|
 |
Harry Potter | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| tibbles Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4991 days ago 245 posts - 421 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean | Message 33 of 51 20 June 2012 at 2:31am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I'm reading _The Hobbit_ in Spanish right now and am about 85% of the way through it. I think it's a fun read. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Wompi Triglot Groupie Germany Joined 4756 days ago 56 posts - 64 votes Speaks: German*, Spanish, English Studies: Czech | Message 34 of 51 20 June 2012 at 8:50am | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
I also started with Harry Potter in Czech but gave up. I think Narnia is much easier to read. At the moment I am reading Alchymista from Paulo Coelho in Czech. There isn't so much fairy-tale vocabulary in there :) Edited by Wompi on 20 June 2012 at 8:50am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6503 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 35 of 51 20 June 2012 at 1:47pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I have read both in Esperanto and before that in English - not in Danish. I have only read the Potter books in English, but if I ever return to reread the whole series I would want to read each book in a new language. Besides I have thought about starting a collection of Asterixes ('Asteriges' ?) in the 'relevant' languages, i.e. the Spanish tale in Spanish, the one about the olympics in Greek and the one about the English in English. So far I have only read Asterix in Danish, French and Latin. Edited by Iversen on 20 June 2012 at 1:58pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4689 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 36 of 51 20 June 2012 at 9:39pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Asteroi?
I don't always trust Amazon reviewers - a lot of them have hidden biases and agendas - so I can't vouch for these complaints. Hopefully someone on here can address them! Both of these versions of Harry Potter à l'école des sorciers appear to be "Junior Folio" editions translated by Jean-François Ménard, with 311-330 pages (different vendors give different page numbers!) 
 Most of the reviews are positive, but the following three gave me pause: The English version of this book is great. Unfortunately, the French translation is dreadful. The translator apparently became bored with the book and has left out ENTIRE PAGES of the story. It is probably the worst translation I have ever read of any book. I ordered this book for a French speaking child of 11. I needed a gift for her and thought that she might enjoy reading the Harry Potter books. When I received the book I was shocked. It was a very slim paperback and not the book I expected. I thought it was very expensive for what it was - $13.57. I would not have ordered it had I realized what I was getting. Great book especially to learn French with. Keep in mind that it is abridged, wasn't aware of that when I bought it. Edited by kanewai on 20 June 2012 at 9:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6397 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 37 of 51 20 June 2012 at 10:21pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
Hm, my edition of the first book in Italian has exactly 300 pages and nothing is left out.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| vermillon Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4478 days ago 602 posts - 1042 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, German | Message 38 of 51 20 June 2012 at 11:00pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
It is apparently true that the translator has cut "many" passages from the original book. You can read more about it here: http://rernould.perso.neuf.fr/h1PottFr.html 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4628 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 39 of 51 21 June 2012 at 6:08pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
An Italian friend told me that in their versions, the "SPQR" on the Romans' shields (or wherever) gets rendered as "Sono pazzi, questi Romani". :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
 songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5009 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 40 of 51 22 June 2012 at 5:52am | IP Logged | ||||||||
For HP and the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone, I generally read one or two English chapters, then followed it with a reading of the French chapters. I didn't do a line-by-line comparison of the two versions, except in (the many, due to my French level at that time) cases where I didn't understand the French, and went back to consult the relevant English sentences. But I certainly didn't notice "entire pages" being omitted. I'll probably re-read it as a LR exercise during the next Tadoku Challenge, so will report back in the (unlikely, I feel) event that I find pages which have been left untranslated.
The original, in English, is actually only 223 pages. That is, "only" compared with the 600/700+ pages of some of the last volumes. I suspect that the authors of those two particular Amazon reviews were more familiar with the later volumes, and either didn't realize - or had forgotten - how "slim" Rowling's opening book in the series actually is. See also my reply to a later post below. p.s. Your "asteroi" made me laugh, Kanewai. Edited by songlines on 22 June 2012 at 5:08pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
