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Teen arrested for H.Potter translation

  Tags: Teenagers | Book
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading Post Reply
18 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3  Next >>
TerryW
Senior Member
United States
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 Message 1 of 18
11 August 2007 at 3:17pm | IP Logged 
Somebody find this kid and ask him if he learned his English from Pimsleur or Assimil? (I guess FSI English is out of the question?)


"Teen Arrested for Posting Illegal French Translation of 'Deathly Hallows' Online"

http://hpbeyond.net/hpb/books/teen-arrested-for-posting-ille gal-french-translation-of-deathly-hallows-online/

"A young teen fan of the Harry Potter series was arrested after it was discovered he had posted online a complete, yet unofficial translation in French of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The Guardian reports a 16 year old boy from Aix-en-Provence, France was too impatient to wait for the official French translation of the novel. The high school boy then set about making one himself after the English versions were released on July 21 and soon the first chapters were available for download a few days after the book came out in July and the complete text was online within days...Police said they were 'particularly surprised' by the quality of the pirate version, which they said was 'semi-professional.'

The teen was kept in custody overnight and has since been released pending further investigation. The official French translation of the book,"Harry Potter et les reliques de la mort," is still being formally translated and will not be available until October."

Edited by TerryW on 11 August 2007 at 3:23pm

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FSI
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United States
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 Message 2 of 18
11 August 2007 at 3:44pm | IP Logged 
I remember reading this yesterday or the day before. I guess this is one of the upsides of living in a capital-focused modern world.

As someone noted where I read it, it's rather interesting that someone could make a perfectly readible translation of the book within days, while the "official" translator is still months away from completion. One of the differences between working for love, and working for money, I imagine.
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Sprachprofi
Nonaglot
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Germany
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 Message 3 of 18
11 August 2007 at 3:55pm | IP Logged 
Fan translations ("scanlations") of Japanese manga can also be found completed online while the publishers are releasing translations of each volume about half a year apart. Don't think for a minute that this is related to the translators needing so much time - after all, the movies are all released simultaneously in all languages, even those that need dubbing. Not releasing e. g. a German translation of this latest Harry Potter is a tactical ploy so that people with sufficient knowledge of English will buy the English novel first and in October maybe buy the German novel in addition.

Also, that allows them to stay in the news and hence have more free advertisement:
1 news item announcing that the latest English volume will soon be released
1 news item announcing that the latest English volume will be released on day X
1 news item announcing which local bookstores will have special parties celebrating the release
1 news item wondering (every time!) about how people are ready to get up in the middle of the night or camp in front of book stores in order to get the latest volume ASAP
1 news item wondering how Harry Potter affects the English levels of students

Then, a little later, the same for the German release. And of course the movie. And the next English release. Even though Harry Potter only gets released once a year, there is hardly a week in which there aren't news about it.
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FSI
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 Message 4 of 18
11 August 2007 at 4:04pm | IP Logged 
Excellent points, Sprachprofi. This has as much to do with marketing as...well, everything else accompanying film and literature franchises.
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Captain Haddock
Diglot
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 Message 5 of 18
12 August 2007 at 1:35am | IP Logged 
FSI wrote:
As someone noted where I read it, it's rather interesting that someone could make a perfectly readible translation of the book within days, while the "official" translator is still months away from completion. One of the differences between working for love, and working for money, I imagine.


Even if it were readable, I doubt it would be as good as the official translation — one more reason, of course, that arresting or harassing the kid is utterly stupid.
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audiolang
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Romania
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 Message 6 of 18
12 August 2007 at 2:01am | IP Logged 
A translator's job is very comfortable.The people paying him say to him " Don't rush it,take it easy,we have to market the English version first"?
Great.
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Nordlicht
Triglot
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Germany
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 Message 7 of 18
12 August 2007 at 4:38am | IP Logged 
I remember that there was a German internet community once translating the 5th book together because they were unsatisfied with the official versions (of the books prior to the 5th since that one hadn't been released in German then). I don't think they ever got into trouble because of it.

I just did a little google search and found that this community still exists, it seems like they're translating Deathly Hollows now, but only those who participate in translating will be able to download the finished book in the end.

For anyone who wants to take a look: http://www.harry-auf-deutsch.de/HaD/index.php
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alexptrans
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Israel
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 Message 8 of 18
12 August 2007 at 5:43am | IP Logged 
audiolang wrote:
A translator's job is very comfortable.The people paying him say to him " Don't rush it,take it easy,we have to market the English version first"?
Great.


Lots of anti-translator sentiments on this forum lately.

A translator's job can indeed be very comfortable if you're skillful and you like working with languages. However, all the clients I work with (such as subtitling agencies, government ministries, book publishers) want their translations as soon as possible, which is especially true when translating for news websites. Meeting deadlines is no less important for translators than it is for any other professionals.

Now, about Harry Potter: it is often the case with many popular book series that the translator receives a copy of the original manuscript months before it is published in the original language so that he can begin working on the translation as soon as possible. But the Harry Potter books are so heavily guarded that no translator ever sees a single word before the official publication date.

Edited by alexptrans on 12 August 2007 at 6:02am



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