers. Then you have to match the metre and the imagery. The Krubalo-style book which we'll announce in a week or so took a fluent speaker seven months to get to a position he was happy with, and even then Edmund and I recommended some changes afterwards. It's tricky. Perhaps one day we'll be in a position where we can manage this a little bit better. It's early days for us at the moment. It's been a fun ride so far, though, with more to come 🙂

I like your plan Rhys. you say you are looking for conversation partners. One of the best programmes available to learners is on the edukado.net website and is called 'Ekparolu!'. https://edukado.net/ekparolu/prezento It pairs komencantoj with more experienced speakers who are happy to give their time to help new learners etc improve in their use of the spoken language. A highly recommended tool. Watch the introductory video in the link above or read all about it in the recent article in uea.facila https://uea.facila.org/artikoloj/ĝenerale/venu-kaj-ekparolu/ By the way, that's another great tool for learners, in case you had not discovered it yet. Finally, DON'T wait until 'you are good enough' to go to a local meeting or EAB events (Lernu, Lernu Plu, the national conference, other events). As a well-known Esperantist recently said, you are not going to swim by reading books on swimming... 😉

I think there probably is an opportunity to get more books published just by coordinating and managing the process. Publishing a book is a daunting prospect if you have to do everything by yourself: not just translate, but find people to edit and proofread, negotiate with a publisher, typeset, design a cover, arrange printing and distribution, publicity, ... It's enough to put most people off even starting. But if you have a team of people with some experience then you might be able to encourage other people to get involved. Sezonoj published a couple of books ("Rustimuna Ŝtalrato", "Ŝerloko Holmso") that had different people translating different chapters: a good way to get new people involved. Could we arrange some sort of training for translators? That's probably beyond us. However, a lot of skills are transferable between languages. I think the classes I had in translation between English and German, a long time ago, helped me translate between English and Esperanto, and books I've read about translation theory have helped as well. But those projects with multiple translators also must have helped people learn, provided they paid attention to all the criticism and debate that followed the first draft of each chapter. Perhaps EAB should help organise something like that one day. Anyone want to discuss this idea in Leicester?

That's a very thorough answer, so thanks for that! Hmmm, it seems that sometimes it's a bit of a catch 22 then? As in, Esperanto needs more skilled speakers to become passionate enough to take on the difficult process of translation, but publishers don't take the proposition seriously if there's no professionally organised interest? I hope in my lifetime at least I will see this change - there appears to be such a business opportunity for large and small publishers to encourage translations into Esperanto. Imagine how their audiences and sales would expand! I'm really passionate about this and feel that for the language to spread further we need to get younger generations to see Esperanto as a viable lingua franca across the world when they encounter a new favourite book/ youtuber/ Netflix series. ......Or perhaps I'm just a doey-eyed komencanto? 😉

Quite apart from legal/practical problems there's the problem of getting a good translation. Some of these books are rather hard to translate. The author picks some words that rhyme in the source language, certain objects get incorporated into the story and the pictures, and then the translator somehow has to find rhymes in the target language. If you'd been writing originally in the target language you would have picked different objects. But even with ordinary prose it takes some skill and a lot of work to get a good translation. As for the process, it will depend on who owns the copyright. There's a distinction to be made between co-publishing/co-printing, which is what happened for "La Krubalo" and "Mil Unuaj Vortoj" and another forthcoming book - see articles in the next issue of "La Brita Esperantisto"! - and there's the ordinary sort of permission to publish a translation. Some publishers are set up to do co-printing in multiple languages and have a draft contract all ready. You just need to show them you're a serious and trustworthy client publisher. EAB now has some credentials for that. However, I'm not sure whether EAB has done the ordinary sort of translation, though there are a couple of active projects in that area. Sometimes publishers are not very responsive if they get an e-mail from someone they don't already know. Perhaps in some cases it works better to meet them at a Book Fair, like the London one that's just been coronacancelled. There's also the case where no special permission is required. Probably most translations into Esperanto are of originals that are out of copyright. There are plenty of famous classics not yet translated. My https://rano.org/frateto/ is a much more unusual subcase: it's a modern and famous book that was already licensed for anyone to translate it. (I think it's aimed at "young adults".)

Saluton again. Sent off answers for the 1st chapter of the 'Elementary'course and got a prompt response from my tutor. It took me a while to get to that point as I was busy at work, but the tutor was understanding. In the interim I have also been reading the old short book 'The Esperanto Teacher' available from this site. I actually really like this one - as it easily nailed a couple of aspects I was unclear about .....such as the use of 'n' to distinguish the 'object' from the 'subject' and how this principle carries across all the words relating to the object. As with anything you are learning new, there is a learning curve and every time something starts to make sense, you open the next page to be greeted by a whole new batch of grammar that immediately sets you back. But I will not give up. I will keep you updated as I go....if you are also a Komencanto and still progressing, feel free to send me a message - it would be good to support each other through.......Dankon !

