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Harry Potter Translation


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Hello everyone ! 

 

As I am reading again HP7, something came to my mind. It's about the French translation of the book as I am reading it in French. I will try to explain the best way possible, it's not a post only for the French speaking people ! 

 

First, a little grammar point to introduce my problem. 

In English, you say "you" wether you are talking to 1 person, many people, wether you "respect" them or not. 

In French we use not 1 word for that, but two : 

- "tu" for 1 person which is close to us (family, friends...), or a person our age for example, or someone younger (even though sometimes it's not polite). 

- "vous" for several people at the same time OR (important part) for 1 person we are talking to, but a person we respect. For example someone older untill this person asks for the "tu", someone we don't know, a respected person such as a professor (that's different from Spain where they say "tu" a lot). 

 

 

Well, in the books, especially in the 7th, Harry still says "vous" to Lupin and Hagrid, and that disturbs me. I know that they are adults, but they have such a close relationship, a friendship, after few month they should have started to say "tu" I believe. Just like when Harry says "tu" to Sirius, or Tonks. 

 

I know that Hagrid is a teacher, but they share so much that i felt their relashionship exceeded the teacher-status. Saying "tu" is not a mark of disrespect if you really share a connection with a person, and of course Harry, Ron and Hermione could have made a difference during the lessons, and go back to "vous" during the lessons of Care of Magical Creatures.

 

Does anyone has a thought to share about it ? Do you feel the same ? 

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Same in Russian. But in our books they call Hagrid and Sirius your "tu" in russian: ti but Lupin "vois" or 'vy' in russian as a polite form. Its just how the translators translated it, maybe they didnt read the books. And in English its only "you".

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I would agree Harry would probably use the familiar form of you for Hagrid. They were friends first and teacher later. Lupin maybe not. He was a teacher first and friend later and sometimes the formal relation continues even with a close connection.

 

Like Yulia says, it is probably just the way the translator interpreted it.

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You have the same 'problem' in German, and I remember being taken out of it when Harry used the casual "you" when talking to a tacher (not Hagrid). Didn't seem to fit at all the atmosphere of HP where teachers are mostly feared/ respected.

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I have 1, 2 and 7 in Romanian (also read them all several times - from a friend and I want them in english) and never encountered any mistakes. I read 5 in pdf format and it was a bit overwhelming with all the words that were new to me, i was wondering what a cauldron is. Took a while to figure it out. It's just depends on the translators: if they are well prepared for that particular work or less prepped. On how professional they are, I guess.

Edited by Elena
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Thank you for your answers ! 

 

I know that it's a matter of translation, and the translator's choice, but sometimes it bothers me when I remember that JK Rowling studied in France, so she knows about those differences in other languages, I'm sure she has an opinion on it !  :yesyes:

 

I understand your point when you say that harry knew Lupin as a teacher before becoming a "close acquaintance". 

 

But you see in different languages there isn't even the same logic. They didn't understand how much it made our life, they didn't care ! haha They should have worked on it with closer attention (though I believe the French translation is good). 

Elena, I don't believe it's "mistakes" because the english book doesn't give any information on that, so a choice had to be made in other languages. I don't know how much Rowling can influence a translation, if she has any connection with the translators or not. 

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Thank you for your answers ! 

 

 

Elena, I don't believe it's "mistakes" because the english book doesn't give any information on that, so a choice had to be made in other languages. I don't know how much Rowling can influence a translation, if she has any connection with the translators or not. 

 

To me they're mistakes. From my point of view. Bob short for Jo doesn't have anything to do with whom translates the books in a gazilion countries.

At all. Some of them love their job and do it well some others do less, it's like that. Again, From my point of view.

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One person's translation will always be different from anothers, so if you felt the formality of the word should have been translated differently that's entirely fair.  I wouldn't classify one wrong and one right (but of course I speak English where we do not distinguish you as more formal or less formal).  Really, what it all comes down to IMO is personal preference.  I think your point is a good one, but you'd really have to ask the translator their reasoning for making the decision they made to determine whether or not you fully agree with it.

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You're right. In the Arabic version of the books, this isn't the only "problem". A lot of names get lost in translation, and if I hadn't read the English versions of the books, I would have get lost as well.
I guess the translator doesn't really care about the novel as events and relationships between characters as much as they care about getting the book translated and doing their job, I know that this is annoying for us potterheads, but since we know the difference, does it really matter if it's "vous" or "tu"? ;)

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You're right. In the Arabic version of the books, this isn't the only "problem". A lot of names get lost in translation, and if I hadn't read the English versions of the books, I would have get lost as well.

Lost in translation alright. Let's just say that "can I see Uranus" doesn't really work in German ;)
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A lot of names get lost in translation, and if I hadn't read the English versions of the books, I would have get lost as well.

 

Well in French, a lot of names have been translated but it respects the meaning in some ways. Isn't it the same in arabic ?

I believe that they had to translate the names otherwise we wouldn't have understood the "joke" about it or the essence of JK's work. 

 

 

Oh, about that, I wanted to tell you something that maybe you don't know.

