Language and cultural issues

[mecki987]

No: HPFGUIDX 34178

Hi!

Delurking again!

I read the first three books in Germanfirst and I rather liked them as 
good children's books. I enjoy reading children's books sometimes, 
when they are good and have some points hidden for the adult. My 
favorite authors here are Michael Ende and the children's books of 
Erich Kästner. but I wanted to read the fourth book without waiting 
another three months for the translation, so I read GoF in English 
first. It was such a difference! I bought and read the other books in 
English too and that's when I really became a HP-fan. I didn't look 
for contents-differences in the first three books, but the language in 
the german translation is a lot more simple. Clearly the translator 
wants to use the kind of language he believes todays children use- 
except many of these words were used when he was a kid and are 
completly out of the question today!

In GoF however there are some real mistakes! One for instance is 
interesting for our weekly/daily SHIP discussion. In the german 
translation Fleur does not kiss Ron! Instead the Translator writes " 
Fleur kisses Harry and Hermione frowns"- paraphrasing, I don't have 
the book with me now. It just doesn't make sense! I think I noticed a 
couple more of those differences but I never touched the german books 
again, so I don't quite remember.

So, anyone who wants to brush up their German by reading HP :go ahead! 
The language, the sentence structure and the grammar is nice and 
simple and you'll enjoy it- but *never* use a german translation for 
LOON- discussions- you'll get laughed at! Believe me!

By the way, I used the english books to brush up my language and it 
really seemed to work! I think my first post back in march last year 
took me about ten minutes to translate nearly every single word- 
things certainly go faster, but not necessarily better now :)

Mecki