Finfine ankaŭ mi finlegis la libron. Mi konsentas pri la pli fruaj komentoj de aliaj: La aŭtoro evidente ne sekvas la konsilon de Claude Piron en "la bona linvgo" eviti neologismojn; ofte deSeabra uzas "poezian" vorton anstataŭ pli simplan, mem-evidentan vorton (ekz p11 "poltrono" anstataŭ "malkuraĝulo", p17 "eosto" anstataŭ "oriento"). La gloso (p86) helpas, sed ne sufiĉas. Oni povas supozi ke la pensoj de mortanta homo vagas, kaj la rakonto ja faras tion - ĝi saltas en tempo kaj en loko, kaj ofte estis (por mi) malfacile diveni kie kaj kiam (en la sinsekvo de eventoj) ĉiu nova teksto-bloko sidu. Por mi la kunteksto kaj la rolantoj estis malklaraj, ĝis (finfine) en pp47-53 oni lernas ke la konflikto estas (laŭvorte!) nigra-blanka afero, ke (p49) la "ĉefurbo" estas en afriko sed la "metropolo" estas en eŭropo, ktp. Pro tiuj malfacilaĵoj mi ne ĝuis la libron; mi konsilas homon nur legi ĝin se vi ĝuas lukti kun teksto! (Kaj mi ankaŭ konsilas komenci per p86 tiam pp47-53, antaŭ ol legi de p1 pluen. Mi supozas ke p12 l6 "Aŭ ĉu vi konsideras ... cigaredojn?" estas pres-eraro - ĝi estu aparta alineo, kaj estu inter parol-markoj. La libro estas nekonforme alta (tro por sidi en mia librobretaro), kaj la spino estas presita inversigite, sed tiuj aferoj ne gravas ĉar mi ne emas reteni ĝin en mia Esperanta-librokolekto.

Ho. Mi devis kontroli multajn vortojn. ? la libro ŝajnas interesa (kaj mallonga) sed mi ne scias ĉu mi vere ŝatas la rakonton aŭ la stilon. Evidente mi ne jam finis ĝin do estas tro frue por decidi.

Dankon, Rico! Mi komencis ĝin lastan oktobron kaj jam mez-unuapaĝe decidis resurbretigi ĝin, do mi aktuale ne estas tiel optimisma. Ni vidu, ĉu dua provo estos pli sukcesa 🙂

Jen la libro, kiun mi legos ekde la 1a de Aprilo. Ĉu ankaŭ vi volas legi ĝin? Aŭ eble vi jam legis ĝin 🙂 Se jes, atendu kelkajn tagojn kaj poste komencu kundividi viajn impresojn. Eble ankaŭ mi faros tion. Se vi ankoraŭ ne legis ĝin kaj volas fari tion pli malpli je la sama tempo ol mi, mi antaŭĝojas legi viajn komentojn pri la libro. Mi esperas, ke miaj impresoj pri ĝi estos pli proksimaj al tiuj pri 'La fotoalbumo' ol tiuj pri 'Ĉu vi konas...."!

Count me in Rhys

Are you a Duolingo learner? How are you finding it? What do you use to supplement it? How are you going about learning Esperanto?

Saluton Rhys, Mark, Matio & Rico It's great to see this site gathering a bit of pace - you can see that with the number of people signing up daily. Rhys, I too am a komencanto and a bit out of my depth in full blown conversations. However it is amazing, how much you can pick up in such a short time. I am conscious though, that whilst my reading skills are getting on great - I've never had an opportunity to chat and have my pronunciation corrected. Keep falling into the trap of sounding vowels differently ie 'domo' with the 1st 'o' as in dog and the 2nd as in 'boat' - my mind knows what to say - but my mouth wants to say something else ! So I'm just going to jump in - I've booked a place on the Lernu session on 9th May. Might be worth setting your sites on that - gives you a few months to build up. Good luck, speak soon Dave

You're quite welcome just to listen if you like. If you'd like to dip your toes in a little first, perhaps we can have a brief one-on-one Skype sometime beforehand?

