Unfortunately for france often a little behind the curve on english language trends, the french translation of the first harry potter book didnt. Harry potter and his friends have travelled the world. From the fourth harry potter book onwards, once the sagas french translator, jeanfrancois menard, was most definitely not translating the work of a littleknown british childrens author any more, his working routine was the same. In the french translation of the harry potter series, for. In the japanese translation of harry potter, charms is changed to fairy magic, which certainly changes how we picture it. Fawkes the phoenix, who saves harry s life in the second book of the series, was called fanny in the original italian translations. They said that they did this in order to make the tom marvolo riddle to i am lord voldemort anagram to work. Other translations have also changed the first books title, for instance, the french translation which changed harry potter and the philosophers stone to harry potter at the school of wizards for the same reason as the american translation, citing that the reference to the philosophers stone legend was too obscure for a book aimed at the. Charms seems to be a popular class to edit when it comes to translation, because it was also changed when the book was translated into turkish. The first nonassigned french book i read in high school was the first harry potter book. So now that we can see why harry potter is such a good way to learn a language, how are we going to go about it. Translators could only access the books after they were released in english and had about two months to translate them. The challenge of translating harry potter into french university of. Is voldemort called tom elvis riddle in the french.
In france in 2003 the fifth book, harry potter and the order of the phoenix, became the first book in english to top the french bestseller list. To date, the harry potter books have sold more then 300 million copies worldwide in over 200 countries and the books have been translated into more than 60 languages only the bible can better those statistics. The challenge of translating harry potter into french. In some cases, what works in one language simply doesnt work in another. The best french translations of harry potter vocabulary. The harry potter books available in the french language from a usabased seller. Translating harry potter challenges in translating. Similarly, the chinese translation is available in traditional and simplified chinese. For example, the portuguese translation has both brazilian and european versions. You can complete the translation of potter given by the english french collins dictionary with other dictionaries such as.
And the top item on the many changes made for the french translation of harry potter. In order to keep the phrase, i am lord voldemort in french, they had to do some finagling. I currently own the first harry potter book in english, french and chinese, which is an interesting combination of books to compare. Harry potter books pdf free download harry potter ebook. For those learning french online links for first 4 books. The rest of this post is going to detail the method i used to a great deal of success in russia, but bear in mind it. Harry potter book series french translation linguee.
I bought it during my first trip abroad, and i have fond memories of turning the pages on the beach. Harry potter and the bfg have at least one thing in common. Rowlings beloved series is jeanfrancois menard, who was also roald dahls favorite translator, as revealed in this interview with the french publishing house gallimard link in french. Harry potter a lecole des sorciers gallimard, translated by jeanfrancois menard. A french harry potter fan has been arrested after allegedly posting a pirate translation of the latest jk rowling book on the internet. Now i dont know french that well, but i thought this was too funny to be true. According to the story, the unofficial translation omitted several paragraph of actions and contained some mistranslations, such as swapping the original word immortal for mortal. Youth arrested as harry potter is lost in translation world news. This one you might have heard since it tickled the funny bone of many a harry potter fan. This translation is a lovely softcover doesnt have the usual. A challenge that translators often face in their work comes from proper names. The longest book, harry potter and the order of the phoenix, at 870 pages was published june 21, 2003.
Also, the harry potter books are on an online repository for the safer downloading. Translating names in harry potter 1 a challenge that translators often face in their work comes from proper names. I was familiar with the story, so i was curious how they would translate j. The simplest way to learn languages using harry potter. Harry potter series receives official yiddish translation translated by an indianamerican orthodox jew and published in sweden, the story behind the translation is fascinating in its own right. Doc translating the harry potter novels into french. Finally, in this part of the blog, you will be able to get the harry potter books pdf free download files. Ancient greek, basque, gaelic and welsh just some of the more obscure languages that the harry potter books have been translated into. A friend loaned me a copy of the first book in french sometime ago but it has been sitting getting dusty. Harry potter series receives official yiddish translation.
Harry potter is the same magical story no matter what language you read, but there are some rather surprising. Any organization, institution, or agency has its own set of titles, department and project names, product or service names, even publication titles. You can complete the translation of the leaky cauldron harry potter given by the english french collins dictionary with other dictionaries such as. Can you quickly pick the french title of each of the harry potter books. Rowling chose menard specifically for his interest in etymology, magic, and humor. Harry potter a lecole des sorciers french edition and millions of other books are. The french writer who translated harry potter is jeanfrancois menard, also roald dahl s preferred translator. Translating names in harry potter 1 language realm. Harry potter translations some facts about the translators. And yes, you can profess your undying respect for all the harry potter translators around the world. Here are some of our favorite french audiobooks, organized by the categories discussed above.
Harry potter in translation harry potter wiki fandom. Now, after four harry potter books, two movies and an armada of related merchandise, j. The best french translations of harry potter vocabulary frenchly. The range of translation issues involved in the publication of the harry potter series is vast. Unfortunately for france often a little behind the curve on english language trends, the french translation of the first harry potter book didnt come out until october 9, 1998. In each case above, the translator was faced with coming up with a translation that captured the intended meaning of the original, when the only example of the original was in the harry potter books. In english, this is a slightly oldfashioned girls name which is odd since fawkes is male but is also a slang term for female genitalia. Online shopping from a great selection at books store. This was the most expensive of the three to buy including shipping and definitely feels the cheapest to hold.
Prior to the worldwide success of the harry potter books, there were no formal. French translations of harry potter all the pretty book. Test your knowledge on this just for fun quiz to see how you do and compare your score to others. Translation is a subtle art, especially when it comes to books. When adding or editing titles, please add a transliteration of the title in english, and the meaning, if different from the original. This page is part of the harry potter in translation series a list of the harry potter book titles in languages other than the original english. Translating harry potter the bbc website reports that unofficial translations of the latest harry potter book have started reaching certain markets and being sold.
A video about the harry potter books in different languages including french, german and dutch. French book i read in high school was the first harry potter book. Yes, the order of the phoenix is almost 800 pages long. Todate, my experience has mostly been with written media or watching french programs with english subtitles, however my preference is. And finally, the illustrated covers for the french harry potter books are way. From the fourth harry potter book onwards, once the sagas french translator, jeanfrancois menard, was most definitely not translating the. There are currently 75 different languages represented, however numerous languages have multiple translations. With reverso you can find the english translation, definition or synonym for potter and thousands of other words. List of titles of harry potter books in other languages. Harry potter and the translators nightmare youtube. A friend told me that in the french versions of harry potter, they had to make voldemorts middle name elvis. The french translation of the harry potter books appears in previous studies jentsch 2002, davies 2003, but is always analysed in comparison to translations.
1038 713 1522 1498 791 1472 155 35 1299 1440 288 482 725 111 690 489 587 1347 490 626 34 667 1069 658 465 868 250 989 5 1640 1179 727 419 877 991 727 1040 490 1275 1298 742 65