Publishing on Medium in Esperanto
A Canadian Medium writer decided to work on his language skills through a year-long writing challenge.
On Medium, people all over the world publish in more than two dozen languages. And there's one more few people know about: Esperanto.
Esperanto was created in the 1800s by a Polish doctor in an effort to create an easily learned language to be spoken globally to promote peace. Between 200,000 and 2 million people all over the world speak Esperanto.
Zach Jordan is a digital marketing specialist based in Toronto, Canada. He started one of Medium's first Esperanto publications, called 52 Weeks of Esperanto — one post a week for a year. Medium International interviewed Jordan by email about his project.
Why are you learning Esperanto? And why did you decide to start this publication?
I started learning Esperanto about a year ago. It was mentioned in an article by someone I had met and I figured if he knew about it I should as well. I started this publication because even though I had used Esperanto here and there over the course of the previous year, I hadn’t really used it for anything. So I figured the best way to get some more practice and use it more was to start a blog, and Medium’s publication format was perfect.
What have you been writing about in the publication?
Mostly random events from my life during the week. I realized after writing the second [post] that my life may not be as exciting as I had previously thought, so I try to incorporate some of my other hobbies like photography and biking. One thing I started adding early on was a comic from a random website or blog that I try to translate into Esperanto. This has been an interesting challenge as not all English phrases translate into Esperanto in a way that makes sense, so I have to try to find the right words so the punchline stays funny.
Have you engaged with any other fellow Esperanto speakers on Medium?
Sadly, no. I’ve had a few comments on some entries, but overall there hasn’t been much interaction. It’s a little odd too as the posts get “Read” counts (normally about 10 or so), I guess that means I should try to be more engaging! I’m actually kind of glad there hasn’t been a lot of interaction as I’m sure I’ve made a number of grammatical errors in every post.
What do you hope to get out of this project?
Better Esperanto. I’ve noticed I’ve gotten better at using accusatives and my sentences are starting to form a little easier as well. I hope that by the end of the year I’ll have more words in my vocabulary so I can speak more and of course write more in Esperanto as well.
Want to practice your Esperanto? Check out Kvindek Du Semajnoj de Esperanto!