Saluton Matio! Dankon for being so kind and welcoming - it's really appreciated. You're also very lucky living nearby to York - I've only visited a few times but I've liked it every time. The Yorvik Centre is firm favourite of mine, and I'm keen to get in that stunning Minster! As I said to Mark, I'm a little wobbly currently when it comes to the thought of live communication just yet - I only seriously re-began my learning about 3-4 days ago. With the date being a few months away, perhaps I'll feel more ready? Either way, hopefully sometime soon, I will pop by - watch this space! Thanks again for the invite 🙂

Saluton Mark! it's very exciting to virtually meet you and to know that you guys are so close-by. I'm still feeling a little chicken about actually communicating live as of yet, as I still feel quite out my depth with this, and my currrent vocabulary is extremely limited. However, as there is a week or so before then, I'll see how I feel a few days before. Really hope I feel ready to take the plunge then, as I know how beneficial it is for learning. If not, then I will definitely definitely be along soon - one of the reasons I love Esperanto is for the vibrant, friendly community afterall! Gis baldau!

Hi Rhys, as well as the club in Nottingham which Mark runs, there is club meeting up in York every three months on a Saturday (next one in York is 20th June). I know York is further to travel but if you would like to make it a day out of it and just pop into the esperanto meeting while you are there, then that would be a good opportunity to kill two birds with one stone as they say. Kind Regards, Matio

Rhys, I see that you're listed yourself as being in Nottingham and that you're looking for an Esperanto Skype get-together. Well, I have good news for you!

I've found Duolingo's Esperanto course to be an excellent resource. It's by far the best of the courses they offer of those I've tried, and the only one where I've come away able to converse in the target language. I keep a general list of learning resources here. For complete beginners, I'd recommend starting with Duolingo (make sure you join the Facebook group too) and these introductory video lessons. D.K. Jordan's Being Colloquial In Esperanto is an ideal read once you've got going. Check EAB's member map, Eventa Servo, and Duolingo Events for opportunities to meet other speakers.

That gives me a much clearer image of the problem there Tim, so thanks for that. I can't imagine the relief and sense of accomplishment when a successful translation is written/ you can see the finished product in front of you! I'm obviously very new on my Esperanto journey, but sometime in the future I'd love to be involved in this. Some of the exisiting Esperanto literature out there looks beautifully prominent, but some also a bit hit and miss. I can't help thinking that with the right resources, man power, and backing from publishers, children's books, translations of YA fiction and some of the classics (new and old) is the way to go? If only we could get the J.K Rowlings and Malorie blackman's of the world on side! As you said though, I'm sure it's all part of the upcoming plan - here's to hoping passionate folks such as yourself get to drive the vanguard some-day!

First of all, congraulations on the recent release of the Esperanto version of the Gruffalo! This got me thinking - there are plenty of other children's classics, adult fiction and graphic novels that seem to be fertile ground for further such translations. What is the legal/ general practical process for developing a translation of an already exisitng work? And how come there aren't more of these brilliant translations around?

Saluton I'm a recent convert to Esperanto and have tried a few routes to start. I was initially drawn to Lernu and was surprised how quickly I could recite a page of Esperanto. I purchased Complete Esperanto and have recently enrolled on the Elementary Course available from this site. It was initially a bit confusing, having 3 books open at the same time, but it's staring to come together now. For £30 it's a great course, 3 books plus access to online files and audio.....and a personal tutor ! I will check back later to tell you how I'm getting on......cheers

Ni havas 4 ekzemplerojn en la vendejo Sed mi estas tute kontenta starigi sondon pri la elektota ĉiaokaze. Mi tamen proponas iom da atendado, ĉar sendube mi ne estas la sola, kiu ricevis Esperantajn librojn je Kristnasko kaj ŝatas legi ankaŭ ilin!

Ho jes, la tria volumo nur lastatempe eldoniĝis. Raklamojn pri ĝi oni povas vidi en kelkaj el la pasintaj eldonoj de la revuo 'Monato'. Mi certe aĉetos ĝin se ne baldaŭ, ĉar mi lastatempe aŭ aĉetis aŭ alimaniere ricevis plurajn E-librojn kaj ne estas sufiĉe da tempo en la tago! Pro la sama kialo, mi kunsentas pri ioma malrapidigo de la sinsekvo de legotaj libroj.. Pri 'La enigmo de la ar@eneo', bedaŭrinde mi ne posedas ekzempleron. Do, se vi volas legi tiun libron, bonvolu fari tion kaj mi rekomencos la komunan legadon kiam la grupo legas 'La fotoalbumo Vol II'. ?

Bone. Mi povas konfirmi, ke post la legado de La Fotoalbumo - Vol I -, mi certe intencas legi la duan volumon kaj verŝajne aĉetos la ĵus eldonitan trian.

