@@cbiaplus8218 'cause american english is only spoken in USA... of course. i just believe that a more neutral english is better for all us around the world. Read the original is greate, but for many no native speakers of english would be easy to understand a neutral english version.
@@cbiaplus8218 Lol you know what's funny? You. I mean your a walking joke bud🙃 They adapt books to cultures to make them more relatable. Americans can understand British English but don't relate to it. Someone says crisp we know those are chips but we call them chips. Only educated people can realize the hidden reasons and economics behind these changes.
In the French translation "Sorting Hat" is "Choixpeau". "Chapeau" means "hat" but he added "choix" which means "choice" I always thought it was very clever ^^
Also worth a mention : in the original English, the emblem of the house of Ravenclaw is an Eagle, which I never thought of as confusing at all, because in the French that I first read, the house is translated into "Serdaigle" -- litterally Eagle's Claw. When I saw people complaining that the emblem of Ravenclaw should be a raven, I was like "but why a Raven when there's eagle in the name... Oh wait..."
I find it totally ok and quite don't understand such efforts in changing his name in translations just to fit the anagramme. Like, really, the words "I am" are quite easy to get even for those who are not best in English. Practically in most countries of the world children nowadays learn it so it is not something exotic or not understable. Even more that it is constantly underlined in the series that the characters talk in English and most of the plot happens in the UK. In my Polish version of the book the anagramme is also left in original and no one ever had any problem with that.
Meaning that every translated book you've read has been written twice, you're not just reading the original author but the translator's take on the original author. It makes me wonder how much we actually miss when not reading the original text. I have such huge respect for translators, they have such huge challenges when translating a book, trying to retain the original nuance of the book.
Daph Duck this is why I only read literature in English now days, not only do I enjoy language more, but the text most likely won't be translated compared if I were to read only translated to Danish.
There was a writer (his name escapes me right now) who read Don Quixote in English and absolutely LOVED the translation. So much so that he learned Spanish just so he could read the book in the original language... and thought that it was poorly written. Point is, you can look at it in the other direction as well, that translators sometimes open up a world far more beautiful than the original creators.
That's a big reason on why one must learn several languages. "Brave new World" is not the same book as "Un Mundo Feliz", "Die Verwandlung" is not the same book as "The Metamorphosis" and "Cien Años de Soledad" is not the same book as "Hundert Jahre Einsamkeit"
I’ve read the books both in polish and english and I must say that the translator did a FANTASTIC job translating the books. In each book he included a little dictionary at the end, thoroughly explaining origins of the english names and words created by Rowling and his thought process in translating them. I think he even contacted the author to get her approval on some stuff. His translations made the books easy to read and the dictionary was just additional info for the extra-curious. I used to love to read all the interesting details he’d included.
In the Norwegian translation, all names, places, spells etc. (2000 names) have been translated into Norwegian. The translator, an expert in classic English, did not want Norwegian kids to miss out on the many puns and wordplays of the various names, so he made Norwegian equivalents
The Norwegian translation is simply brilliant! I hear many people complain about being confused by all the names, but reading them as a child they definitely give you a much better context.
I remember the a joke from a translator post saying something like '' If the book sell well, all the credits goes to the author. But if the book doesn't sell well, all the blamed goes to the translator " ouch.
As a translator I can tell you these problems are extremely wide-spread and far from unique to Harry Potter. So even if HP is a great example of the struggles translators face, other books have similar aspects. Espcially the "translating this from a culture to another"... that is literally an aspect of every single translation ever. Lastly: thanks for showing the hardships of translation, transaltors are way too often forgotten about and when we're not, we're being criticised. This made me happy :)
Translation is the most underappreciated craft in literature. (The most important books have more readers in translation than in their original language!)
Are you a spoken translator or do you stick to written? I'm learning French and am curious about becoming a translator so its really cool you have experience
Being a literary translator is my dream job and I actually like translating books as a hobby. I've been working on my translation of A song of Ice and Fire into Italian for like three years now.
@@krystal3721 these are two different jobs and skill sets. I do both, but that's rather odd I must say. These skills overlap, but very little. It's like playing harp in an orchestra and moonlighting as a metal drummer.
JuJuBat Actually the balls names came from the sport. Rowling has said on a documentary, I think, before that she was writing random words down on paper to get it. she knew she wanted it to start with q though
it’s really not that hard to believe. if i asked you to “tic me a dart while i get my togs oi” you’d probably need a translation too even though im speaking english
Lots of Americans would understand most of the book, but there are a few phrases and words that mean totally different things to Americans. And the first few books were written for a younger audience that probably isn’t too familiar with British English.
XdanielZ99 there's a cultural difference between America and England. Like they changed loo to bathroom, crisps to chips, and philosopher's to sorcerer's. There weren't any story changes tho, just a few word changed to cater to an American audience
I wanted to write that comment! o^o But yes, it's pretty funny, but I remember being so confused as a kid. Did the students really hate Snape so much they decided to invent a game with the purpose of making him explode? That seemed a bit tough for me but also would have explained the mutual dislike both students and Snape had for each other xD And then a few books later they played instead of "Exploding Snape" "Zauberschnippschnapp" and I was even more confused where Exploding Snape went. Oh well. :D
In hungarian they changed Voldemort’s name to “Tom Denem” (for the anagram in chamber of secrets) and we can broke it down to “Tom de nem” which means “Tom but not” and i just find it brilliant considering his past and how he never wanted to be known as Tom
You know the game Exploding Snap from the books? In German it was mistranslated into "Snape Explodiert" meaning "Snape explodes" Once the translators realized that the game wasn't about blowing up the teacher they changed it to "Zauberschnippschnapp", but all books printed prior to 2004 still have the mistranslation.
I was really confused, cause my books 1 to 4 had 'Snape explodiert' and books 5 to 7 had 'Zauberschnippschnapp' I was like ' what the heck are they playing now?' until I realized it was the same. (Though in my head snape explodiert is still like tick tack bumm and Zauberschnippschnapp is a convoluted game of rock paper scissors)
In my country "I AM LORD VOLDEMORT" was supposed to be "ADIM LORD VOLDEMORT" which means the translator needed an extra "D" so she changed Tom Marvolo Riddle's name to Tom Marvoldo Riddle which was brilliant in my opinion
In French, Gryffindor is translated to Gryffondor, which phonetically means "Gryphon d'or", Golden Griffin in English. Knowing that JK speaks French and created many names based on French (Voldemort means Death Theft/Flight, Lestrange means The Strange..) She most likely based Gryffindor's name on French aswell. Edit : Fixed some spelling and added some info.
@@meganoldfield9365 The spell names are based on Latin. Some of the characters' names are based on Latin (Minerva, Severus, Albus, etc.) However, Griffindor is much more similar to "Gryphon d'or" than "Gryps aureus" (the Latin translation. Similarly, "Voldemort" is literally "vol de mort", which means flight/theft of death in French. Flight of death would be "Volatus mortis" and theft of death would be "Furtum mortis". Clearly, it looks like it's from French. Originally, Rowling wanted Voldemort to have a silent t. You can hear that in the first few audiobooks.
In Swedish "I am Lord Voldemort" is "Jag är Lord Voldemort". The ä was problematic so the translator changed the name to Tom Gus Mervolo Dolder, so that it could spell out "Ego sum Lord Voldemort", the latin phrase. Really clever if you ask me, especially since it still contains the pun (dold=hidden)!
In Russia we got Tom Narvolo Reddle -> Lord Volan-de-Mort. Not bad at all huh? But wait for it, to make sure the reader DOES understand who are the bad guys here the translators also transformed poor Grindelwald into Grin-de-Wald lol -de- seems to be a typical villain sign!
They could just have done it like it german, instead of saying „i am lord voldemort“ they used „is lord voldemort“, which required fewer letters. Quite clever. Using the latin version is pretty smart too, as it fits the latin magic system, but I think it might be hard for the kids to understand
@@joelthorstensson2772 Latin has not really been taught since we changed from Catholicism in the 17th century, so no regular swedes would be expected to understand Latin unless they have studied medicine
One thing that bothers me is that in the spanish translation Snape never says his iconic " always". He simply awnsers to Dumbledore saying " yes, after all this time". Why on earth change that?
Wow, I can't believe this. Like, it's understandable when there's no direct translation from one language to another, but they could've simply translated it to "siempre". It's not that hard, c'mon.
@@milo8871 They are two different things. They happen in different sleep cycles, they are experienced differently physically, especially as you don't wake up from night terrors but you do from a nightmares
Never understood why it was named Sorcerer's Stone in American. The real name for the mythical object is the Philosopher's Stone. no discussion. It's like calling the Holy Grail the Golden Cup.
After Scholastic has bought Harry Potter's rights to publish in America, they told Rowling that they'll swap "Philosopher" to "Sorcerer" in the American version because philosophy is associated with alchemy in Britain (not in American English), and Americans will not want to read a book with a "boring sounding name".
Zed Adam Idris I didn't know that was the original title! But to my American ears, Northern Lights sounds like a non-fiction while Golden Compass seems more fantasy fiction. That and the large armored polar bear on the cover haha
I've head that it's because many Americans don't know of the concept of the Philosopher's Stone, and Sorcerer's Stone would set the "magical" theme better for them.
In that case, couldn't they just have titled the book "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" or "Harry Potter and the Stone of the Sorcerer" and then specified in the actual text that the object was really called the Philosopher's Stone? "Sorcerer's Stone" would have been like a kind of euphemism.
the french versions are my favorite because all the titles translate exactly into english...except for the first one, "harry potter à l'ecole des sorciers", or (directly) "harry potter at wizard school". also the french word for wand is "baguette magique" (baguette has a lot of meanings but generally means "stick" and is used to refer to things that are that shape) and they usually just say "baguette" so it's really funny to imagine everyone carrying around bread all the time
@@soIeils Try this one Monsieur Poteur, 28 cm White flour Chocolate bar in its core (I called it Chocobaguettine) It is étrange that this baguette's sister is the one You Know Who used for his first breakfast at Hogwarts, years ago
I always see comments like that from non French speakers and it's funny how I never thought about bread, I mean, for me a "baguette magique" is just a wand. but now I can't unsee it 😂
For the "Diagon Alley": In Dutch, they translated it to "Wegisweg". This is because the Dutch word 'weg' has two meanings: 'road' and 'gone'. So basically you can read it in several ways: the road is road, the road is gone, or gone is gone. I like it.
That would have worked in German as well, yet they just literally translated diagon alley as "Winkelgasse" :/ It's only nice that in the movie when Harry is travelling through the fireplace, his mumbled "Winkelgasse" actually sounds like "Ekelgasse" (disgusting alley), so it makes even more sense he ends up there :D
Another (honestly more clumsy) alternative could have been Magi(e)straat, which is a word for magistrate, but also 'magic street'. I like Wegisweg though, it's more whimsical :-)
Reading various translations of Harry Potter is a great way to learn a language. I knew the French books so well that I then was able to read them in English with not much difficulty, and it was crucial to my learning of the language. I then read the first two books in German since I needed to become more fluent, and I read the first one in Spanish when staying in Colombia for a month (it helped me aquire vocabulary as well as a basic understanding of Spanish grammar). I would definitely recommend this method.
owlnemo i did the same for Spanish! (read the harry potter books.) And i tried it in French, but could never finish the book. then for english I read Percy Jackson first in English and then in German and was like: woah almost the same. » really helped me to learn English. it’s true you learn so many synonyms or literary words. the other day I listened to Aladin in German and I was surprised how many elevated words they used in thei telling.
I didn’t realize Knockturn Alley was a pun on “nocturnally” until watching this video. And Hogwarts as an orphanage makes no sense. So many characters’ families are mentioned from the moment that they are introduced.
Juan Palacio It’s a mistake in the video or something, I know it’s not true cuz I’ve read the Ukrainian version and there was nothing said about an «orphanage»
I have to say, having read both the *british* version and the czech version (my native language), i always geek out over the translation. It is amazing, almost all the made up words were translated perfectly, even a lot of the puns retained their similiarity. I will forever be grateful for my language having propably one of the best translations.
Totally agreed! The Czech translation is outstanding. The only thing I don't like about Czech translation is that the name of Hermione's elfish society was translated as S.P.O.Ž.Ú.S., which does not have any meaning in Czech. Hermione was always angry when her friends called it 'spožús' instead of spelling each letter. I always wondered why she is so annoyed in such situations until I realized that the original name was 'S.P.E.W.'. Even Slovaks translated it as 'soploš', which I find fantastic.
And then we have Slovak translation which is one of the laziest and most half-assed of them all. As a Slovak I must say that Czech translation is one of the best. Fajné to máte bratia.
The Finnish translator (who is amazing btw) literally changed Tom Riddle to Tom Lomen Valedro just to make the I AM VOLDEMORT anagram work in finnish. In a whole, the Finnish translation of the Harry Potter books are regarded as the best finnish translations of books.
