This would probably be more at home in the "About the website" section but everyone there seemed to be conversing solely in Esperanto. Since I've only started studying the language this week I cannot express myself in Esperanto just yet.

Anyways, I signed up for the word of the day and the problem is when I get it each day there is no translation offered. So it's completely useless to me! I even downloaded an English-Esperanto dictionary on my iPhone but it only goes one way, so I can figure out what the English translation is.

So my suggestion is to offer the translation in the subscriber's native language (based on what they selected when they registered). It would make things much easier for us new comers

Why not just use the Lernu vortaro? It's just over there on the right hand side of the page.

To be honest I hadnt noticed that option. In any case, it means I have to log into the site to translate it. It shouldnt be that hard from a programming perspective to send the definition.

I get my email on my phone. So that means I'd have to go to a computer, log in, translate it... A bit of extra work.

I'm part of the core team that runs this website.

We have frequently received requests to send translations of the word of the day, but unfortunately we're not able to offer that service. Lernu is offered in a lot of languages. A lot! Not all of those languages have dictionaries that are very complete, and our word of the day database is not linked into the dictionary system in any case, to automatically pull out the meaning of the word. Offering translations of the words of the day in all of lernu's languages would take a great deal of time and effort.

We are mostly unpaid volunteers at lernu. The site earns some money from the google ads and from grants from various organizations, and from small numbers of donations that the site receives. Our money goes to paying for our servers and our web domain, and the programmers who do the brunt of the work on the site are paid for their work (at far less than the market rate - no one is getting rich off this site, and no one can live in anywhere but an extremely cheap budget on a 'lernu' salary). Due to the worldwide financial situation, the small amount of regular funding we previously received was reduced considerably. We had to cut back on a lot of plans we had for the site. We need a new server - in case I needed to tell you that. Most of you have probably noticed that site outages have become more frequent lately, and also pages loading slowly. Our current server is severely overloaded with all of the traffic we get. Other plans tend to get pushed back in comparison with more pressing needs (like the server).

So short answer - we're aware of the suggestion, it's a great suggestion that has been made before, but we don't have the manpower and budget to make it happen. Please contact teamo@lernu.net if you'd like to volunteer your time to help with the programming. Please click on the "Support lernu" link on the right-hand side of the screen, below the instant messenger, if you'd like to donate money. It's much appreciated!

Other forums have "fan translated" versions of the word of the day feature, e.g. the Chinese forum. Maybe some English speakers might want to translate it, but I don't really have the time or expertise to do it properly.