Post legado de 'Kredu min, sinjorino!' kaj de 'Fundamenta Krestomatio', (kaj de la bela nova libro 'La Krubalo') finfine mi povas komenci la legadon de 'La Fotoalbumo'. Tamen, ŝajnas ke la unuaj 25 paĝoj ne estas legindaj.. do eble mi legos ekde paĝo 26. ?

Trevor Steele ne sekvas la konsilon komenci "en la mezo de aferoj". Mi trovis, ke en "La fotoalbumo" nenio interesa okazas ĝis pago 25. Sed ekde tie la teksto estas interesa. Mi legis jam trionon de la libro (la unua volumo). Kompreneble la fotoalbuma strukturo ne ebligas facile komenci en la mezo de aferoj.

Se iu serĉas legaĵojn, sed ŝatas resti ĉe ekrano: https://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto-blogo (Mi ĵus finlegis la libron "La tago kiam Jesuo perfidis Judason" kaj ne tre entuziasmis.)

Mian vi vidos ĉe eBay. Ĝi kuŝas kun la skatoloj, kiujn mi alportos al Esperanto-Domo post du tagoj.

Mi antaŭvidas kelkajn ekzemplerojn de 'Ĉu vi konas....' sur la tablo de 'brokantaj libroj' dum la venonta Brita kongreso...

Mi legis aliajn librojn de Trevor Steele kiu, laŭ mia opinio, estas bona aŭtoro kiu verkas klare kaj legeble. Pri Serĝi Elgo kaj Abel Montague mi havas nenian sperton. Tamen, el la tri elektoj, "La fotoalbumo vol 1" estas la plej dika ... eble 366 paĝoj estos tro por trakti "dum novembo". Sed la aŭtoro organizis ĝin en mallongaj ĉapitroj (unu po foto), do eblas dividi ĝin en manĝeblaj pecoj.

Jes, ankaŭ por mi, forĵeti libron estas la plej lasta paŝo, kiun mi nur faras, se mi ne tute povas trovi novaj hejmon por ĝi. Kiam temas pri nebezonataj Esperanto-libroj, mi simple portas tiujn al la Brita kongreso, kaj metas ilin sur la "brokantaj libroj" tablo - tiam se iu ja aĉetas, EAB profitas iomete, kaj la libro ja havas novan hejmon. (La risko estas ke post la fino de la kongreso, Viv devos forporti pliajn brokantajn librojn ol ŝi kunportis!) - Vilĉjo

I'm late to this, but would like to join. Where is the list of £5 books on offer for this club? I know I have Surklifa..

Mi finlegis ĝin, kaj daŭre ne komprenas, kiu kiuas, kio okazas ktp. Mi povas aserti, ke tiu ĉu libro ŝajne estas la plej malbona originala verko en Esperanto, kiun mi iam ajn finlegis. (Plurajn mi komencis, sed ne finis. Tiel mi estus farinta ankaŭ kun tiu ĉi, se mi ne estus membro de nia grupo!)

@Vilĉjo Walker kaj @Tim, vi ambaŭ diras, ke vi ne intencas aŭ emas konservi la libron... Do, jes... ankaŭ mi ne havis la plej altan opinion pri la libro. Tamen, mi tute ne povas forĵeti ĝin. Mi tute ne kapablas fari tion! Temas pri libro. Ĉu vi aŭdis min? L-I-B-R-O. Mi ne kapablas forĵeti librojn. ?

Kiel vi scias, @Tim, mi nun finis la legadon de la libro. Mi povas konfirmi, ke eĉ leginte la tutan rakonton, oni ne ricevas sufiĉe kompletan priskribon de la ĉefroluloj, de la interagoj, de la eventoj, de la intrigo. Fakte, eble jen la problemo: mankas (sufiĉe bona) intrigo. Nur unu fina demando elstaras por mi..

Mi alvenis al paĝo 9. Jam ĝenis min 'paseo' en 'Oni provis imagi la paseon'. Kial ne 'pasintaĵon/kio okazis/la fonon'? Persone mi ne povus subteni la uzon de 'aliel'. Tio tute haltigis la legadon. Mi ne kontraŭas, ke oni aldonu finaĵojn al la tabelvortoj (tiea, tiama, kiuj, kiu kiuas), sed tabelvortajn finaĵojn oni male ne aldonu al aliaj vortoj. Jam 'alio' kaj 'alia' havas proprajn signifojn, kaj se 'aliel' oni permesas, kial ne 'Mi vidis Times libron'?