In Germany, Langenscheidt actually published a dictionary for the Harry Potter books that explained all the meanings behind the names and the invented words and the puns. It was great! I found it very interesting! I'm still amazed by how much thought JKR put into every detail.
Shankar Sivarajan The concept of philosophy in relation to magic is definitely not prevalent in America. So when you're trying to sell a book about magic to an American audience, using the term sorcerer over philosopher gives the buyer a better idea what the book is about, therefore generating more sales. Americans know what philosophy is, we're just less likely to buy a book on it for our children.
philosophy is something American students are taught at 10 years of age and Rowling targeted a younger audience back then. I remember when in 3rd grade when my dad brought the original from Britain
I agree. I think most Americans are familiar with this definition "a person who offers views or theories on profound questions in ethics, metaphysics, logic, and other related fields". While in relations to the book, I think this definition fits better "an alchemist or occult scientist". ( source: dictionary.com )
so true! I think about this a lot. Especially in regards to the boarding school system, like i only found out recently that splitting the school into 'houses' is actually a very normal thing that a bunch of boarding schools do, i always assumed it was a specifically fantasy concept.
@@rachelladue1572 It's not just fancy schools either. British state schools tend to split year groups into separate "teams" too. In my school, each year was split into two bands (A band and B band), and I only ever got lessons with kids in my band. It was a purely administrative though, there wasn't really the same competitiveness amongst bands that you see in private school houses.
@@rachelladue1572 It's not just boarding schools. It was actually more bizarre to me to find out there were school that don't have houses. My primary school had 4 (Yellow, Green, Blue, and Red), and my secondary added a 5th Purple house that was dropped when I was in year 8 due to how less students were coming in. They had different names at each school, and named after vaguely famous/important people from the area.
@@DECODEDVFX We do that in all schools in our country. It's a very normal things and helps teacher in bigger schools. I never understood having everyone together if there is 15 or more students.
Don't they do bands and such in all countries? Here in Russia they do, every school has two to four groups in each year, 20 to 30 students in each. But there is no special identity attached to each band through the years, unless they have, say, different language classes.
I love the Italian translation so much. They did such a great job with the characters' names. McGonagall and Longbottom never sound quite right to me haha
In Russian translation Severus Snape turned into Severus Sneg because in Russian 'sever' means 'north' and 'sneg' sound close to a Russian word for snow. So the name didn't retain the original meaning but got another which is about Snape being a very cold, uncomfortable person. I think that works
@@moonlight19720 он не идеален, но всё же куда лучше Спивак. По крайней мере, в росмэн красивый язык. У Спивак он очень плохо адаптирован, как какой-то микс деревенского с высоким стилем. Люди так не говорят.
@@y.k.2143 То, что он не идеален, не значит, что он мне не нравится) Очень хороший перевод. В нём есть минимальные недочёты. Например, в четвёртой части на Святочный балл в переводе надевали "мантии". Скорее всего, переводчики недопоняли, что gown на английском - это не только мантия, но и бальное платье. Это имеет куда больше смысла, на мой взгляд. Хотя, в волшебном сеттинге и мантия годится.
Does anyone else feel a bit annoyed by the American version needing a translation? We had to grow up learning your slang, your terms. Seems only fair you should do the same. And is "philosopher" really a word too difficult for Americans to understand? It seems insulting both to the British cultural eradication and to the intelligence of Americans, don't you think?
RL Gill when I learned about the change as a kid I thought 'why'd they change it? I can figure out what that means. I'm not dumb.' So trust me, there were many people on this side of the ocean equally confused.
I knew what a philosopher was at a young age. I thought it was kind of dumb that they used sorcerer, but i don't see how this is disrespectful to British phonetics.
I remember hearing the reasoning having to do with Americans not being familiar with the myth of the "philosopher's stone" and that a kids would think that a book with 'philosopher' in the title sounds boring. To me, "philosopher's stone" is just as mystical sounding as "sorcerer's stone".
RL Gill i want you to take a look at the current US election, and then decide for yourself if Americans are stupid or not. For the reasonings sake! Over 50% don't belive in Evolution!!! Of course they need to translate English to "English"!!
@@dansweatman3333 well everyone knows everything south of hadriens wall is southern england, and everything north of it is northern england, obviously! (sarcasm)
The brazilian translator who adapted the books to brazilian portuguese was praised by jk rowling herself for the creativity on translating terms and names to potuguese!
Right! That's because she lived in Porto, Portugal. She also was married with a Portuguese. The translation to Portuguese was easier for her when in touch with Portuguese as a language and culture.
He really did a great job, specially with quadribol (quidditch) and its balls, besides the name changes as Severus to Severo and Albus to Alvo, although I feel like Hagrid's accent was lost in translation.
In Denmark they changed the name of Tom Riddle in chamber of secrets to make it fit the anagram and they kept it for the rest of the series. I actually really liked it. It felt more personal I guess. I'm glad our translator didn't just leave a footnote or something. So instead of him being Tom Marvolo Riddle. His name for us is Romeo Gåde Detlev junior. Gåde means riddle so they probably wanted to keep that around. Then they could say "Jeg er Voldemort", which means I am voldemort in Danish. They explain the absence of letters by saying the anagram was based on Romeo G. Detlev Jr. Our translator did an amazing job in general. Like all the professor's names are in Danish too and it's so awesome for kids. Professor sprout becomes Spire. Horace slughorn is Horatio Schnobbevom (ours basically means snob + big belly, which i absolutely adore 😂) They kept other things around like Quirrel, avada kedavra, hagrid, Mcgonagall and so on. Hogsmeade is still hogsmeade. Hermione, Ron, Harry. Lupin becomes lupus. Gilderoy Lockhart is Glitterik Smørhår. Can roughly be translated to Glittering Butter Hair. It's absolutely perfect 😂 Our book titles are also literal translations from English. Harry Potter og de vises sten. Harry potter og hemmelighedernes kammer. Harry potter og fangen fra azkaban. Harry potter og flammernes pokal. Harry potter og fønixordenen. Harry potter og halvblodsprinsen. Harry potter og dødsregalierne.
fun to compare with the Norwegian version! Romeo Gåde Detlev junior = Tom Dredolo Venster (Jeg er Fyrst Voldemort) Professor Spire = Professor Stikling Horatio Schnobbevom = Horatsion Snilehorn Lupus = Remus Lupus Glitterik Smørhår = Gyldeprinz Gulmedal (Gulmedal could mean golden valley but also be a play on the word for golden medal) de vises sten = de vises stein hemmelighedernes kammer = mysteriekammeret fangen fra azkaban = fangen fra azkaban flammernes pokal = ildbegeret fønixordenen = føniksordenen halvblodsprinsen = halvblodsprinsen dødsregalierne = dødstalismanene i don't think any of the major names stayed the same as the English ones, except Harry ofc.
I've never read the Harry Potter series in English, only in Japanese. It always came with a paper that's basically a Muggle's guide to the story and stuff. There was always a small part in those pieces of paper where the translator shared her frustration while she was translating. I remember that she wrote how she couldn't figure out a way on how to translate Hagrid's accent while she was translating. It always made me chuckle. Also, in the Japanese version, they don't change any of the food they eat in the story. (I think. I've never read the English version so correct me if I'm wrong) The Muggles guide had a section where it briefly summarized what king of food it was so you basically had to have that piece of paper beside you while you were reading. It was useful because all of the character's names where written on it as well so I could just look at it when I forgot who a character was.
The Polish books also had a similar guide - with a page or two-long notice from the translator and then a glossary with various words being explained why they were translated so and not in a different way. At some places, the translator even apologized for earlier errors, or told about mistakes that weren't his fault (e.g. one of the owners of the Borgin&Burkes store in Knockturn Alley was named Burkes instead of Burke in the Polish version... because in the first book where this name appeared, it was mentioned only in the shop name and from that one couldn't know if he is named Burke or Burkes). Still, I guess, not as good as the Japanese one.
5:15 I cringed at "Kent and Yorkshire are in the south of England. Dundee is in the northern part of England" Kent is in the south of England, yes. But Yorkshire is in the north of England. And Dundee is in SCOTLAND. Also, how does explaining that bonfire night is to celebrate bonfire activities in any way help anyone?
Maffoo yeah it should just say "Kent, Yorkshire and Dundee are various places in the UK, in this context it's to mean 'from all over' and connote randomness." That would convey the meaning really easily. And bonfire night could literally just be footnoted to "An annual fireworks festival on 5th November"
the footnote actually says "Kent is in the south of England. Yorkshire is in the north of England. Dundee is a port city in the north of England." ah so they still missed one. wonder how come. and for the bonfire maybe because the original one used first letter caps so the Chinese wanted to specially point out that they meant a special festival not just some summer weekend camping
In Poland, we had a whole small section at the end of the books where the translator explained some od historia choices. That's why every kid reading was aware of his work. Always thought it was brilliant! :)
@@MsBlulucky good on you for actually knowing that. judging from her name, it seems english isn't their first language, but a huge number of people that only speak english get this wrong too.
I can talk about the Dutch translation all day. It truly is the best translation of a book of all time. The translator (Wiebe Budding) made excellent choices in trying to confey a similar meaning while also keeping the same overall 'feeling' of the name. He translated almost every name into a Dutch variant that kept the same or a similar alliteration and meaning, even the names of minor side characters. I think some names are even better in Dutch than they are in English. Many of his words actually have a double or even triple meaning. Other people mentioned Wegisweg as the translation for diagonally. That one has so many meanings. First of all it means gone is gone. Diagonally is 'gone', invisible, for Muggles. It also sounds funny. Weg also translated to road or street. So goneisstreet. And finally Weg is weg is a common saying for dutch shops when sales are happening: Op is op, weg is weg. So the name already very clearly implies that its a hidden street with shops. That's just one of the many examples.
Weg is weg also works in german! Weg also means either gon or street, depending on how you pronounce it! Except for the sales, in our sales we say "alles muss raus" "everything has to go out"
I feel like the footnote with explanations of the original pun and author's intent are the best policy. It's the least amount of work for everyone rather than trying to come up with new puns that work in your language but may deviate from the author's original vision, you get an unfiltered view and get to learn about whatever culture the author originated from. I feel this way because there are many games from Japan that get their meaning and dialogue ruined in the localisation process, and it's frustrating because I would've been fine with just googling and learning whatever cultural reference I didn't understand. Fortunately with more modern games like Persona 5 they're taking that approach.
True, but maybe it means the book is less meaningful just because the clever things are directly brought to attention without any mini word mystery to solve. But as to retaining the original meaning, I agree footnotes are the best 😊
Lewis Skinner Surprisingly, Vox’s translation of the footnotes is wrong. The original Chinese footnotes say “Kent is in the South of England, Yorkshire is in the North of England and Dundee is a coastal city in the North of England.” (The part about Dundee is still wrong though. Perhaps the translators were reading it off the map.... hmm...)
@@iamcleaver6854 Umm... since when? Latin is associated with antiquity, legalism and maybe mystery but not of the purely magic variant. Most of the trademark spells that circulated before the times of Harry Potter were either made-up gibberish ("Abracadabra" or "Hocus-Pocus") or two poem verses.
In regards to the American version - the authorised US publisher felt the US populace will not buy the book if it wasn't localised to US English. The irony was, they later realised the very Britishisms they removed was actually well received by American readers. There was even reports of Americans crossing into Canada to get the "original" versions off their shelves.
Aminat Abiola so true they ate always like, oh do you know my grandma called Mary because they don't realise that the United Kingdom has a population of over 65 million. Or they are like, have you met the queen? So annoying lol
The name “philosopher’s stone” was changed too “sorcerer’s stone” because scholastic (the publisher) thought kids wouldn’t pick up a book that said “philosopher’s” on it because we are taught that philosophers are these ancient old men that created different types of maths and sciences and no kid wants to learn about a mathematician’s stone. So they went with sorcerer instead because we know that means magic, and magic means fun.
In Finnish books Hufflepuff is translated really well! It's "Puuskupuh" Puusku is like when you've done a lot of work and you can just relax, you can "puuskahtaa" Puh is there maybe because of its like connected to Puusku or then it just sounds good idk But any case the name refers to how hardworking Hufflepuffs are
What about Russian translation by Maria Spivak, who tried to save all the word play but failed hilariously (like "Злодеус Злей" and "Невилл Длиннопоп", something like "Meaneus Mean" and "Nevile Longass")
*IN DUTCH* Hermione = Hermelien Luna Lovegood = Loena Leeflang ('Leeflang' litterly translates into live long) Tom Marvolo Riddle = Marten Asmodom Vilijn Hogwarts = Zweinstein ('Zwein' comes from zwijn, which roughly translates into pig, stein is commonly used in names for castles) Godric Gryffindor = Goderic Griffoendor Helge Hufflepuff = Helga Huffelpuff Rowena Ravenclaw = Rowena Ravenklauw Salazar Slytherin = Zalazar Zwadderich Diagon Ally = Weg is weg (This is a word play; 'weg' means road, but it also means gone. Basicly it translates into 'Gone is gone') Quidditch = Zwerkbal (it was really funny to hear you pronounce that) Quaffle = Slurk Snitch = Snaai Bludger = Beuker O.W.L = S.L.I.J.M.B.A.L (This translates into slimebal) N.E.W.T = P.U.I.S.T (This translates into pimple) Muggle = Dreuzel Let me know if you want to know more!
