HP in translation (wordplay in Chinese characters, etc.)

[justcarol67]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "zanooda2" <zanooda2 at ...> wrote:
>
> --- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" 
> <dumbledore11214@> wrote:
> 
> > > bboyminn:
>  
> > > I'm under the impression that the Russian translator did
> > > just translate, they essentially took it upon themselves
> > > to rewrite the book adding many scenes, dialog, and 
> > > narrative that simply don't exist in the original.
>  
> > Alla:
>  
> > Eh, no, not really. A lot of bad translation, but do not remember 
> > any additional scenes, just bad translation of existing ones. 
> 
> 
> zanooda:
> 
> Hehe, I'll refresh your memory, Alla. SS/PS, example 1:
> 
> 
> "Harry and Ron were delighted when she [Hooch] told Malfoy he'd been 
> doing it wrong for years." 
> 
> 
> That's one sentence, right? It's about the kids' first flying lesson.
> 
> 
> Here is the translation (in my back translation, sorry, it's not very 
> good either, I suck at Russian-English translation):
> 
> 
> "Harry and Ron were happy when Madam Hooch informed Malfoy that he 
> held his broom the wrong way. - But I've been flying for years! - 
> Malfoy argued hotly. He sounded offended. Then Madam Hooch explained 
> to him in a loud voice that it only meant he'd been flying wrong all 
> these years. Malfoy listened in silence, as he understood that if the 
> discussion would go on it might become clear that he was not as 
> experienced as he wanted to seem."
> 
> 
> If it's not an addition, I'll eat my hat (I don't risk anything, 
> because I live in the South and don't have any hats :-).
> 
> I wanted to give more examples, but even this one exausted me! Some 
> other time, maybe. I want to be fair -  such extensive changes to the 
> text were made only in SS/PS, the rest of the books - just regular 
> bad translations, nothing more. The first book is full of 
> translator's inventions though. I suspect he was paid per word :-)!
> 
> 
> zanooda, who apologizes for her awkward Russian-English translation, 
> but who doesn't claim to be a professional translator, like the one 
> she just cited ...
>

Carol responds:

Maybe you should put up a website like the Chines-English one I linked
too. According to the site creator:

"This list of mistakes has already been published in Chinese at
Chinese-language bulletin boards, where it has not only caused a stir
among Harry Potter fans in China, but has also reached the eyes of
People's Literature Publishing House [the publisher of the Chinese HP
books) itself."

http://www.cjvlang.com/Hpotter/mehelpindex.html

Of course, the webmaster of the site makes his own share of mistakes,
the best one being "Harry Potter and the Deathly Gallows"(!)

As he says himself, pretty grim for the title of a children's book

Oh. I forgot to cite another amusing error from that site, this one
from the translators. "Twelve feet tall, its skin was a dull, granite
grey, its great lumpy body like a boulder with its small bald head
perched on top like a coconut" comes out as: "Twelve feet tall, its
skin was a dull, granite grey, its great lumpy body like a boulder
with its small head perched on top like a cocoa bean."

Carol, trying to picture a troll with a head the size of a cocoa bean