Mi konsentas. Kelkfoje verkistoj ludas la ludon "Mi konas vorton, kiun vi ne konas", tiel uzante vorton, kiun fakte preskaŭ neniu konas. PS Dankon pro la sciigo pri la glosaro. ?

Same pri tiuj ĉi vortoj. Mi devis kontroli kelkajn vortojn, ekzemple senjori (p8). Leginte la difinon, mi facile rekonas la francan radikon. Ĉu estas bona ideo uzi jaman vorton apenaŭ konatan, kaj tiel devigi eĉ spertajn legantojn iri al vortaro? Mi ne certas.

Troviĝas glosaro en la lastaj paĝoj. Tiu ĉi ŝajnas al mi tute nenecesa vorto prenita el la franca. Oni povus uzi jaman vorton por klarigi la saman signifon, ĉu ne?

Saluton al ĉiuj. Mi intencis aĉeti la legotan libron, Ĉu Vi Konas Blaise Cendrars, sed bedaŭrinde, ĝi ne plu haveblas de EAB - ĉu EAB ankoraŭ atendas novan stokon de tiu libro? Aŭ ĉu mi mendu rekte de UEA?

I agree with Rico - let's aim to read certain parts of the book at around same time (or - in time for an agreed deadline). Otherwise, it will be difficult to discuss topics/events which only some of us have read about, and there's a risk of the discussion giving away "spoilers" to the folks who haven't got that far yet. - Vilĉjo

Hi @Tim It's great that we have this new reading club / reading group. Personally, I'm very much in the "I want to read books" camp as opposed to the "I want to spend lots of time talking about, discussing or writing in forums about books" camp. Unfortunately, I will not have the time to do much peripheral activity, besides actually reading the books. (and I know what I'm like. Look at me now: I'm supposed to be sending out invoices / chasing clients today and here I am, dealing with Esperanto...). In response to your questions: -I definitely vote for 'one thread per book'. The fewer, the better. -Definitely Esperanto. For me, that's the whole point. However, I don't want to impose this on anyone. -Yes, let's try (at least) to read certain parts of the book at the same time and then have questions about the content, maybe the language, words used, new words learnt etc. That could be quite fun and a good use of the forum thread maybe. Finally, I normally read two-three books at the same time and have a 'waiting list' going on so I hope some of those books in the list can make it to the group list. ? Amike, Rico

That font may be usable for Esperanto with modern software, but would it be usable for Esperanto with Quark 5? Almost certainly not, I would presume. You would presumably need to modify it, replacing some Latin-1 characters with the Esperanto characters. That modification is probably not hard to do, when you know how; I think I may have done something like that myself, a long time ago. The number of people interesting in modifying fonts to use them with pre-Unicode software has probably rather dwindled. You may need some kind of computer archaeologist for this!

I don't know anything about Quark, but it might be a mistake to use an "Esperanto" font. Esperanto's characters are included in WGL4 (a standard set of about 656 characters), so any modern high-quality font is likely to include them. If a font was specially designed for Esperanto then it's probably a pre-Unicode font that puts the Esperanto characters in a non-standard place, probably instead of some Latin-1 characters. If you find where they are then you might be able to use them, getting the text to look right, but don't expect copy and paste to work. You're probably better off using some modern font that includes WGL4. Edit: Of course, Quark 5 predates Unicode! In that case, try copy-pasting some Latin-1 characters to see if any of them is replaced by an Esperanto letter. Here's U+00A1 to U+00FF for you (hoping it won't cause this crappy JavaScript editor to crash): ¡¢£¤¥¦§¨©ª«¬­®¯°±²³´µ¶·¸¹º»¼½¾¿ÀÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏÐÑÒÓÔÕÖ×ØÙÚÛÜÝÞßàáâãäåæçèéêëìíîïðñòóôõö÷øùúûüýþÿ

Eh, who knew? The font doesn't contain the accented characters (https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Lato) and yet everything was displaying correctly in most parts of the site. Haven't a clue what's going on unless by fluke the relevant characters in the substitute fonts happened to look very similar at certain font weights. Rather than mess around, I've dropped Lato as the site font and replaced it with one which supports Esperanto characters.

La 3-an de aprilo 1994 Marjorie Boulton deklamis du poemojn en Richmond upon Thames. Unu el ili, "La balado de Bosko kaj Admira", poste aperis en Monato 1994/10, p. 24. La alia havis la titolon "Kontenta kato" kaj refrenon, en kiu ripetiĝas la silabo ron-ron-ron. Mi ne povas trovi tiun duan poemon. Ĉu iu vidis ĝin ie?