If you want to contribute to one of the other-language Wikipedias, are you expected to compose a new entry for a subject, or are you allowed to translate the entry in the English Wikipedia?
It is certainly accepted; see Wikipedia:Translation, and the corresponding articles on other-language Wikipedias, which are linked in the “languages” box in the left column.
Of course, different Wikipedias have different standards and policies, so in some cases a direct translation might not be acceptable.
I’ve looked at quite a few different-language versions of Wikipedia pages on subjects I’ve been interested in, and very few of them are direct translations of the English page.