The simplest ideas are often the most complex. For example: a basic go book in multiple languages to spread the game around the world. That’s the idea behind the Multilingual Go Book Project. “The project came to be due to the difficulties
of promoting go in my home country, Greece,” says H. Kapolos. “We didn’t have educational material in our language and there were young people and adults who wanted to learn the game, but could not read English.”
When Kapolos participated in the European Go Championship, he noticed “that some countries around our division and our region didn’t have too many young players in them either,” and it occurred to him that “maybe they need a book in their language as well. Something that could circulate in libraries, schools, universities and game shops. Places where young people with a passion for board games might be found.” So, he thought, “why should we stop at only English and Greek? We should make the book in more languages and have it be free for everyone.”
So far, the project has two books of 192 pages of content — more than 700 diagrams each — in English and Greek, both completely free. Kapolos is now looking for collaborators to translate it into other languages, “especially in Spanish and Portuguese, whose translations have already begun.”
