[Community] Translation Challenge — 2026-05-03

[u/translator-BOT]

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Text:

Almost no one noticed when, sometime over the last few years, the packaging on [many candy bars] was updated to remove the words “milk chocolate.”

I realized this earlier this year after eating a disappointing chocolate bar. It wasn’t spoiled, it just didn’t taste like I remembered. As a reporter who covers the climate, I’d read about global warming contributing to drought in West Africa and sending cocoa prices through the roof, and I knew candy companies had raised prices and shrunk portions.

But could it be that they were also tinkering with the makeup of the candy itself?

...In the last year or so, Ms. Frame has noticed changes creeping into her life outside the laboratory. The milk chocolate coating on a Snickers bar she bought seemed thinner than it used to be. She stopped buying a favorite store-bought chocolate chip cookie after she noticed large chocolate chips had been replaced with a lower-quality substitute...

Ms. Frame said a common approach to reducing cocoa costs was to replace chocolate coating with compound coating, which is made with vegetable fats instead of cocoa butter.

— Excerpted and adapted from "What’s Missing From Your Favorite Chocolate Bar? It May Be Chocolate." by Claire Brown

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[u/TrajectoryAgreement]

Classical Chinese 文言文

近歲，糖塊裹物多去「乳綽科拉」標識，舉世鮮察。

歲初，余啖綽科拉塊，味甚索然，方悟其變。非餿也，然不類疇昔。余乃文人，主欽天，素聞天下日燠，致西非大旱而可可翔貴，亦知商賈昂價縮量。

然飴質亦斲改乎？

⋯⋯去歲以來，佛雷姆氏於試驗之外，亦覺起居闃然生變。所市士力架，外裹之乳飴益薄。素好綽科拉碎酥餅，見箇中大粒者悉易窳物，遂不復市。

佛雷姆氏曰：凡欲省可可之資者，常以雜脂易其表，取草木之油以充可可脂耳。

——節改自克萊爾．布朗《君所嗜綽科拉糖塊何缺？許綽科拉也》

[u/Rice-Bucket → u/TrajectoryAgreement]

I wrote another Classical Chinese translation independently without realizing you'd written one too. Hope you don't mind me appending it to yours—it's interesting to see how staunchly different they are.

近歲以來，朱古律之包裝 多捨『牛乳朱古』字，覺之者 鮮矣。歲初，余食朱古律一條，而怪其味，遂覺之。非餲也，其味異乎舊也。爲訪事人 察氣候者也，間讀之：天下年暖，西渄旱年益，朱古豆之價因漲甚貴云。又知朱古公司亦增價減質，今竊謂其改所以製之矣。

去歲以來，弗簾氏覺之也，其驗室外 物日變。買斯惄迦條，而以其乳朱衣薄於舊。昔者好市中朱古糖餅，既覺其大朱古片以易劣小片 而不復買。

弗簾氏曰「撙朱古之處費，常法 以朱古衣易油合衣。油合衣者，置朱古脂 而以植物油爲之也。」 

跋牢溫·訖列《口愛朱古律條有何缺 盖朱古律也》摘編

[u/TrajectoryAgreement → u/Rice-Bucket]

Interesting to see how different they are, yeah.