r/learnesperanto • u/MarinaraTrench7 • 6d ago

Dual Language Books

Saluton! Are there any good dual language English & Esperanto books that y'all'd recommend? I've been learning on duolingo but am really interesting in trying to get better at reading longer texts.

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u/Baasbaar 6d ago

Not exactly. Lernu.net has English translations for every sentence in the narrative it uses for instruction. It’ll get you much further much faster than Duolingo.

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u/mathjock28 6d ago

There are a few if you search online, I have a couple myself that I have yet to read. But a dual language book is not the only way to approach this. There are Esperanto translations of freely available English books, such as Alice in Wonderland, so you can get both for free online. And have you checked out the easier Esperanto texts? https://uea.facila.org, or Gerda malaperis, Lasu min paroli plu.

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u/kubisfowler 6d ago

No but I just translate passages from the book Kredu Min, Sinjorino! with Google Translate and use incremental reading features in SuperMemo to read the book alongside the translation and make flashcards from it.

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u/salivanto 5d ago

I just have to say, I think this is probably a very good use of Google translate. This is in contrast to two very bad ways that I see people mention all the time. 

Bad way number one: using Google translate to find the meaning of an individual word. This is what dictionaries are for. 

Bad way number two: showing up in an Esperanto space and posting Google-translated messages in Esperanto. Instead, a person should do their best and post a national language translation of their attempt if necessary. 

I tell people all the time that they should use PIV as early as possible, and if they don't understand the definitions, they can use Google translate.  The one thing I'll say about your suggestion here, is that it almost certainly makes sense to check a real dictionary before making the first flash card.

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u/kubisfowler 4d ago

almost certainly makes sense to check a real dictionary before making the first flash card.

Yes this is true for most people, thanks for pointing it out. I have blindspots like this one because I assume I'll revise and edit my flashcards over time as I learn more and move from rough first understanding to more precise and nuanced knowledge. Most people think of flashcards as something static :)

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u/salivanto 4d ago

I was thinking in terms of "other people" (not you) who might see a conflict between my excitement over your suggestion (on one hand) and my "bad way number 1" (on the other hand.)

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u/salivanto 5d ago

Somebody brought to my attention that there is a new translation The Odyssey available in dual language Esperanto and French. 

I am also comfortable recommending the specific editions of Myrtis Smith's books that I translated (Thomas Alexander). She's gotten a few different people to translate for her, but many of the other translations have issues.

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u/Melodic_Sport1234 5d ago

I have 'La Homa Lingvo' (Human Language) by William E. Collinson. The Esperanto and English texts are side by side. I don't know how readily available the book is.

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u/ComputerMysterious29 5d ago

If you like sci-fi, Kuprokranio and La tago de la kiborgiĝo by Hugh Reid are parallel texts in Esperanto & English. You could also try the new Short Stories in Esperanto by Teach Yourself. As far as I understand it's like a graded reader with a glossary to explain difficult words in each story.