All the Weasleys = Wemel, first name kept the same Scheurbek = buckbeak Dursley = Duffeling, Vernon = Herman and Dudley = Dirk Sirius Black = Sirius Zwarts where zwart means black Severus Snape = Severus Sneep. Interesting one as Sneep has the same pronunciation as Snape whereas the Dutch Snape (word or name doesn't exist though) is phonetically entirely different than the English Snape. The city Sneek is also pronounced as snake in English. Madame Pomfrey= Madame Plijster where plijster comes from pleister meaning patch. Actually kinda like that one. mad-eye moody= Alastor Dwaaloog, dwaaloog meaning wandering eye, it fits him. Tom Marvolo Riddle = Marten Asmodom Vilijn. Not really a fan of that one, but they needed an anagram for 'mijn naam is Voldemort'
I like the translation of Riddle because Vilijn already says that he is villainous. Also Marten sounds like a muggle name whereas Asmodom sounds more like an archaic wizard name
Wow I had no idea it changed so much in other languages. I first read the books in Spanish and later I noticed the changes but there aren't so many like in yours. So cool
Hermelien Griffel, do not forget about the Dutch translation for Hermione's surname. Griffel is an old writing tool and in the Netherlands the Gouden (golden) Griffel is awarded for literary excellence.
The Spanish translation for HP was so lazy. Quidditch was not translated. If it were up to me, I'd have it be Broom Ball Broom: Escoba Ball: Bol (from Fútbol) And it becomes Escobol!
That's sounds cool. They could do it with Slovak translation, which made it "metlobal" , metla - broom, bal - from ball, like sports football, basketball etc
Kudo's to the Dutch translator! I always thought J.K. Rowling gave the translator some kind of explanation as to how she got the names, because most were spot-on.
The name “philosopher’s stone” was changed too “sorcerer’s stone” because scholastic (the publisher) thought kids wouldn’t pick up a book that said “philosopher’s” on it because we are taught that philosophers are these ancient old men that created different types of maths and sciences and no kid wants to learn about a mathematician’s stone. So they went with sorcerer instead because we know that means magic, and magic means fun.
Carolina Estigarribia But we are taught the same thing about philosophers in Britain and yet millions of British kids bought the first book quite happily
"Baguette" doesn't necessarily stand for "bread" in French, it just means "stick". Not all breads are called "baguette"; and it's because this type of bread is stick-shaped that it's called "baguette", not the other way round. :)
I really enjoyed reading the books in German again. The Sorting Hat's songs, for example, still rhymed quite cleverly, and it was funny reading how "Harry, Ron und Hermine" would eat lots of German food at Christmas instead of British :) respect to Mr. Klaus Fritz for translating (I believe) all seven books.
Don't laught at it : As a French, I can assure you it was a clever translation, and many kids discovered Tom Elvis (Jedusor) before the Elvis Presley himself haha
In the Russian version Severus Snape is called Severus Snegg. And it's a pretty nice solution because the word "sever" translates as "north" from Russian. And "sneg" is Russian for "snow". Thus, the name Severus Snegg reflects the nature of this caracter.
@@Khatulistiwan If by 'allowed' you mean forced 'education' by American imperialists... And btw the Philippines still has 170+ native languages today. English has far from replaced them.
There is a Filipino translation. but it was never published in public. for unknown reason EDIT: So I realized that i'm quite wrong, the Filipino translation of HP is already been available in MIBF. but it was only the first book (Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone) that was been translated. and unfortunately it's now rare to find. I think it gets out of stock now cause it's hard to find online and it was always 'unavaible'.
yes. The day I found out that it was a mistake in translation was incredibly sad. Until then, I had assumedthat it was a game the students made up which had some sort of reference to Snape. I always liked that idea.
In Brasil the name of the houses is as following Hufflepuff - Lufa Lufa Slytherin - Sonserina. Griffindor - Grifinória. Ravenclaw - Corvinal. I think its really solid
Lufa Lufa? That sounds quite funny! The other ones are cool In French they're Hufflepuff - Poufsouffle Slytherin - Serpentard Griffindor - Gryffondor Ravenclaw - Serdaigle
In the Polish version the house names stayed in their English version, but when used to refer to students of said houses (Griffindors, Slytherins, etc.) then those got translated to fit the grammar and explain the nature of the houses and their students.
In The Netherlands it's Huffelpuff = Huffelpuf Slytherin = Zwadderich Gryffindor = Griffoendor Ravenclaw = Ravenklauw 😂 I think the names are quite funny in Brasil
The most ridiculous part of this was that an "American English" translation exists lol But honestly I've never thought about how nightmarish it would be for translators to adapt it to different countries and cultures, the books are filled to the brim with so many word plays.
The worst part is that they changed it to Sorcerer's stone which is not a thing (I mean, Philosopher's stones don't exist anyway but Alchemists were trying to make them)
@@violetta698 their worry was that americans wouldn’t know what it meant and that’s why they changed it. jk rowling has said that she deeply regrets letting them change the name for the us version.
@@queenjeski591 Yeah, that really confused me when I first learned the original version had a different title... Even when I was 10 and first reading the book I would have understood that...
@@queenjeski591 That's not the reason I read. I heard it was because they feared the book would be less popular because philosopher doesn't sound as "cool" as a sorcerer. But in the modern day, Full Metal Alchemist has popularized philosophers stone to the point where it's cool nowadays.
I think the Chinese translators' approach to the books were the best. Just keep everything as intact as possible while just putting in little footnotes to explain cultural references, jokes, etc. It's just like watching a Wuxia film or an Anime film or show. It's way better to just watch the original production with subtitles and translation notes; it preserves the way the film was meant to be shown while also allowing the viewer to learn more about a new culture.
banana551000 um, no... 😐 if you want to learn about the culture, i suggest you go read fan translations or read it in original if you can. The whole point of translations is to bring it closer to the target audience which is kids. So i'm perfectly ok with changes in translation. You wanna be immersed in the story when reading it and not constantly ripped out of it wondering what the hell did i just read.
I actually read the whole series in Chinese as a kid (I was 8 or 9?) and I quite appreciated the footnotes explaining some of the puns and other western cultural references (like holidays). I don't know why people are so against footnotes in children's books, as if our tiny brains would be unable to comprehend little extra details, and it's not like the translators explained EVERY SINGLE world play, only the more significant ones. I found it amusing, however, that most of the spells used sense-for-sense translations that sound nothing like the original (Expelliarmus had a four-character translation that literally meant "Remove your weapon!"), while Avada Kedavra was translated to "阿瓦达索命" - "Avada TAKE YOUR LIFE".
@hannah ao "Expelliarmus" is a play on "expel" and "arms", so basically "expel your arms" or "remove your weapons". "Avada kedavra" is a play on the famous magic words "abra kadabra" and the word "cadaver" meaning dead body. All the spells are supposed to sorta sound like what they do without literally saying it, but I guess that's harder to do in Chinese than in a language with a phonetic alphabet. The translator probably did the best they could, but many things just don't translate well, so footnotes were probably the best solution.
actually, in chinese, the spell names is a combination of its meaning and its prononciation. For example, Expelliarmus is unweponize you, but the translator make it sound like a slang/Chengyu in mandarin(all speells are four letter word in chinese/mandarin.) and I think everybody can get what "Avada demands your life" means. btw, I'm all for footnote. I read hp when I was 10, it's exotic and alien and fun, looking into those footnote help me learn a lot of custom of Europe/England.
Do you speak french natively ? Because that's quite a stretch, I can't imagine a native French speaker who would've interpreted it like that. "Jeu du sort" is clearly what's intended. And it makes so much more sense if you're comparing it to the english Riddle...
For me it's "jeu du sort" too. Sort mean "magical spell", jeu = game, togather it's mean "hazard game", it's used to say that life it's just an hazard game.
@@robertofontiglia4148 Nope actually I'm French and I've always pronounced Jedusor as "Jédusor" which i also how you prononce "jet du sort" (the T is silent in both words) !
Je prononce Jeu aussi et vu son nom en anglais c'est forcément ça, mais ton interprétation est super intéressante et intelligente et offre encore un surplus de sens au nom fr et à la qualité de la traduction. Bien joué, j'aime beaucoup.
Really love Vox and have always thought they have high quality content. But there's no excuse for that piss-poor excuse for calligraphy. It barely passes as cursive.
Yet to find a *single* vox video where someone isn't whining in he comments, despite everyone talking about their 'high quality content'. Lmao, wild...
In my Country "I am Voldemort" was supposed to be "Ich Bin Lord Voldemort". However, Tom Bchilnoorv Riddle was not exactly an option, and so they went with "Tom Vorlost Riddle ist Lord Voldemort" which would translate back to "Tom Marvolo Riddle is Lord Voldemort" which I thought quite clever.
This confuses me to no end. When I read books set in different cultures as a Canadian, I don't need the capital city of Nicaragua to be translated into Ottawa or for a traditional Chinese sauce to be called Maple Syrup instead. Why can't people just read books that aren't specifically centered to their culture?
I can only assume it was for a different world. Even though it wasn't that many years ago that the texts were translated for Chinese, Russian, etc., there is no doubt that cultures become far less detached from each other every year, and more knowledge about them is shared, meaning they felt the average citizen of whichever country wouldn't know what popular British sweets are. Though, it is ultimately the translators decision, so we should really be asking them why.
Because each of those things are to some degree symbolisms that conway something about the character/setting/theme of the story. Like Hagrid doesn't have a west country accent because JK Rowling spun a wheel of accents and that came up, he has that accent because he's from a rural place associated with a lower level of education and more communal lifestyle. This helps to convey Hagrid's character.(he's a kind hearted, animal loving, simpleton) However a west country accent wouldn't mean much to non-English people so they chose to use a rural japanese accent to convey the feeling and symbolism behind the accent not the literal accent itself. Similar things are considered for all cultures and languages by translators.
If I wrote something like, "Harry unwrapped and devoured his packet of Ho-Ho-Dings before he had even taken his seat in the booth. They cream-filled, chocolate covered cake was his favorite thing in the entire world, and a rare treat when he was still a member of the Dursley household." Now I don't need to make up some new snack in order to take the place of the one I've just created here, it's described well enough in the text that even a young child could understand what it is. But then again, I'm a much better writer than Rowling, so I guess this isn't much of a problem for me :)
I’ve read every single Harry Potter book, a few twice, seen a few of the bad movies... And I never realized “Diagon Alley” was supposed to sound like “diagonally”. :/
It’s not supposed to. You’re supposed to say the words separately that’s why when Harry says “diagonally” in the second film he ends up somewhere else cos he said it wrong.
This made me grateful my country was colonised by the British... but I now wonder what I've missed out on from books translated from another language to English! Excellent work Vox :)
Some Russian quirks: 1. Voldemort got changed to Volan-de-mort. the only explanation I have for such a change is to make a reference to Voland/Woland from The Master and Margarita, who is the literal Devil. 2. Gryffindor and Slytherin stay more or less the same but Hufflepuff becomes "Puffendui" and Ravenclaw "Kogtevran"(raven's claw) founded by Penelope Puffendui and Kandida Kogtevran. 3. Snape depending on which translation you read is "Severus Snegg"(Severus Snoww?) or "Zloteus Zlei"(Villainus Evil?).
The Finnish translation for the Philosopher's stone (Viisasten kivi) and all together has been consisted with one translator. She kept most first and surnames as same but changed few surnames to fit more to Finnish readers culturially. Severus Snape had his surnames translated into Kalkaros = kalkkarokäärme (rattle snake) Sirius Black means exatcly the same as Sirius Musta. Professor Quirrel was changed into Professori Orave (which is also a wordplay on squirrel (orava)) Tom Marvolo Riddle's name had his name changed into Tom Lomen Valedro in Finnish and that created acronym = MA OLEN VOLDEMORT She was also able to translate most of places into Finnish and have them some sort of wordplay or have it same meaning as English one would. Hogwarts was translated into Tylypahka = tyly (rude, brusque) and pahkasika (warthog) Diagon Alley became Viistokuja = viisto (diagonal) kuja (alley) Also lots of spells were translated into Finnish to mimic the same understandment for them. Since English and any other Romantic language speaker can somewhat understand Latin, Finnish translator wanted Finnish readers to understand them the same way. Expelliarmus was translated to Karkotaseet = karkota (expell, repel) and aseet (weaponry) Expecto Patronum became Odotum suojelius = Odotan (I wait) and suojelius (the guardian/patron) Lumos was translated into Valois = valo (light) and valoisa (bright) She also changed name of Quidditch into Huispaus. And as well the ball had their names changed into Kaato (Quaffle), Ryhmy (Bludger) and Kultasieppi (Golden Snitch). A Horcrux was also translated ito hirnyrkki = hirveä (awful, horrific) and nyrkki (fist). Ordinary Wizarding Level examination (O.W.L) and Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Test (N.E.W.T) were translated into Velhomaailman Ihmeisiin Perehdyttävä -tutkinto (V.I.P.) and Se Uskomattoman Paha, Erittäin Rakas -tutkinto (S.U.P.E.R) respectively.
