Translation and Cultural Issues

[grey_wolf_c]

No: HPFGUIDX 34205

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "racjom" <racjom at y...> wrote:
> What I really would like to know is how the German and Spanish 
> speaking members of this group liked their translations. I'm thinking 
> of perhaps reading one of them – that is, if I'll find them in the 
> library. (A good excuse to reread the series : I'm practising the 
> language:) Although I'm not entirely sure that putting another set of 
> names in my head is a good idea, I am having trouble with two 
> already! The English won the battle because of this list and when I 
> talk with my Slovenian friends, who mostly read only the 
> translations, in my mind things go something like this: wait, who's 
> Raws again? oh right: Snape.

> Mojca (who could go on and on, but really needs to go to sleep now – 
> it's 4 a.m.)
> By the way: my first post here – hi everyone!
> 
> *relurks*
------------

Thanks for asking! I found the SS translation to Spanish quite good. I 
don't feel nothing has significantly changed in the first book (I'm 
gathering cash to buy the rest of them one of these months), except for 
the polishing Hagrid's talk has been given. While in the original he 
speaks somewhat "rural", in the Spanish edition he speaks perfect 
Spanish, both syntactical and grammatical. However, the rest of the 
book is very similar in wording and tone (although I must admit that I 
wasn't really checking that sort of thing the times I've read it).

Anyway, discrepancies don't start showing until later, and I was happy 
to notice that the difficult translation issues (acronyms and plays 
with letters) were translated to mantain the experience, as were the 
nicknames, intead of preserving the originals, which would have 
prevented non-english speakers from understanding the situation. For 
example, the mirror of Erised (desire) is translated to "Oesed" 
(deseo), which is the correct translation. Also, Tom (M?) Riddle 
tranlates to Tom S. Ryddle, maintaining the "I am Lord Voldemort" idea 
in Spanish: "Soy Lord Voldemort" -> Tom Sorvolo Ryddle. Of course, I 
didn't catch the clue in "Riddle", since it couldn't be tranlated into 
"Enigma" without heavily altering Voldie's name (which it couldn't, 
since it already came out in the first book), but I get the feeling 
that not many poeple did, even in English, so I don't feel cheated.

About the only things that the Spanish edition made hard for me where 
the WLPT quartet. Since they're nicknames based on the animals they 
change into (or Lupin's lycanthropy), they have been radically changed 
in Spanish, which is good, but it made following these list quite a 
chore until I devised my own little conversion table.

Hope that helps

Grey Wolf

PD: Welcome to posting!