International book versions & character names

[ffimiles]

No: HPFGUIDX 82065


> Now Me:
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> I've read this and thought I'd post something about the issue of HP 
> translations...This is my first post, so forgive me if it's not of 
> interest!
> Italian is my mother tongue, but I have been living in Ireland for 
> many years and I've actually read all the HP books in English in 
the 
> first place.  However I recently got hold of a copy of PS/SS in 
> Italian and read it out of curiosity. 
> I was appalled by the quality of the translation: 
> the first problem is, predictably enough, the "free" translation of 
> people's and places names. Even though in the Italian edition there 
> is a foreword explicitly dealing with the way the translator worked 
> on names, this doesn't change the fact that the choices she made 
are 
> awful. From "Dumbledore", that has been interpreted as a variation 
> of "dumb" and therefore translated "Silente" (= silent), to Oliver 
> Wood (translated the equivalent of Oliver Stick!!!!). And this is 
> just to make 2 simple examples.
> 
> After this, there are serious mistakes in actually understanding 
the 
> meaning of certain sentences that have been translated in a 
> completely wrong way, thus compromising the faithfulness to the 
> original and the reader's understanding of what the hell is going 
on!
> 
> Thirdly and more generally, the nuances and details of JKR's 
writing 
> have been nearly totally erased by very poor translating choices. I 
> know that a translation is never going to be up to the original, 
but 
> even I (not a translation expert in anyway!) could come up with 
> better ways of translating certain expressions in Italian!
> 
> All this rant to come to 1 or 2 questions:
> 1- I wonder if JKR or Bloomsbury do actually check up on available 
HP 
> translations and perhaps "evaluate them" and make sure they're up 
to 
> a certain standard and so on.
> 2- Has anybody in the group come across another bad example of HP 
> translation?
> I'm thinking of collecting examples of HP translation "horrors"...
> 
> Thanks and apologies for the lengthy post!!!
> Lui

I've read the Welsh translation of PS and while it's definately wierd 
having the characters speak a different language, this version really 
isn't that bad.  They've stuck to the key character names 
(H/H/R/H/DD) and the translator has tried to either translate a word 
when it's got a literal meaning, like e.g ravenclaw/gryffindor, or 
translate into an appropriate sound/meannig where JKR has made the 
word up ehrself e.g hufflepuff/slytherin.  
She has lost some emaning in Neville Longbottom's name - given him a 
rather more aristocratic name in Welsh which looses the bumblingness 
of Longbottom - but I think, on the whole, it is quite a good example 
of how to tackle translating a book with so many unusual and 
multi=meaning words in it.

Anyone else read it in Welsh?!!!

Ffi