Translation and Cultural Issues

[finwitch]

No: HPFGUIDX 34198

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "agassizde" <monika at d...> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at y..., "racjom" <racjom at y...> wrote:
> > delurks
> > 
> > I'm from Slovenia and I must say that I'm quite happy with our 
> > translation. 
> 
> Well, then you're very lucky. Unfortunately, not all translations
> are that good.

Yes - fortunately Finnish translations of Potters are quite good. I 
have come across some bad ones on other books, though.

> > What I really would like to know is how the German and Spanish 
> > speaking members of this group liked their translations.
> 
> I have already mentioned a while ago that I *hate* the German 
> translation of the books. Being a professional translator myself,
> I know very well that it is not easy to translate a text full of
> invented words. Not to speak of the cultural differences. But if I
> have to pay for a product, I want it to be as good as possible, and
> the German translations are full of mistakes (things that really
> alter the sense), there are whole passages and even pages (!)
> missing, and I have to repeat it again, the character of Sirius 
> has been mangled in PoA to show someone a lot more calm and "nice" 
by
> leaving out whole scenes where he gets really angry and by
> deliberately changing some words. There have even been things added
> to make up for the missing passages. This contradicts everything I
> learned during my formation, a translator should always respect the
> original. Apart from this, there's a lot of bad grammar and poor
> word choice in the books. They are a huge success nevertheless, I
> think because people either don't know better or don't care and 
> prefer a bad translation to no translation at all.

Well - I did that when I wasn't skilled enough in English to read a 
novel in English, but once I managed that, I really did and do prefer 
the original. Even good translations are bound to lose something.