Niklas Forsman I as well know these languages (in fact have read almost every Potter book in those languages). The Finnish translation for me gives the spirit of small knowledge that we wouldn't have achieved if Finnish translator left names, spells etc untouched. I did enjoy the Finnish translation, it didn't kept the British feeling in the book fully but enchanced it with our own cultural atmosphere. Swedish translation on other hand is very loyal to the British version and changed few things here and there to have a some sort of connection with the Swedish readers. I don't know about you but I set myself in different mindset and understandment as I change the language, it gives a new experience with same story but from another point of view, as I would say. In Finnish I am sey with my mother tongue so I am all set. English being almost like my second language I find myself thinking and rereading again. And with Swedish I find myself learning the language more than diving deep into the story.
ClawOfTheRaven I think you hit the nail on what annoys me the most with Finnish translations in general. In this case it didn't keep the British feeling fully and changed the cultural atmosphere. The Potter books are very British, they are set in Britain and they are supposed to be very British (and not Finnish, at all). I don't see anything wrong in doing like the Chinese did. Put footnotes to explain word games. A good translation shouldn't change the books, the feeling they give or give out different information than the original. It should be the same book just in another language. And everyone will read the book from different perspectives, a Brit might think "nothing special here" and a Finn might think "wow, what is that?" and its okay. Changing stuff like food and a boarding school to orphanage (I know the Finnish version didn't do this) changes the book to something else than it is.
I have to disagree here. As someone who's read the books as a kid in Finnish and as a teenager in English I have to say I think the Finnish translation is brilliant and doesn't erase the British feeling of the original books. I haven't read the books in Swedish, though, so I can't compare the Finnish translation to that one. HP and the Philosopher's stone was always meant to be read by children, and so in the same manner as the American translation changed some bits to be more interesting for children, so did the Finnish one. Without making changes in the punny names Finnish children would have lost all of the hidden, quirky meanings. And I think these quirks are one of the main things the Potter series has that makes it unique and compelling. Having footnotes like in the Chinese version might have been interesting, but then again it would have made the book quite heavy to be read by children. And as for the "British feeling", I always got that when I was reading the books in Finnish as a child. I never imagined the story taking place in Finland. So many of the characters and places had names that sounded totally British and not Finnish at all, the books used imperial units for measurements, they wore school uniforms (not a thing in Finland) and there were many more cultural British things that aren't the same in Finland, and that I learnt from the books. Besides, there are very few castles in Finland, and they are very different than those in the UK. What you said about what a good translation is like, I think that applies to the Finnish translation. The Finnish translation focused heavily on the feeling that the original book gives to its readers, at the cost of making some details different. And that feeling of how amazingly weird and quirky the wizarding world is, that feeling that comes through words and references, is one of my favourite things about the books, and I find that that feeling comes through very well in both languages. But I do understand that when comparing to many other translations, especially to those that are in the same indo-european language family, the Finnish translation seems to have changed too much. Beside the point, my personal favourite thing about the Finnish translations is how they gave Hagrid a cool dialect.
+Niklas Forsman You probably know that there are many different styles of translating. Sometimes it serves the text better to have it translated very strictly, in almost word to word style, but in the case of Harry Potter I think the Finnish translator did the right thing and chose the style of "kotouttaminen", integrating the text with Finnish culture and language. The chosen translation style depends on many things such as the target audience, the purpose of the text and on the preference of the translator. I really enjoy reading the Harry Potter books both in English and in Finnish, because they both have a very specific and a very different feel to them. And as a linguistic nerd I truly enjoy comparing the two! :)
I grew up with the Swedish translation. My favourite translation is from the 2nd book "The Chambers of Secrets" where Voldemort reveals to Harry that his (Swedish) real name "Tom Gus Mervolo Dolder" becomes the anagram "Ego sum Lord Voldemort", meaning "I am Lord Voldemort" in Latin. A very clever translation considering the heavy amount of Latin used in the books.
Actually comes up quite a lot, not so much recently due to bi-linguists, but throughout history translating books to different languages change a lot of what was being said.
harry potter and the translator's nightmare... great title but u know the americans wont understand "translator" so u gotta use a basic word so they's understand... o yeah drag the canadians down with them too
It didn't actually, Vox got the English translation of the Chinese wrong. It says: “肯特郡在英格蘭南部” = (Kent County is in the south of England) “約克郡在英格蘭北部“ = (Yorkshire County is in the north of England) “丹地是英格蘭北部海港” = (Dundee is England's northern harbour) So yeah, the Chinese translator got Dundee wrong but they were correct about Yorkshire.
I'm surprised how there isn't a single mention of translations into Indian languages like Marathi or Hindi. Translators have to change the mostly latin-derived spells to sanskrit ones, retaining the touch of a classical language. For instance, 'Expecto Patronum' becomes 'Pitrdev Saurakshanam', though the meaning remains the same in both. I really wanted Vox to add a point on this. :(
I know this was so late, but did the marathi version also use sanskrit like hindi? Or did they just use their own language? I wonder if the tamil and telugu version did the same thing like english = latin, hindi = sanskrit...
@@goldpaulike5304 its actually because russian lacks /h/ and in loanwords that sound is replaced with /g/ as the closest approximation because the /x/ it has is "too harsh." as for ukrainian, its orthography didnt keep up with the sound shift that lenited /g/ into /ɦ/ so thats why the letter with the value /g/ in russian has the value /ɦ/ in ukrainian
As a Ukrainian reader of harry potter books I completely disagree with what this video stated about the interpretation of the books in Ukraine. There's no such thing as changing boarding school to orphanage, it's clearly stated in the books and the concept of boarding schools is not that foreign to Ukrainian people to make such a drastic change
I remember reading the chamber of secrets in spanish (latin american version) and in my book the I AM LORD VOLDERMORT word game wasn't changed at all. They threw it in english and between parenthesis was the actual meaning in spanish YO SOY LORD VOLDEMORT.
In the Hindi translations, they incorporated the ancient language Sanskrit instead of Latin for all the spells. That's a huge cultural shift considering that Sanskrit is the language of our Holy scriptures and used even now by priests when they perform rituals in our culture.
Harshit Sharma that actually makes it a pretty accurate cultural translation because for most of Christian history ( particularly Catholic) Latin was used in religious ceremonies
I think the swedish version of Voldemort's name is one of the few that isn't an anagram in its own language. He's called Tom Gus Mervolo Dolder, which is an anagram for *Ego sum Lord Voldemort*, which is Latin for *I am Lord Voldemort*
The Portuguese versions (from Brazil and from Portugal) also differ substantially. Lia Wyler, the Brazilian translator, adapted some of the names (the houses became Grifinória, Sonserina, Lufa-Lufa and Corvinal, and the game became Quadribol) while the Portuguese version mostly kept them in their original form.
The Hungarian translator did quite an awesome job preserving the word plays built in names (or replacing them with other puns that work in Hungarian) and the alliterations. For instance, Diagon Alley became Abszol út, út meaning road and abszolút meaning, of course, absolute(ly). Cornelius Fudge became Cornelius Caramel because we know what caramel means but only those who speak English well or have been to England have an idea what fudge is - and conveniently enough, it even alliterates with the name Cornelius. When an alliteration could have been lost in translation, the other name was usually altered to match: Severus Snape became Perselus just so the name alliterates with the surname (Piton). Professor Grubbly-Plank's name was translated and intentionally misspelled so perfectly that I had read the books in English AND French by the time I realized that that name makes sense in Hungarian, too. The only important word play the translator couldn't work out was the double meaning of elder in the elder wand - both meanings of the word were important to the story and I don't think it's manageable in any other language. Still, the translator chose to switch back and forth between emphasizing the material one time and the superiority another to somehow still imply it and it worked out OK. I don't usually like reading books translated when I can read them in the original language, but Harry Potter's was an outstanding translation which was definitely worth the effort.
There was one thing he did not translate well, it was Phlegm. In Hungarian it is "slejm", but he translated it as "Francica" something like French kitten, and "franc" is also a mild swearword. But it could not convey all that contempt Ginny had for Fleur. The word Phlegm starts with the sounds Fl just as Fleur's name and is also one syllable.
I don't know about what Ukrainian translation they are talking about, but i know just one publisher that translated the HP books into Ukrainian - A-BA-BA-HA-LA-MA-HA, and they did a great job. most of magical words are not translated or translated in a clever way. the cover art is stunning - it's full of little details, and all books standing together form a picture. so I'm deeply offended by this 'orphanage' nonsence Vox is talking about. there was no such thing in the Ukrainian translation. Ukrainian translation is one of the best. Their site says: "The Ukrainian translations and book covers of the Harry Potter book series are considered to be among the best in the world. Many experts consider our original covers to be the very best at all…" ababahalamaha.com.ua/en/Harry_Potter_Series
I was deeply confused by the change mentioned in the video because much of the school system probably doesn't really work if it would just be applied to an orphanage? Like, do the parents of the children never get mentioned again? what explanation is there for wheere they go on holiday breaks??
I was looking for the comment on Ukrainian translation. I love it so much, they did a GREAT job in Ababahalama, I was growing up reading their HP editions, and frankly I can’t read HP in Russian or even English, I don’t get the same feeling of magic 😁
Severus Snape is Perselus Piton in Hungarian. I think that's a great translation because it has the same "feeling" as the English name, Piton is a snake, and it's still an alliteration just like the original one.
That Random Guy eh yeah that's the point, piton means snake over there, saying "snake" over there doesn't bring any creepy slithering feeling at all? But saying piton does? That's the difference in CONTEXT? The world isn't ruled by the anglosphere, people associate different sounds with different feelings elsewhere, the feelings you associate with a sound may not even exist in a different country, so how would they get that feeling if you just say "Snape" which they wouldn't care for at all? I swear to god there is a thorough lack of intersectionality in born English speakers...
The Hungarian translation was VERY inconsistent in adequacy when it came to proper names. Some of what the translator did made sense, right? Fudge = Caramel, Moody = Mordon, Crouch = Kupor. Sprout = Bimba. But he also left a bunch of loaded names completely unchanged, such as Lestrange, Lockhart and Greyback. If Snape must be made Piton, translate the other names too, is all i'm saying. Then, some of his solutions seemed to be motivated purely by the fear of us not being able to pronounce English sounding names. This could have happened to Crabbe and Goyle = Crak and Monstro. Skeeter = Vitrol. Hufflepuff = Hugrabug. But if already Crabbe means difficulty, then why on earth are supposed to know how to pronounce Dumbledore? Pettigrew? Shacklebolt? Scrimgeour? Trelawney? Freakin' Fawkes? (You know you had trouble with that one.) All these names were left unchanged, and the list could go on and on. But let me cite my absolute "favourite" solution from the Hungarian translator: Horace Slughorn = Horatius Lumpsluck. The pointlessness of it boggles my mind. (And finally a special mention for Quirell = Mógus in the what the f*ck category).
Just a few to mention: 🇭🇺 *Severus Snape* in hungarian became *Perselus* (which is similar to the alchemist named Paracelsus) *Piton* 🇭🇺 Hogwarts became *Roxfort* 🇭🇺The founders: *Griffendél Godrik❤️, Hollóháti Hedvig 💙, Mardekár Malazár💚 and Hugrabug Helga* 💛 🇭🇺Tom Marvolo Riddle is *Tom Rowle Denem.* He says: A nevem Lord Voldemort. 🇭🇺And my favorite Diagon Ally became *Abszol út* which means abszolút=absolute. it's basically Abszol Street. 😁
You know your book is popular when it is translated from english to english.
😂
Ikr 😂
Haha
@@cbiaplus8218 'cause american english is only spoken in USA... of course.
i just believe that a more neutral english is better for all us around the world. Read the original is greate, but for many no native speakers of english would be easy to understand a neutral english version.
@@cbiaplus8218 Lol you know what's funny? You. I mean your a walking joke bud🙃
They adapt books to cultures to make them more relatable. Americans can understand British English but don't relate to it. Someone says crisp we know those are chips but we call them chips. Only educated people can realize the hidden reasons and economics behind these changes.
