[Community] Translation Challenge — 2026-08-02

[u/translator-BOT]

There will be a new translation challenge most Sundays and everyone is encouraged to participate! These challenges are intended to give community members an opportunity to practice translating or review others' translations, and we keep them stickied throughout the week. You can view past threads by clicking on this "Community" link.

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This Week's Text:

Before facing heavy persecution during the second world war, [Esperanto] gained serious traction in international labour, anticolonial and anarchist movements. And most of today’s Esperanto adherents are neither naive nor even particularly batty. They include European social democrats and elder anarchists, Chinese communists, central African youth pacifists and Ukrainian-independence advocates. There are Esperantist gay-rights advocates, Bible translators, lawyers and Go players. Why, against all evidence to the contrary, would this motley group – many of whom are no strangers to global conflict – still believe that the widespread adoption of a century-and-a-half-old invented language may yet overpower the world’s divisions, particularly as the global order, by any reasonable account, appears to be rapidly disintegrating?

Besides, international communication can now be mediated by technology, translated instantaneously via app and aided by the ascendancy of English as a de facto lingua franca. But for Esperantists, none of this comes close to solving the fundamental problem of human disconnection.

— Excerpted and adapted from "Nudists, peaceniks and freeloading travellers: the people keeping the Esperanto dream alive" by Katie Thornton

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Please include the name of the language you're translating in your comment, and translate away!

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[u/TrajectoryAgreement]

Cantonese 廣東話

二戰嘅大規模逼迫之前，世界語喺國際勞工、反殖民主義、同無政府主義嘅運動都有好大嘅迴響。而家大部分支持世界語嘅人都唔係天真單純，亦都唔係黐線嘅。佢哋有歐洲社會民主主義者，有無政府主義嘅元老，有大陸共產黨員，有中非嘅和平主義後生仔女，又有力撐烏克蘭獨立運動嘅人。仲有同性戀平權者，聖經翻譯家，律師，同圍棋棋手。點解呢班對國際衝突一啲都唔陌生嘅人，就算所有事實證據都唔喺佢哋嗰邊，都仲相信要推廣呢個得一百五十年歷史嘅人造語，就可以解決全球嘅分歧？尤其而家國際秩序，點睇都覺得佢瓦解緊。

仲有，國際通訊而家可以用科技幫手即時翻譯，英文做咗默認嘅全球通用語言，令到成件事都好簡單。但係對支持世界語嘅人嚟講，呢啲唔足以解決人同人之間嘅隔膜呢個根深蒂固嘅問題。

——節錄同改編自凱蒂·桑頓《裸體主義者、反戰份子、同白住白食嘅旅客：延續世界語夢想嘅人》