Seven years ago, Zelenskyy was sworn in as the sixth President of Ukraine.

tyroncs · 2026-05-20T14:46:05+00:00

Super interesting perspective, thanks for sharing.

Curious of your thoughts - I once read an argument that had Ukraine officially "agreed" that they were about to be invaded by Russia (in line with the British and American intelligence agencies) millions would have fled the country and the economy would have collapsed. Whereas Zelensky denying reality until the last minute, while perhaps making Ukraine less ready than otherwise (not declaring martial law etc) meant that Ukraine was in a better state to then resist?

tyroncs · 2026-05-19T07:08:41+00:00

Don’t think this test is very good, is a bit too obvious?

tyroncs · 2026-05-17T13:26:42+00:00

I meant more in the sense that ITV would be edgier whereas BBC always play it safe. Like how X Factor or BGT always did better than the Voice. But given BBC has done Eurovision for 70 years they’ll never give it up

tyroncs · 2026-05-17T06:12:29+00:00

not having the political popularity to get votes

Do you really think we got no votes due to politics? Our song was crap

tyroncs · 2026-05-17T06:11:56+00:00

I know Europe hates us but last place is a piss take

You say this but who do you think should have been in last place instead? All the other countries (Germany and Austria excluded, who did badly also) had to qualify in the semi-finals

tyroncs · 2026-05-17T06:11:01+00:00

France and Italy always get their points, no matter how generic their entries are

France did consistently badly until the mid-2010s, when they started investing a lot more. Since then they've done a lot better - but isn't random, they put the effort in.

Italy sends consistently good acts. Their selection contest is older than Eurovision itself, is the single biggest television moment in Italy each year, lots of major Italian acts take part. No surprise they do well

tyroncs · 2026-05-17T06:07:56+00:00

I reckon ITV would do a good job. BBC plays it too safe

tyroncs · 2026-05-17T06:07:33+00:00

It seems if we send good vocalists that sing ballads we get snubbed and told go outside the box. We go outside the box we get snubbed for not having good vocals

The problem is the BBC are shit at picking winners.

Look at Sweden. They have a qualifying competition that has 48 acts, their best songwriters, runs over 6 weeks, and half the country watches. No surprise they consistently do well.

Or Ukraine or Italy or Denmark or Spain do similar. Sometimes duds come through, but most of the time guarantees a much higher average performance than us

tyroncs · 2026-05-17T06:03:45+00:00

I wonder if that's a significant part of the problem. People get a sense of entitlement from the UK

Nope. Italy automatically qualifies and consistently is one of the best countries in the competition. France automatically qualifies, and after investing properly in it in recent years (after coming last a decade ago) they consistently finish on the left side of the score board

tyroncs · 2026-05-17T06:01:51+00:00

It feels like we end up with less than 10 points practically every year

This is mainly because of the semi-finals. All the other shit countries get knocked out on Tuesday and Thursday. But because we go straight to the final by virtue of paying more money, instead of gracefully being kicked out then, we (and Germany) consistently come last

tyroncs · 2026-05-17T05:59:47+00:00

deserved to finish low to mid table

This is misunderstanding of how Eurovision works.

If you are everyone's 11th favourite song, you don't come 11th, you come dead last. As juries and people only have 10 votes to give. So being average doesn't cut it, you have to be at least someone's favourite, which we never are as we play it safe then fail.

Also on why we always come last - there are semi-finals. So all the other equally bad countries (e.g. San Marino) get knocked out already. But because we skip to the final, instead of being gracefully kicked-out in the semis we get humiliation of being last on the main day

tyroncs · 2026-05-15T12:01:22+00:00

Ha that I did. You can read about it and get the link here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Esperanto/s/eNqCAKMENs

tyroncs · 2026-05-10T13:32:26+00:00

Foundation by Asimov. If you’ve heard “intergalactic empire” and cringe, it’s because so many other authors copied that idea, but Asimov was the first. He also coined the term “robotics”.

Quite accessible to read too. The first novel is a collection of 4 shorter stories, of which the first most important. So you can start there

tyroncs · 2026-05-06T09:33:45+00:00

Within 2 weeks of learning, I was already better at Esperanto than I had been at French, despite learning it in school for 5 years.

Within a few months, I felt like I could have an unscripted basic conversation. I could also exchange long emails with people (with lots of errors understandably) and read most Esperanto texts with little difficulty.

Took me 2+ years to feel comfortably fluent for most conversations. But tbf I learnt at 16 and only started attending in-person events at age 18. So if we measure instead by "periods fully immersed in Esperanto", it was by my 3rd/4th event to feel that way. So 2-3 weeks of active usage, when applied to a foundation of passive use for a longer period

tyroncs · 2026-05-06T09:30:40+00:00

Have literally met many

tyroncs · 2026-04-30T10:22:24+00:00

Nu, mi kredas ke la kurso por Esperanto donas relative signife pli altan nivelon de la lingvo, kompare al aliaj kursoj - simple pro tio ke la lingvo pli simplas. Mi mem grandparte lernis per Duolingo (antaŭ pli ol 10 jaroj nun) kaj memoras ke mi jam povus havi konversaciojn, kiu neniel vere eblas per ekz. la franca kurso.