In the French translation "Sorting Hat" is "Choixpeau". "Chapeau" means "hat" but he added "choix" which means "choice"
I always thought it was very clever ^^
Yes ! On that word, I always thought that the french word was better than the original one
Also worth a mention : in the original English, the emblem of the house of Ravenclaw is an Eagle, which I never thought of as confusing at all, because in the French that I first read, the house is translated into "Serdaigle" -- litterally Eagle's Claw. When I saw people complaining that the emblem of Ravenclaw should be a raven, I was like "but why a Raven when there's eagle in the name... Oh wait..."
Me too lol
Interesting!
The Norwegian translation did the same - Valghatten. "Valg" meaning choice or election, and "hatten" meaning the hat, lit. the choice hat.
In my country the translator simply gave up the "I am Voldemort" anagram and decided to just leave a footnote 😂
Same because it just doesn’t work in Chinese 😂
In Germany the translator changed his middle name to make it fit.
I find it totally ok and quite don't understand such efforts in changing his name in translations just to fit the anagramme. Like, really, the words "I am" are quite easy to get even for those who are not best in English. Practically in most countries of the world children nowadays learn it so it is not something exotic or not understable. Even more that it is constantly underlined in the series that the characters talk in English and most of the plot happens in the UK. In my Polish version of the book the anagramme is also left in original and no one ever had any problem with that.
In brazilian portuguese: Tom Servolo Riddle = Eis Lord Voldemort (something like Here is Lord Voldemort)
Tom Riddle is in Dutch "Marten (middlename) Villijn"
"Dumbledore asks calmly"
I wonder where warner bros. got their translation for this
Very underrated comment
Wow saying this on a comment with almost 0 likes makes it blow up within days
This comment is absolute golden 😂
It just works better for the movie, dumbledore in the movies is a lot more aggresive and stylish, while in the books he is soft but wise.
HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAAH
Meaning that every translated book you've read has been written twice, you're not just reading the original author but the translator's take on the original author. It makes me wonder how much we actually miss when not reading the original text. I have such huge respect for translators, they have such huge challenges when translating a book, trying to retain the original nuance of the book.
Daph Duck this is why I only read literature in English now days, not only do I enjoy language more, but the text most likely won't be translated compared if I were to read only translated to Danish.
Maxwaehrens
There was a writer (his name escapes me right now) who read Don Quixote in English and absolutely LOVED the translation. So much so that he learned Spanish just so he could read the book in the original language... and thought that it was poorly written. Point is, you can look at it in the other direction as well, that translators sometimes open up a world far more beautiful than the original creators.
And hence is a problem with the modern Christian and Catholic Bible
That's a big reason on why one must learn several languages. "Brave new World" is not the same book as "Un Mundo Feliz", "Die Verwandlung" is not the same book as "The Metamorphosis" and "Cien Años de Soledad" is not the same book as "Hundert Jahre Einsamkeit"
Harry Potter translators: Boy, this is more difficult than I thought.
Alice in Wonderland translators: Well, I have to rewrite an entire book.
Nick Zardiashvili XD
'twas brillig and slithy toves
Meanwhile, Perec translators feel like reinventing their own languages
Terry Pratchett translators: loosing their will to live in distance
1984 translators: literally have to create a different language
I’ve read the books both in polish and english and I must say that the translator did a FANTASTIC job translating the books. In each book he included a little dictionary at the end, thoroughly explaining origins of the english names and words created by Rowling and his thought process in translating them. I think he even contacted the author to get her approval on some stuff. His translations made the books easy to read and the dictionary was just additional info for the extra-curious. I used to love to read all the interesting details he’d included.
Yeah, i love that he did it like that, it's much easier to just have many things original rather than changed
Dark Aeon this is great! would have been soo cool if they did the same in the German version
@@Schneeeulenwetter Same!
Palace of Brilliance Finde ich auch!
That's amazing omg
In the Norwegian translation, all names, places, spells etc. (2000 names) have been translated into Norwegian. The translator, an expert in classic English, did not want Norwegian kids to miss out on the many puns and wordplays of the various names, so he made Norwegian equivalents
That's wonderful
The Norwegian translation is simply brilliant! I hear many people complain about being confused by all the names, but reading them as a child they definitely give you a much better context.
@@ZackRekeSkjell Still kinda upset about "Rumpledunk" tho-
@@ipotato7664 I love how rumpeldunk sounds!
@@ZackRekeSkjell HOW
I remember the a joke from a translator post saying something like '' If the book sell well, all the credits goes to the author. But if the book doesn't sell well, all the blamed goes to the translator " ouch.
As a translator I can tell you these problems are extremely wide-spread and far from unique to Harry Potter. So even if HP is a great example of the struggles translators face, other books have similar aspects. Espcially the "translating this from a culture to another"... that is literally an aspect of every single translation ever. Lastly: thanks for showing the hardships of translation, transaltors are way too often forgotten about and when we're not, we're being criticised. This made me happy :)
Translation is the most underappreciated craft in literature. (The most important books have more readers in translation than in their original language!)
Are you a spoken translator or do you stick to written? I'm learning French and am curious about becoming a translator so its really cool you have experience
@@krystal3721 spoken translation is interpretation (it's a different discipline/skillset entirely)
Being a literary translator is my dream job and I actually like translating books as a hobby. I've been working on my translation of A song of Ice and Fire into Italian for like three years now.
@@krystal3721 these are two different jobs and skill sets. I do both, but that's rather odd I must say. These skills overlap, but very little. It's like playing harp in an orchestra and moonlighting as a metal drummer.
I never knew that Quidditch stood for the names of the balls O_O.
JuJuBat same!
Me neither! I had to pause the video for a minute and have a Mind=Blown moment...
Hannah Woodard you learn something new about harry potter everyday!
JuJuBat Actually the balls names came from the sport. Rowling has said on a documentary, I think, before that she was writing random words down on paper to get it. she knew she wanted it to start with q though
Yeah, I bet you didn't notice that the pokémon Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres have the Spanish numbers _uno_, _dos_, and _tres_ in their names either.
I’ll never get over Americans needing an American translation of an ENGLISH BOOK
their ignorance of everything outside the usa is astounding.
it’s really not that hard to believe. if i asked you to “tic me a dart while i get my togs oi” you’d probably need a translation too even though im speaking english
@@PopCornJamie That's probably because I'm Dutch
@Yeah Itsme how is british culture irrelevant to americans in the 90's?.................. it's because of their ignorance!
Lots of Americans would understand most of the book, but there are a few phrases and words that mean totally different things to Americans. And the first few books were written for a younger audience that probably isn’t too familiar with British English.
what was the point in america translating it from english to english. like what the hell
Because 'Murica
BECAUSE FREEDOM
XdanielZ99 Because they stole our language and left all the Us behind
XdanielZ99 there's a cultural difference between America and England. Like they changed loo to bathroom, crisps to chips, and philosopher's to sorcerer's. There weren't any story changes tho, just a few word changed to cater to an American audience
Londyn Harris Oh thanks, I get that
In the German translation, they translated „Exploding Snap“ to „Exploding Snape“. 😂😂
books by leynes YES! And nowadays, I always cringe at that 😅 But otherwise, I think they did a wonderful job with the German translation.
I wanted to write that comment! o^o
But yes, it's pretty funny, but I remember being so confused as a kid. Did the students really hate Snape so much they decided to invent a game with the purpose of making him explode? That seemed a bit tough for me but also would have explained the mutual dislike both students and Snape had for each other xD And then a few books later they played instead of "Exploding Snape" "Zauberschnippschnapp" and I was even more confused where Exploding Snape went. Oh well. :D
We always played that Game in school and instead of snape we put our teachers names
If only it was true... Maybe for the first few books
Lmao
The finnish translator even won an award for her excellent job at translating the books and you don't even mention her? smh...
Yeah, I think that the Finnish translator Jaana Kapari did an excellent job by translating the wizarding words in Finnish...
Suomi mainittu torilla tavataan
same, I was waiting for them to mention Finnish translations :((
@Expert Sleepers if it is about the translation, it should be noted that the TRANSLATION was so good it got a prize
Then there'd be lots of us here, complaining about the butchered spelling so idk, seems like a smart choice to skip.
In hungarian they changed Voldemort’s name to “Tom Denem” (for the anagram in chamber of secrets) and we can broke it down to “Tom de nem” which means “Tom but not” and i just find it brilliant considering his past and how he never wanted to be known as Tom
ooh that's super cool!! i love tom's history and story, that's a genius way of going about that conundrum
- are you tom?
- well yes, but actually no
“What’s your name?”
“Tom But Not”
That's very cool!
And then there's the hindi dub with "pitradev sanrakshanam"
You know the game Exploding Snap from the books? In German it was mistranslated into "Snape Explodiert" meaning "Snape explodes" Once the translators realized that the game wasn't about blowing up the teacher they changed it to "Zauberschnippschnapp", but all books printed prior to 2004 still have the mistranslation.
S CH N I P P S C H A P P
loll snape explodes
But seriously what the heck were they thinking. It's magic and all, but they were pretty ok with such gory meaning
I was really confused, cause my books 1 to 4 had 'Snape explodiert' and books 5 to 7 had 'Zauberschnippschnapp'
I was like ' what the heck are they playing now?' until I realized it was the same.
(Though in my head snape explodiert is still like tick tack bumm and Zauberschnippschnapp is a convoluted game of rock paper scissors)
SNAPE *E X P L O D E S*
In my country
"I AM LORD VOLDEMORT"
was supposed to be
"ADIM LORD VOLDEMORT"
which means the translator needed an extra "D" so she changed Tom Marvolo Riddle's name to Tom Marvoldo Riddle which was brilliant in my opinion
In Brazilian Portuguese it was also simple to translate, but he became Tom Servolo Riddle, that becomes "Eu sou Lord Voldemort".
Evandro Voltolini brilliant SERVOLO
@@evandrovoltolini8384 lol
TRTRTRTRTR
Sen ciddi misin??????
In French, Gryffindor is translated to Gryffondor, which phonetically means "Gryphon d'or", Golden Griffin in English.
Knowing that JK speaks French and created many names based on French (Voldemort means Death Theft/Flight, Lestrange means The Strange..) She most likely based Gryffindor's name on French aswell.
Edit : Fixed some spelling and added some info.
I think you are definetly right. By the way, in italian is the same as french: Grifondoro.
Voldemort = Death Theft is not confirmed I think
She based it on latin٫ so its closely linked to a lot of latin based languages٫ though I do doubt specific french reference.
@@meganoldfield9365 The spell names are based on Latin. Some of the characters' names are based on Latin (Minerva, Severus, Albus, etc.) However, Griffindor is much more similar to "Gryphon d'or" than "Gryps aureus" (the Latin translation. Similarly, "Voldemort" is literally "vol de mort", which means flight/theft of death in French. Flight of death would be "Volatus mortis" and theft of death would be "Furtum mortis". Clearly, it looks like it's from French. Originally, Rowling wanted Voldemort to have a silent t. You can hear that in the first few audiobooks.
I know this is late but it’s Gryffindor, not Griffindor.
In Swedish "I am Lord Voldemort" is "Jag är Lord Voldemort". The ä was problematic so the translator changed the name to Tom Gus Mervolo Dolder, so that it could spell out "Ego sum Lord Voldemort", the latin phrase. Really clever if you ask me, especially since it still contains the pun (dold=hidden)!
In Russia we got Tom Narvolo Reddle -> Lord Volan-de-Mort. Not bad at all huh? But wait for it, to make sure the reader DOES understand who are the bad guys here the translators also transformed poor Grindelwald into Grin-de-Wald lol
-de- seems to be a typical villain sign!
They could just have done it like it german, instead of saying „i am lord voldemort“ they used „is lord voldemort“, which required fewer letters. Quite clever. Using the latin version is pretty smart too, as it fits the latin magic system, but I think it might be hard for the kids to understand
@@marinamuller2385 exactly, we don't get taught latin anymore, so that was kinda lost on us, I'll have to check the book.
@@joelthorstensson2772 Latin has not really been taught since we changed from Catholicism in the 17th century, so no regular swedes would be expected to understand Latin unless they have studied medicine
One thing that bothers me is that in the spanish translation Snape never says his iconic " always". He simply awnsers to Dumbledore saying " yes, after all this time". Why on earth change that?
I'm brazillian and didn't even know that
dunno I read the Spanish version and I don't feel rage, it was a great book, you never have the chance to compare phrase by phrase anyway
Wow, I can't believe this. Like, it's understandable when there's no direct translation from one language to another, but they could've simply translated it to "siempre". It's not that hard, c'mon.
@@Ana-tk8iv Yes 😭
"Always" was more iconic because of the way it was presented on the film, it wasn't such a special moment on the books
Imagine calling Voldemort "Romeo"?