Voldemort is the name of Tom in both French and English versions of the book. Actually, it took me some time to realise something : 

for non French people, Voldemort has no special meaning I guess, but it's actually a mix of French words. It literally means "Theft of death" in French (un vol = a theft, de = of, mort = death). Because it's a "French name", we don't have a translation, wich is a reason why some French people find this name ridiculous. Imagine if the greatest fear of all times was named "Theft of death", it's like a spoiler's inside the name, which doesn't make him as scary and mysterious as he may be in other languages. I guess it's because JK speaks French fluently. 

 

It reminds me of "Dark Vader" which means Dark Father in Dutch, it's a spoiler inside the character for all Dutch people discovering the movie ! (I learn that with the movie Pitch Perfect, I plead guilty ! haha)

 

 

For some spells also, JK was inspired by Latin words, that we easily understand in French as Latin is the basis of our language. It makes some spells sound quite ridiculous, or as if she was uninspired to create them. 

 

 

 

Another fun fact : in French, Snape = Rogue. In French it's close to the meaning of rude, sharp, so I guess it's not a bad translation... And well, guess what is the name of Rihanna's last perfume ? xD

Imagine you see that picture with "SNAPE" written on it ! 

It made me laugh, and I thought about buying it just to have some kind of Harry Potter memory (then I realised that I must be the only one laughing as Rogue is not Rogue in English ^^)

 

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  • 2 months later...

Well in French, a lot of names have been translated but it respects the meaning in some ways. Isn't it the same in arabic ?

I believe that they had to translate the names otherwise we wouldn't have understood the "joke" about it or the essence of JK's work. 

 

 

Oh, about that, I wanted to tell you something that maybe you don't know.

Voldemort is the name of Tom in both French and English versions of the book. Actually, it took me some time to realise something : 

for non French people, Voldemort has no special meaning I guess, but it's actually a mix of French words. It literally means "Theft of death" in French (un vol = a theft, de = of, mort = death). Because it's a "French name", we don't have a translation, wich is a reason why some French people find this name ridiculous. Imagine if the greatest fear of all times was named "Theft of death", it's like a spoiler's inside the name, which doesn't make him as scary and mysterious as he may be in other languages. I guess it's because JK speaks French fluently. 

 

It reminds me of "Dark Vader" which means Dark Father in Dutch, it's a spoiler inside the character for all Dutch people discovering the movie ! (I learn that with the movie Pitch Perfect, I plead guilty ! haha)

 

 

For some spells also, JK was inspired by Latin words, that we easily understand in French as Latin is the basis of our language. It makes some spells sound quite ridiculous, or as if she was uninspired to create them. 

 

 

Another fun fact : in French, Snape = Rogue. In French it's close to the meaning of rude, sharp, so I guess it's not a bad translation... And well, guess what is the name of Rihanna's last perfume ? xD

Imagine you see that picture with "SNAPE" written on it ! 

It made me laugh, and I thought about buying it just to have some kind of Harry Potter memory (then I realised that I must be the only one laughing as Rogue is not Rogue in English ^^)

 

 

 This is really interesting to me and something I would have never known about regarding Voldemort.  Considering the whole horcrux thing the French translation to Theft of Death makes complete sense in that Voldemort was stealing life from death through murder.  The depth of thought and consideration that Jo Rowling put into her books characters is indescribably impressive to me.  For myself, the concept of writing a book is not beyond me, but writing a book that has such detail and depth to the characters and the places and their names is something that is far beyond my intelligence or patience as a writer. 

 

Thanks for sharing the translations Thessalie.  Snape = Rogue is also incredibly insightful to his character.  If I had known the translation prior to reading the books then Snape's personality would have been more predictable if not his actions (as it's difficult to predict the actions of a Rogue personality).

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 This is really interesting to me and something I would have never known about regarding Voldemort.  Considering the whole horcrux thing the French translation to Theft of Death makes complete sense in that Voldemort was stealing life from death through murder.  The depth of thought and consideration that Jo Rowling put into her books characters is indescribably impressive to me.  For myself, the concept of writing a book is not beyond me, but writing a book that has such detail and depth to the characters and the places and their names is something that is far beyond my intelligence or patience as a writer. 

 

Thanks for sharing the translations Thessalie.  Snape = Rogue is also incredibly insightful to his character.  If I had known the translation prior to reading the books then Snape's personality would have been more predictable if not his actions (as it's difficult to predict the actions of a Rogue personality).

You're welcome ! I always find those translation questions interesting (it's even more important in movie's subtitles). Also I wanted to point out that for me JKR competely used her french and latin skills while writting the book, as she is fluent in french and used to sudy in Paris. 

However, I must say that an average teenager (as I was when I discovered HP) doesn't understand some of the subtilities because for example for "Rogue", it's not a common word at all. The same for the O.W.L translated "B.U.S.E", I read somewhere that a "buse" is an animal (which means that the nmae respects the original idea), but I believe only few people know about it XD 

 

I agree with you for the depth of the books, each time I read them again I'm amazed to keep discovering details that I missed the last time. When I ever thought about writing sometinh, I thought about Hp and imediately thought that if i wasn't able to try to do something as rich and good as Harry Potter, it's was not worth it haha

Edited by Thessalie
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