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

[zanooda2]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 
<justcarol67 at ...> wrote:

> I forgot to cite another amusing error from that site. 
> "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


zanooda:

Yeah, that's funny, but I personally liked the one where Tom Riddle 
got an award for catching thirty owls :-). And how about Lupin 
offering Harry a teabag from the dust bin? It's pretty funny too.

What seems very intriguing to me is that both Chinese and Russian 
translators make sometimes almost the same mistakes. I don't know how 
to explain this (mind link?), because the mistranslated sentences 
doesn't seem difficult to me personally.

For example, stalactites and stalagmites grow in a strange way in 
Chinese, but it's even worse in Russian, where they manage somehow to 
grow from walls (?!).

In the passage where Snape is refereeing the Quidditch 
game, "something scarlet shoot past him"  becomes "something golden 
shoot past him" in both cases. Both translators assumed the author 
meant the Snitch, I guess.

Both translators had trouble translating "small fortune". It becomes 
something like "small amount of money" (in Chinese even "miserably 
small money").

"Dragon heartstring" also confused both of them. "Snake nerve" in 
Chinese is really mysterious, but Russian translator offers "dried 
dragon heart". OK, I myself have no idea what heartstring  means, but 
I imagine it must be something like a tendon, thin and long. 
Otherwise how can it serve as a wand core? "Dried heart" won't even 
fit inside, and besides, it seems just yucky to me to put a piece of 
meat into a wand :-).

None of the translators managed to get the Quidditch scene 
right. "Flint with the Quaffle - passes Spinnet - passes Bell"  means 
that Flint manages to pass Alicia and Katie  without loosing the 
ball. However, both translators write that Flint passes (looses) the 
Quaffle to Spinnet, then Spinnet passes it to Bell. I don't know how 
the scene ends in Chinese, but the Russian translator transforms 
Flint into Katie Bell, and Lee's commentary then goes on like 
this: "She is hit hard in the face by a bludger, hope it broke her 
nose - " (?!!!).

And finally, what is this about Lucius Malfoy and telephones? I 
thought it's only in Russian translation he makes phone calls to 
school, but in Chinese they made him do the same thing when 
he "called for Arthur Weasley's resignation". Are the translators 
familiar with only one meaning of the word "call"? 

Anyway, thank you for the link, Carol. I always wanted to find out 
how good (or bad) translations to other languages were :-).