Juliet be like: I'd poison myself for the Dark Lord
Juliet Lestrange
@@luisagf1385 🤣
In french, his middle name is Elvis.
If Harry Potter was a transator's nightmare, Shakespeare was a translator's night terror
@@milo8871 They are two different things. They happen in different sleep cycles, they are experienced differently physically, especially as you don't wake up from night terrors but you do from a nightmares
@@insulam821 not always
Never understood why it was named Sorcerer's Stone in American. The real name for the mythical object is the Philosopher's Stone. no discussion. It's like calling the Holy Grail the Golden Cup.
It's dumbing down for US readers. It's also how Philip Pullman's Northern Lights was retitled to The Golden Compass for US readers lol.
After Scholastic has bought Harry Potter's rights to publish in America, they told Rowling that they'll swap "Philosopher" to "Sorcerer" in the American version because philosophy is associated with alchemy in Britain (not in American English), and Americans will not want to read a book with a "boring sounding name".
Zed Adam Idris I didn't know that was the original title! But to my American ears, Northern Lights sounds like a non-fiction while Golden Compass seems more fantasy fiction. That and the large armored polar bear on the cover haha
I've head that it's because many Americans don't know of the concept of the Philosopher's Stone, and Sorcerer's Stone would set the "magical" theme better for them.
In that case, couldn't they just have titled the book "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" or "Harry Potter and the Stone of the Sorcerer" and then specified in the actual text that the object was really called the Philosopher's Stone? "Sorcerer's Stone" would have been like a kind of euphemism.
the french versions are my favorite because all the titles translate exactly into english...except for the first one, "harry potter à l'ecole des sorciers", or (directly) "harry potter at wizard school". also the french word for wand is "baguette magique" (baguette has a lot of meanings but generally means "stick" and is used to refer to things that are that shape) and they usually just say "baguette" so it's really funny to imagine everyone carrying around bread all the time
MAGICAL BREAD
@@soIeils
Try this one Monsieur Poteur,
28 cm
White flour
Chocolate bar in its core
(I called it Chocobaguettine)
It is étrange that this baguette's sister is the one You Know Who used for his first breakfast at Hogwarts, years ago
I always see comments like that from non French speakers and it's funny how I never thought about bread, I mean, for me a "baguette magique" is just a wand. but now I can't unsee it 😂
MAGIC BREAD
Didn't J.K. Rowling translate the first book into French herself?
I like the spanish translation to Death eater
"Mortífago"
Sounds darker to me
Agreed
Yea, the translation in spanish is very good , using latin as a resource
Latin languages are the best. Greetings from cousin portuguese
Same
Well yeah, Spanish is based on latin, and Morti (death) and fago (to eat) are latin words. And latin always sounds cool and magical
For the "Diagon Alley": In Dutch, they translated it to "Wegisweg". This is because the Dutch word 'weg' has two meanings: 'road' and 'gone'. So basically you can read it in several ways: the road is road, the road is gone, or gone is gone. I like it.
This right there made my day! XD
killua
That would have worked in German as well, yet they just literally translated diagon alley as "Winkelgasse" :/
It's only nice that in the movie when Harry is travelling through the fireplace, his mumbled "Winkelgasse" actually sounds like "Ekelgasse" (disgusting alley), so it makes even more sense he ends up there :D
Another (honestly more clumsy) alternative could have been Magi(e)straat, which is a word for magistrate, but also 'magic street'. I like Wegisweg though, it's more whimsical :-)
Okay, but the real question is: how would you translate grey poupon?
JesseLH88 Grey Poupon is a proper noun, and I don't think it's a wordplay. So, just the same?
Youn Kim that joke just gave you a haircut by how it just flew over your head
lmao gray poupon , from last vox video
Reading various translations of Harry Potter is a great way to learn a language.
I knew the French books so well that I then was able to read them in English with not much difficulty, and it was crucial to my learning of the language. I then read the first two books in German since I needed to become more fluent, and I read the first one in Spanish when staying in Colombia for a month (it helped me aquire vocabulary as well as a basic understanding of Spanish grammar).
I would definitely recommend this method.
owlnemo i did the same for Spanish! (read the harry potter books.) And i tried it in French, but could never finish the book. then for english I read Percy Jackson first in English and then in German and was like: woah almost the same. » really helped me to learn English.
it’s true you learn so many synonyms or literary words. the other day I listened to Aladin in German and I was surprised how many elevated words they used in thei telling.
I'm doing that for Italian, it's super helpful, especially since I practically know the English version by heart haha.
This is exactly what I did. It's a comfy, easy read that let's you focus on the right sort of things.
That’s what I’m doing right now! I’m reading the Spanish version and I hope to finish by the end of the summer
owlnemo How many languages do you know?!
I didn’t realize Knockturn Alley was a pun on “nocturnally” until watching this video.
And Hogwarts as an orphanage makes no sense. So many characters’ families are mentioned from the moment that they are introduced.
Juan Palacio I doubt any English native ever realized or got ALL those play on words in English.
I thought it was some place that girls got knocked up.
I didn't get the Diagon Alley pun either. Is it a joke among the British?
@@rdtamin7388 Diagon Alley sounds like "Diagonally"
Juan Palacio It’s a mistake in the video or something, I know it’s not true cuz I’ve read the Ukrainian version and there was nothing said about an «orphanage»
I have to say, having read both the *british* version and the czech version (my native language), i always geek out over the translation. It is amazing, almost all the made up words were translated perfectly, even a lot of the puns retained their similiarity. I will forever be grateful for my language having propably one of the best translations.
Totally agreed! The Czech translation is outstanding. The only thing I don't like about Czech translation is that the name of Hermione's elfish society was translated as S.P.O.Ž.Ú.S., which does not have any meaning in Czech. Hermione was always angry when her friends called it 'spožús' instead of spelling each letter. I always wondered why she is so annoyed in such situations until I realized that the original name was 'S.P.E.W.'. Even Slovaks translated it as 'soploš', which I find fantastic.
@@kocotom Polish version has W.E.S.Z(i.e. louse).
And then we have Slovak translation which is one of the laziest and most half-assed of them all. As a Slovak I must say that Czech translation is one of the best. Fajné to máte bratia.
Oh god that intro is so out of tune.
i have to replay that bit. just have to.. 😂
I think that was the point
Will Parkinson That is the point.
I'm not sure if anyone has told you yet, but that's sort of the point.
im sure someone already said it, but that's the point.
The Finnish translator (who is amazing btw) literally changed Tom Riddle to Tom Lomen Valedro just to make the I AM VOLDEMORT anagram work in finnish. In a whole, the Finnish translation of the Harry Potter books are regarded as the best finnish translations of books.
Cool! :)
Same in Norway. The translator did a fantastic job.
That’s really cool! I don’t speak Finnish but that’s cool that they did that!!
I agree haha this is cool, thanks for sharing.
In Czech they changed it to Tom Rojvol Raddle.
Ah yes the sherbet lemon, the most popular candy in the UK...
Circa 1900
I think they translated it to Lemon Sorbet in swedish. Much confusion ensued.
In the Latin American dub of the movies, McGonagall said "lemon pie" (pastel de limón)
Dumbledore probably is that old though haha
@@CelebrianUndomiel He is older!
in the vietnamese book it's lemon candy (kẹo chanh)
In Germany, Langenscheidt actually published a dictionary for the Harry Potter books that explained all the meanings behind the names and the invented words and the puns. It was great! I found it very interesting! I'm still amazed by how much thought JKR put into every detail.
The concept of philosophy is more alien to Americans than sorcery?!
i guess so wizardry and sorcery come up every year around Halloween nobody care for philosophy ever.
Shankar Sivarajan The concept of philosophy in relation to magic is definitely not prevalent in America. So when you're trying to sell a book about magic to an American audience, using the term sorcerer over philosopher gives the buyer a better idea what the book is about, therefore generating more sales. Americans know what philosophy is, we're just less likely to buy a book on it for our children.
philosophy is something American students are taught at 10 years of age and Rowling targeted a younger audience back then. I remember when in 3rd grade when my dad brought the original from Britain
I agree. I think most Americans are familiar with this definition "a person who offers views or theories on profound questions in ethics, metaphysics, logic, and other related fields".
While in relations to the book, I think this definition fits better "an alchemist or occult scientist".
( source: dictionary.com )
Shankar Sivarajan precisely!
There's a ton of cultural references to the point that a lot of the magical uniqueness to the world turned out to just be British things.
so true! I think about this a lot. Especially in regards to the boarding school system, like i only found out recently that splitting the school into 'houses' is actually a very normal thing that a bunch of boarding schools do, i always assumed it was a specifically fantasy concept.
@@rachelladue1572 It's not just fancy schools either. British state schools tend to split year groups into separate "teams" too. In my school, each year was split into two bands (A band and B band), and I only ever got lessons with kids in my band. It was a purely administrative though, there wasn't really the same competitiveness amongst bands that you see in private school houses.
@@rachelladue1572 It's not just boarding schools. It was actually more bizarre to me to find out there were school that don't have houses. My primary school had 4 (Yellow, Green, Blue, and Red), and my secondary added a 5th Purple house that was dropped when I was in year 8 due to how less students were coming in. They had different names at each school, and named after vaguely famous/important people from the area.
@@DECODEDVFX We do that in all schools in our country. It's a very normal things and helps teacher in bigger schools. I never understood having everyone together if there is 15 or more students.
Don't they do bands and such in all countries? Here in Russia they do, every school has two to four groups in each year, 20 to 30 students in each. But there is no special identity attached to each band through the years, unless they have, say, different language classes.
In italian, Dumbledore is translated to Silente (which literally means "silent"). So it's Albus Silente.
Do I like it? Yes.
Does it make sense? No.
"Did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire, Harry?" Dumbledore asked calmly.
...
"Harry! Harry! DYDYAPUTYORNAYMINDAGOBLETOFFAYER???!!!"
@@yarpen26 "Silente asked calmly" 🤔
I love the Italian translation so much. They did such a great job with the characters' names. McGonagall and Longbottom never sound quite right to me haha
@@Deuchnord 🤣🤣
In Czech, Dumbledore is translated to "Brumbál". It doesn't have any meaning.
In Russian translation Severus Snape turned into Severus Sneg because in Russian 'sever' means 'north' and 'sneg' sound close to a Russian word for snow. So the name didn't retain the original meaning but got another which is about Snape being a very cold, uncomfortable person. I think that works
это глупо на самом деле. не понимаю, почему все хейтят Спивак, если перевод Росмэн тоже оставляет желать лучшего
@@moonlight19720 он не идеален, но всё же куда лучше Спивак. По крайней мере, в росмэн красивый язык. У Спивак он очень плохо адаптирован, как какой-то микс деревенского с высоким стилем. Люди так не говорят.
@@annayudelson с десяток раз перечитывал каждую книгу от РОСМЭН, и не замечал каких-то изъянов, можете рассказать что именно не понравилось в нем?
@@y.k.2143 То, что он не идеален, не значит, что он мне не нравится) Очень хороший перевод. В нём есть минимальные недочёты. Например, в четвёртой части на Святочный балл в переводе надевали "мантии". Скорее всего, переводчики недопоняли, что gown на английском - это не только мантия, но и бальное платье. Это имеет куда больше смысла, на мой взгляд. Хотя, в волшебном сеттинге и мантия годится.
как раз хотела это написать!
Does anyone else feel a bit annoyed by the American version needing a translation? We had to grow up learning your slang, your terms. Seems only fair you should do the same. And is "philosopher" really a word too difficult for Americans to understand? It seems insulting both to the British cultural eradication and to the intelligence of Americans, don't you think?
I would have been fine with any version i was handed.
RL Gill when I learned about the change as a kid I thought 'why'd they change it? I can figure out what that means. I'm not dumb.' So trust me, there were many people on this side of the ocean equally confused.
I knew what a philosopher was at a young age. I thought it was kind of dumb that they used sorcerer, but i don't see how this is disrespectful to British phonetics.
I remember hearing the reasoning having to do with Americans not being familiar with the myth of the "philosopher's stone" and that a kids would think that a book with 'philosopher' in the title sounds boring. To me, "philosopher's stone" is just as mystical sounding as "sorcerer's stone".
RL Gill i want you to take a look at the current US election, and then decide for yourself if Americans are stupid or not. For the reasonings sake! Over 50% don't belive in Evolution!!! Of course they need to translate English to "English"!!
5:15 "Dundee is in the Northern part of England." Oh dear :/ that's going to annoy some Scottish people.
I'm not even scottish but it annoyed me so much :D
and "Yorkshire is in the South of England"
@@dansweatman3333 well everyone knows everything south of hadriens wall is southern england, and everything north of it is northern england, obviously!