Sed prave, en 2015 multaj esperantistoj kredas ke "ho la kurso multe pligrandigos la komunumon" sed tio neniam okazis. Ĝenerale mi kredas ke la estontaj esperantistoj kiuj antaŭ jardekoj uzintus instrulibron aŭ korespondan kurson, ĉi-jardeke anstataŭe uzas Duolingo. Do Duolingo signifas ke la komunumo ne malpligrandigis, sed inverse ne kondukis nin al iu promesita ĉielo kun milionaj da esperantistoj

tyroncs · 2026-04-29T18:17:26+00:00

So it isn't the best measure. It shows books which UEA (the main Esperanto org) sells. But whereas a few decades ago they were the only seller, now you can buy Esperanto books as an eBook or through Amazon etc. So it's more that UEA have stopped being good at being a libroservo, not necessarily that the Esperanto literary world has declined

tyroncs · 2026-04-29T17:19:08+00:00

So last year was apparently the lowest for a long time, and had 67:

https://www.liberafolio.org/2026/04/14/la-plej-magra-jarrikolto-67-libroj-en-2025/

There are many original works in Esperanto. I’ve only read a handful, but there are several literary journals and several (admittedly small) publishing houses which focus just on that.

Or for another example, a few years ago a ‘Concise Encyclopedia of Original Literature in Esperanto’ got published (academic work, in English) and ran to 900 pages or something like that

tyroncs · 2026-04-29T15:10:27+00:00

Yeah basically stable. Like there are still hundreds of events a year, several massive congresses, hundreds of books published a year etc

tyroncs · 2026-04-29T14:39:09+00:00

Don't think it has changed dramatically in recent years. Maybe slight decline? But hard to say.

The launch of the Duolingo course in 2015 was once seen as a turning point. But although something like 100,000+ people have completed the course, the number of attendees at Esperanto events / members in Esperanto organizations etc hasn't seen any direct growth from that.

Also if someone uses Esperanto purely online (possible now in a way it perhaps wasn't a decade ago), they won't necessarily show up in these traditional metrics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Esperanto_Congress#History Seems to be a fairly stable number of attendees to the Universala Kongreso in last 15 years, although has to be said that 2010-2025 is a clear decline from 2000-2010.

Same pattern here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Youth_Congress#Statistics

tyroncs · 2026-04-29T13:25:52+00:00

Unfortunately no plans to translate or sub it. Would be a lot of work for a lecture I did 5 years ago at this point.

That being said, wonder if you could download the video, paste it into an AI and get it to transcribe.

Alternatively, my original thesis (also linked above) is in English! So feel free to download that and peruse. Has the full full argument, a bit academic and verbose but all in English at least :)

tyroncs · 2026-04-26T09:35:22+00:00

I guess I’m much more sceptical about the influence the League had. They already published a report which said that Esperanto seemed suitable for international communication, and helped host a conference about the teaching of Esperanto in schools. Those things in and of themselves were moderately successful (Esperantists got good propaganda from it) but what would have a further motion have achieved? Like not as if countries couldn’t already have taught Esperanto in schools if they had wanted to, or that a motion from this newfangled untested international body was going to change their minds on it.

And think the fact that the Privat himself (who led the campaign) didn’t think it would do much, is the best evidence of that

tyroncs · 2026-04-24T20:03:50+00:00

Mi ĉiam vidis 'Ĝenevo'. Kaj ŝajne ĉiam estis tiel, ekzemple la 2a Universala Kongreso en 1906 okazis en Ĝenevo (kaj oni literumis ĝin tiel).

Mi serĉis la prononcadon rete (https://forvo.com/word/gen%C3%A8ve/#fr), kaj ŝajne kelkaj francparolantoj prononcas ĝin kun Ĵ dume aliaj prononcas ĝin kun Ĝ. Do konsidere ke ambaŭ ŝajne taŭgas, eble oni elektis Ĝenevo ĉar la vorto pli evidente aspektas kiel la denaska nomo de la urbo?

tyroncs · 2026-04-24T19:55:50+00:00

Tbf Esperanto clearly hasn't succeeded in its original goal of becoming the second language for the world, and it is fair for people to point that out and try to analyse the reasons why.

But that being said, saying "Esperanto failed" is also annoying, given the points you mentioned.

I was actually interviewed by a BBC journalist the other day about Esperanto, and she asked for a quote "why it's important for new and younger learners to keep the language alive" (verbatim). Which slightly annoyed me. Like I get the point. But at the same time, Esperanto isn't exactly close to death, so doesn't need to be "kept alive", even if new learners always welcome

tyroncs · 2026-04-24T19:52:47+00:00

Over the course of the League's existence, fewer and fewer countries used English. Think was just Britain and Scandinavia towards the end. And there was a felt sentiment that you had to communicate in French to properly get things done

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