(sarcasm)
ikr
Came here looking for this comment. As a Dundonian this hurt 😂😭
The brazilian translator who adapted the books to brazilian portuguese was praised by jk rowling herself for the creativity on translating terms and names to potuguese!
Right! That's because she lived in Porto, Portugal. She also was married with a Portuguese. The translation to Portuguese was easier for her when in touch with Portuguese as a language and culture.
Came to say the same! I feel like the Houses' names are super clever!
serio? que doido
Brazilian portuguese is amazing! The translation is wonderful.
He really did a great job, specially with quadribol (quidditch) and its balls, besides the name changes as Severus to Severo and Albus to Alvo, although I feel like Hagrid's accent was lost in translation.
In Denmark they changed the name of Tom Riddle in chamber of secrets to make it fit the anagram and they kept it for the rest of the series. I actually really liked it. It felt more personal I guess. I'm glad our translator didn't just leave a footnote or something.
So instead of him being Tom Marvolo Riddle. His name for us is Romeo Gåde Detlev junior. Gåde means riddle so they probably wanted to keep that around. Then they could say "Jeg er Voldemort", which means I am voldemort in Danish. They explain the absence of letters by saying the anagram was based on Romeo G. Detlev Jr.
Our translator did an amazing job in general. Like all the professor's names are in Danish too and it's so awesome for kids.
Professor sprout becomes Spire.
Horace slughorn is Horatio Schnobbevom (ours basically means snob + big belly, which i absolutely adore 😂)
They kept other things around like Quirrel, avada kedavra, hagrid, Mcgonagall and so on. Hogsmeade is still hogsmeade. Hermione, Ron, Harry.
Lupin becomes lupus.
Gilderoy Lockhart is Glitterik Smørhår. Can roughly be translated to Glittering Butter Hair. It's absolutely perfect 😂
Our book titles are also literal translations from English.
Harry Potter og de vises sten.
Harry potter og hemmelighedernes kammer.
Harry potter og fangen fra azkaban.
Harry potter og flammernes pokal.
Harry potter og fønixordenen.
Harry potter og halvblodsprinsen.
Harry potter og dødsregalierne.
Glittering Butter Hair is amazing
Omg glittering butter hair 😂😂😂
fun to compare with the Norwegian version!
Romeo Gåde Detlev junior = Tom Dredolo Venster (Jeg er Fyrst Voldemort)
Professor Spire = Professor Stikling
Horatio Schnobbevom = Horatsion Snilehorn
Lupus = Remus Lupus
Glitterik Smørhår = Gyldeprinz Gulmedal (Gulmedal could mean golden valley but also be a play on the word for golden medal)
de vises sten = de vises stein
hemmelighedernes kammer = mysteriekammeret
fangen fra azkaban = fangen fra azkaban
flammernes pokal = ildbegeret
fønixordenen = føniksordenen
halvblodsprinsen = halvblodsprinsen
dødsregalierne = dødstalismanene
i don't think any of the major names stayed the same as the English ones, except Harry ofc.
Most of these aren't Translation issues, but Localisation issues :)
Well... language and culture are two sides of the same coin.
Eric P. Alvaro They both can't be what they are without the other.. so yeah what you said sums it up
Splitting hairs much?
Localisation is part of translation. If localisation is avoided, it's called transliteration.
I've never read the Harry Potter series in English, only in Japanese. It always came with a paper that's basically a Muggle's guide to the story and stuff. There was always a small part in those pieces of paper where the translator shared her frustration while she was translating. I remember that she wrote how she couldn't figure out a way on how to translate Hagrid's accent while she was translating. It always made me chuckle.
Also, in the Japanese version, they don't change any of the food they eat in the story. (I think. I've never read the English version so correct me if I'm wrong) The Muggles guide had a section where it briefly summarized what king of food it was so you basically had to have that piece of paper beside you while you were reading. It was useful because all of the character's names where written on it as well so I could just look at it when I forgot who a character was.
Do you still have a sheet like this? I’d love to see a picture.
The Polish books also had a similar guide - with a page or two-long notice from the translator and then a glossary with various words being explained why they were translated so and not in a different way. At some places, the translator even apologized for earlier errors, or told about mistakes that weren't his fault (e.g. one of the owners of the Borgin&Burkes store in Knockturn Alley was named Burkes instead of Burke in the Polish version... because in the first book where this name appeared, it was mentioned only in the shop name and from that one couldn't know if he is named Burke or Burkes). Still, I guess, not as good as the Japanese one.
5:15 I cringed at "Kent and Yorkshire are in the south of England. Dundee is in the northern part of England"
Kent is in the south of England, yes. But Yorkshire is in the north of England. And Dundee is in SCOTLAND.
Also, how does explaining that bonfire night is to celebrate bonfire activities in any way help anyone?
Maffoo yeah it should just say "Kent, Yorkshire and Dundee are various places in the UK, in this context it's to mean 'from all over' and connote randomness." That would convey the meaning really easily. And bonfire night could literally just be footnoted to "An annual fireworks festival on 5th November"
Perhaps they meant Britain?
Though in that case Yorkshire is central at best.
the footnote actually says "Kent is in the south of England. Yorkshire is in the north of England. Dundee is a port city in the north of England." ah so they still missed one. wonder how come. and for the bonfire maybe because the original one used first letter caps so the Chinese wanted to specially point out that they meant a special festival not just some summer weekend camping
bugs me cos i am from dundee
Nobody outside Britain gets the British names dude. Nobody does.
In Poland, we had a whole small section at the end of the books where the translator explained some od historia choices. That's why every kid reading was aware of his work. Always thought it was brilliant! :)
The title should of been ‘Harry Potter and the cursed translation’ 😂
Please correct me if I'm wrong, English is not my first language, but shouldn't it be "should HAVE been"?
@@MsBlulucky you're absolutely right :)
@@MsBlulucky uh, autocorrect always makes 'shouldve' to 'should of'
They had the chance and they blew it 😂
@@MsBlulucky good on you for actually knowing that. judging from her name, it seems english isn't their first language, but a huge number of people that only speak english get this wrong too.
I can talk about the Dutch translation all day. It truly is the best translation of a book of all time. The translator (Wiebe Budding) made excellent choices in trying to confey a similar meaning while also keeping the same overall 'feeling' of the name. He translated almost every name into a Dutch variant that kept the same or a similar alliteration and meaning, even the names of minor side characters. I think some names are even better in Dutch than they are in English. Many of his words actually have a double or even triple meaning.
Other people mentioned Wegisweg as the translation for diagonally. That one has so many meanings. First of all it means gone is gone. Diagonally is 'gone', invisible, for Muggles. It also sounds funny. Weg also translated to road or street. So goneisstreet. And finally Weg is weg is a common saying for dutch shops when sales are happening: Op is op, weg is weg. So the name already very clearly implies that its a hidden street with shops. That's just one of the many examples.
thats amazing
I find Collectebus also a very clever translation.
@@JaneDoe-mk6vt wat is dat ook alweer in het Engels?
@@jessevanderwijk Knight Bus!
Weg is weg also works in german!
Weg also means either gon or street, depending on how you pronounce it! Except for the sales, in our sales we say "alles muss raus" "everything has to go out"
I feel like the footnote with explanations of the original pun and author's intent are the best policy. It's the least amount of work for everyone rather than trying to come up with new puns that work in your language but may deviate from the author's original vision, you get an unfiltered view and get to learn about whatever culture the author originated from. I feel this way because there are many games from Japan that get their meaning and dialogue ruined in the localisation process, and it's frustrating because I would've been fine with just googling and learning whatever cultural reference I didn't understand. Fortunately with more modern games like Persona 5 they're taking that approach.
Michael Bush exactly !!!!
True, but maybe it means the book is less meaningful just because the clever things are directly brought to attention without any mini word mystery to solve. But as to retaining the original meaning, I agree footnotes are the best 😊
But that isn't as fun to kids
Unfortunately, those footnotes were wrong! Yorkshire is in the North of England, and Dundee is not in England at all, but in Scotland! :)
Lewis Skinner Surprisingly, Vox’s translation of the footnotes is wrong. The original Chinese footnotes say “Kent is in the South of England, Yorkshire is in the North of England and Dundee is a coastal city in the North of England.” (The part about Dundee is still wrong though. Perhaps the translators were reading it off the map.... hmm...)
As a hobbyist translator myself, the pains are REAL.
In India they turned spells to Sanskrit
Great idea. I wonder if they turned them to classical Chinese in the orient.
@@requiem5398 In Europe, Latin is associated with magic. I doubt it is so in India.
@@iamcleaver6854 Umm... since when? Latin is associated with antiquity, legalism and maybe mystery but not of the purely magic variant. Most of the trademark spells that circulated before the times of Harry Potter were either made-up gibberish ("Abracadabra" or "Hocus-Pocus") or two poem verses.
@@iamcleaver6854 😕😕😕 you are really
@@sukritidash9358 ??? What do you mean?
I'm not a language expert, but i'm pretty sure you butchered half of those foreign words.
Luke Schonkeren you can’t blame the narrator too much for not speaking all the languages
You can blame them for being bad narrators though
ItzHawk i know, besides, she probably did a better job at it then i would
They could ask people who speak the language to pronounce the foreing words
rowling butchered half the genre to come up with her 'original' ideas, so that works out okay
Yup, the Swedish was totally unintelligible to Swedish speakers.
In regards to the American version - the authorised US publisher felt the US populace will not buy the book if it wasn't localised to US English. The irony was, they later realised the very Britishisms they removed was actually well received by American readers.
There was even reports of Americans crossing into Canada to get the "original" versions off their shelves.
James Bond Do they really, do they?
Aminat Abiola so true they ate always like, oh do you know my grandma called Mary because they don't realise that the United Kingdom has a population of over 65 million. Or they are like, have you met the queen? So annoying lol
Charlie Wag an Omfg, it's soo annoying, like have you met Obama?
Lol
The name “philosopher’s stone” was changed too “sorcerer’s stone” because scholastic (the publisher) thought kids wouldn’t pick up a book that said “philosopher’s” on it because we are taught that philosophers are these ancient old men that created different types of maths and sciences and no kid wants to learn about a mathematician’s stone. So they went with sorcerer instead because we know that means magic, and magic means fun.
In Finnish books Hufflepuff is translated really well! It's "Puuskupuh"
Puusku is like when you've done a lot of work and you can just relax, you can "puuskahtaa"
Puh is there maybe because of its like connected to Puusku or then it just sounds good idk
But any case the name refers to how hardworking Hufflepuffs are
Also puff, to release breath during/after effort ties in nicely.
What about Russian translation by Maria Spivak, who tried to save all the word play but failed hilariously (like "Злодеус Злей" and "Невилл Длиннопоп", something like "Meaneus Mean" and "Nevile Longass")
денис дроздов XD
XD DX longass
*IN DUTCH*
Hermione = Hermelien
Luna Lovegood = Loena Leeflang ('Leeflang' litterly translates into live long)
Tom Marvolo Riddle = Marten Asmodom Vilijn
Hogwarts = Zweinstein ('Zwein' comes from zwijn, which roughly translates into pig, stein is commonly used in names for castles)
Godric Gryffindor = Goderic Griffoendor
Helge Hufflepuff = Helga Huffelpuff
Rowena Ravenclaw = Rowena Ravenklauw
Salazar Slytherin = Zalazar Zwadderich
Diagon Ally = Weg is weg (This is a word play; 'weg' means road, but it also means gone. Basicly it translates into 'Gone is gone')
Quidditch = Zwerkbal (it was really funny to hear you pronounce that)
Quaffle = Slurk
Snitch = Snaai
Bludger = Beuker
O.W.L = S.L.I.J.M.B.A.L (This translates into slimebal)
N.E.W.T = P.U.I.S.T (This translates into pimple)
Muggle = Dreuzel
Let me know if you want to know more!
All the Weasleys = Wemel, first name kept the same
Scheurbek = buckbeak
Dursley = Duffeling, Vernon = Herman and Dudley = Dirk
Sirius Black = Sirius Zwarts where zwart means black
Severus Snape = Severus Sneep. Interesting one as Sneep has the same pronunciation as Snape whereas the Dutch Snape (word or name doesn't exist though) is phonetically entirely different than the English Snape. The city Sneek is also pronounced as snake in English.
Madame Pomfrey= Madame Plijster where plijster comes from pleister meaning patch. Actually kinda like that one.
mad-eye moody= Alastor Dwaaloog, dwaaloog meaning wandering eye, it fits him.
Tom Marvolo Riddle = Marten Asmodom Vilijn. Not really a fan of that one, but they needed an anagram for 'mijn naam is Voldemort'
Schriftelijke loftuiting wegens ijver magische bekwaamheid en algeheel leervermogen, that's just amazingly well done
I like the translation of Riddle because Vilijn already says that he is villainous. Also Marten sounds like a muggle name whereas Asmodom sounds more like an archaic wizard name
Wow I had no idea it changed so much in other languages. I first read the books in Spanish and later I noticed the changes but there aren't so many like in yours. So cool
Hermelien Griffel, do not forget about the Dutch translation for Hermione's surname. Griffel is an old writing tool and in the Netherlands the Gouden (golden) Griffel is awarded for literary excellence.
In Croatian Quidditch is metloboj xD.
"Metla" = broom
"Boj"= battle
Wow! I live in russia, and in my country :
Metla - метла = broom
Boj - бой = battle
What a beautiful coincidence
In german it's just Quidditch...🧍♀️
It makes sense since Football is nogomet, as in leg-target? I guess? :D We left it as Kvidič in Serbian
The Spanish translation for HP was so lazy. Quidditch was not translated.
If it were up to me, I'd have it be
Broom Ball
Broom: Escoba
Ball: Bol (from Fútbol)
And it becomes Escobol!
That's sounds cool. They could do it with Slovak translation, which made it "metlobal" , metla - broom, bal - from ball, like sports football, basketball etc
Kudo's to the Dutch translator! I always thought J.K. Rowling gave the translator some kind of explanation as to how she got the names, because most were spot-on.
Quidditch = zwerkbal!
Hogwarts = Zweinstein!
Dumbledore = Perkamentus!
Hermione = Hermelien!
Diagonalley = Wegisweg!!! (street is away)
Malfoy = Malfidus
The name “philosopher’s stone” was changed too “sorcerer’s stone” because scholastic (the publisher) thought kids wouldn’t pick up a book that said “philosopher’s” on it because we are taught that philosophers are these ancient old men that created different types of maths and sciences and no kid wants to learn about a mathematician’s stone. So they went with sorcerer instead because we know that means magic, and magic means fun.
Carolina Estigarribia But we are taught the same thing about philosophers in Britain and yet millions of British kids bought the first book quite happily
That sounds like advertisenent for dumbs.
American children have such poor relationships with their parents/guardians that they couldn't ask what it meant, nor read the blurb?!
Sorcerer's Stone sounds cooler AND it has alliteration 🙃
Josh Witte sorcerer’s stone sounds stupid, philosopher’s stone emits knowledge, mystery, and magic
Oh man. The translators for all the character-based languages must have had a very difficult time translating this... *hats off*
In French, Tom Riddle's middle name is Elvis? I'm trying to imagine a juxtaposition of Elvis and Voldemort and I just can't even picture it.
also wands are baguettes
"Baguette" doesn't necessarily stand for "bread" in French, it just means "stick". Not all breads are called "baguette"; and it's because this type of bread is stick-shaped that it's called "baguette", not the other way round. :)
Antoine WILLE i know haha its just funny as an english speaker bc to us baguette only means the bread 🥖
Marvolo~Marvelous~Elvis
Elvis stole Robert Johnson's musical life, Riddle stole lots of people's actual lives...done!
My cousin’s grandma actually translated the Harry Potter books to Swedish, Lena fries Gedin
I really enjoyed reading the books in German again. The Sorting Hat's songs, for example, still rhymed quite cleverly, and it was funny reading how "Harry, Ron und Hermine" would eat lots of German food at Christmas instead of British :) respect to Mr. Klaus Fritz for translating (I believe) all seven books.
Callum Jackson As a german I never understood why Victor Krum had difficulties pronouncing "Hermine" 😂😂
Now that is funny.
Joudi kativ Me neither XD
Joudi kativ ikr i am still wondering.
But doesn't that make the book loose its English feel?
4:02 *Elvis* can someone please draw Lord Voldemort with Elvis's hairstyle? Lol that would be so funny
Don't laught at it : As a French, I can assure you it was a clever translation, and many kids discovered Tom Elvis (Jedusor) before the Elvis Presley himself haha
it was a pretty ingenious translation but imagining Voldemort with elvis ' hair is still super funny
but I always thought elvis was better than marvolo because marvolo just makes me think about the words "morve" and "morvelle" which mean snot
He' all shook up
twitter.com/MouleMan_23/status/1117355729718075392?ref_src=twcamp%5Ecopy%7Ctwsrc%5Eandroid%7Ctwgr%5Ecopy%7Ctwcon%5E7090%7Ctwterm%5E3
Only Facts what. How many kids do you know? 😂(not being mean genuinely asking)
In the Russian version Severus Snape is called Severus Snegg. And it's a pretty nice solution because the word "sever" translates as "north" from Russian. And "sneg" is Russian for "snow". Thus, the name Severus Snegg reflects the nature of this caracter.
laterne76 Never thought about it, reading it when I was a child. Thanks)
I've never thought about this adaptation this way.
in hungarian it is perselus piton. I guess the translator wanted to keep the snake thing and the alliteration.
I was wondering how did they dealing with Harry's name, since there is no H in Russian is it?
@@egyteguhrinaldiputra881 Garry
In the Philippines, the translations....
does not exist.
Bcos Pinoys allowed English to replace their native languages
Impossible. Perhaps the archives are incomplete.
@@Khatulistiwan If by 'allowed' you mean forced 'education' by American imperialists...
And btw the Philippines still has 170+ native languages today. English has far from replaced them.
There is a Filipino translation. but it was never published in public. for unknown reason
EDIT: So I realized that i'm quite wrong, the Filipino translation of HP is already been available in MIBF. but it was only the first book (Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone) that was been translated. and unfortunately it's now rare to find. I think it gets out of stock now cause it's hard to find online and it was always 'unavaible'.
Tagalog literature is a joke.
In german the game 'exploding snap' was translated with 'Snape explodiert' which means 'Exploding Snape'
Guess that bugged you, Professor?
I couldn't sit for a whole week.
😂😂😂 sucks to be you
Lisa Traub NOOOO SNAPE NUUUUUUUUUU NOT YET U GET KILLED BY NAGINI U DONT GET EXPLODED
yes. The day I found out that it was a mistake in translation was incredibly sad. Until then, I had assumedthat it was a game the students made up which had some sort of reference to Snape. I always liked that idea.
I love how the French version literally means 'Harry Potter at the Wizard School' 😂
In Brasil the name of the houses is as following
Hufflepuff - Lufa Lufa
Slytherin - Sonserina.
Griffindor - Grifinória.
Ravenclaw - Corvinal.
I think its really solid
Lufa Lufa? That sounds quite funny! The other ones are cool
In French they're
Hufflepuff - Poufsouffle
Slytherin - Serpentard
Griffindor - Gryffondor
Ravenclaw - Serdaigle
Sonserina eternamente casa de gente SONSA
In the Polish version the house names stayed in their English version, but when used to refer to students of said houses (Griffindors, Slytherins, etc.) then those got translated to fit the grammar and explain the nature of the houses and their students.
@@onlyfacts8801 that serpentard sounds more like an insult
In The Netherlands it's
Huffelpuff = Huffelpuf
Slytherin = Zwadderich
Gryffindor = Griffoendor
Ravenclaw = Ravenklauw
😂 I think the names are quite funny in Brasil
The most ridiculous part of this was that an "American English" translation exists lol
But honestly I've never thought about how nightmarish it would be for translators to adapt it to different countries and cultures, the books are filled to the brim with so many word plays.
The worst part is that they changed it to Sorcerer's stone which is not a thing (I mean, Philosopher's stones don't exist anyway but Alchemists were trying to make them)
@@Rebecca-vg2ef yeah that's such an unnecessary change, I always found that weird... Do Americans not know what a philosopher is or what 😭😭
@@violetta698 their worry was that americans wouldn’t know what it meant and that’s why they changed it. jk rowling has said that she deeply regrets letting them change the name for the us version.
@@queenjeski591 Yeah, that really confused me when I first learned the original version had a different title... Even when I was 10 and first reading the book I would have understood that...
@@queenjeski591
That's not the reason I read. I heard it was because they feared the book would be less popular because philosopher doesn't sound as "cool" as a sorcerer. But in the modern day, Full Metal Alchemist has popularized philosophers stone to the point where it's cool nowadays.
I think the Chinese translators' approach to the books were the best. Just keep everything as intact as possible while just putting in little footnotes to explain cultural references, jokes, etc. It's just like watching a Wuxia film or an Anime film or show. It's way better to just watch the original production with subtitles and translation notes; it preserves the way the film was meant to be shown while also allowing the viewer to learn more about a new culture.
banana551000 um, no... 😐 if you want to learn about the culture, i suggest you go read fan translations or read it in original if you can. The whole point of translations is to bring it closer to the target audience which is kids. So i'm perfectly ok with changes in translation. You wanna be immersed in the story when reading it and not constantly ripped out of it wondering what the hell did i just read.
I actually read the whole series in Chinese as a kid (I was 8 or 9?) and I quite appreciated the footnotes explaining some of the puns and other western cultural references (like holidays). I don't know why people are so against footnotes in children's books, as if our tiny brains would be unable to comprehend little extra details, and it's not like the translators explained EVERY SINGLE world play, only the more significant ones.
I found it amusing, however, that most of the spells used sense-for-sense translations that sound nothing like the original (Expelliarmus had a four-character translation that literally meant "Remove your weapon!"), while Avada Kedavra was translated to "阿瓦达索命" - "Avada TAKE YOUR LIFE".
@hannah ao "Expelliarmus" is a play on "expel" and "arms", so basically "expel your arms" or "remove your weapons". "Avada kedavra" is a play on the famous magic words "abra kadabra" and the word "cadaver" meaning dead body. All the spells are supposed to sorta sound like what they do without literally saying it, but I guess that's harder to do in Chinese than in a language with a phonetic alphabet. The translator probably did the best they could, but many things just don't translate well, so footnotes were probably the best solution.
actually, in chinese, the spell names is a combination of its meaning and its prononciation. For example, Expelliarmus is unweponize you, but the translator make it sound like a slang/Chengyu in mandarin(all speells are four letter word in chinese/mandarin.) and I think everybody can get what "Avada demands your life" means.
btw, I'm all for footnote. I read hp when I was 10, it's exotic and alien and fun, looking into those footnote help me learn a lot of custom of Europe/England.
banana551000 That's how it is for Thai version too. Surprised to hear all the differences the other versions made.
The French Voldemort "Jedusor" can also be interpreted as "jet de sort" which means spellcasting.
Do you speak french natively ? Because that's quite a stretch, I can't imagine a native French speaker who would've interpreted it like that. "Jeu du sort" is clearly what's intended. And it makes so much more sense if you're comparing it to the english Riddle...
For me it's "jeu du sort" too. Sort mean "magical spell", jeu = game, togather it's mean "hazard game", it's used to say that life it's just an hazard game.
@@robertofontiglia4148 Nope actually I'm French and I've always pronounced Jedusor as "Jédusor" which i also how you prononce "jet du sort" (the T is silent in both words) !
@@sofiarenouf6921 intéressant... Mais c'est bizarre, parce que moi, "Jé" et "jet", je prononce pas ça pareil dutout...
Je prononce Jeu aussi et vu son nom en anglais c'est forcément ça, mais ton interprétation est super intéressante et intelligente et offre encore un surplus de sens au nom fr et à la qualité de la traduction. Bien joué, j'aime beaucoup.
Really love Vox and have always thought they have high quality content.
But there's no excuse for that piss-poor excuse for calligraphy.
It barely passes as cursive.
It barely passes for normal writing. I can't even read that.
Sarah Kieny NEEEEEERRRRRD
Because it means you're a weirdo with no friends. It doesn't mean you like Harry Potter or comic books, or whatever.
Yet to find a *single* vox video where someone isn't whining in he comments, despite everyone talking about their 'high quality content'. Lmao, wild...
Pizza Girl I lost it at "buisness"
In my Country "I am Voldemort" was supposed to be "Ich Bin Lord Voldemort".
However, Tom Bchilnoorv Riddle was not exactly an option, and so they went with "Tom Vorlost Riddle ist Lord Voldemort" which would translate back to "Tom Marvolo Riddle is Lord Voldemort" which I thought quite clever.
I actually always prefered that. It ties up more nicely because the whole thing makes one sentence
Germany?
That's pretty clever, actually.
This confuses me to no end. When I read books set in different cultures as a Canadian, I don't need the capital city of Nicaragua to be translated into Ottawa or for a traditional Chinese sauce to be called Maple Syrup instead. Why can't people just read books that aren't specifically centered to their culture?
I can only assume it was for a different world. Even though it wasn't that many years ago that the texts were translated for Chinese, Russian, etc., there is no doubt that cultures become far less detached from each other every year, and more knowledge about them is shared, meaning they felt the average citizen of whichever country wouldn't know what popular British sweets are. Though, it is ultimately the translators decision, so we should really be asking them why.
Because each of those things are to some degree symbolisms that conway something about the character/setting/theme of the story. Like Hagrid doesn't have a west country accent because JK Rowling spun a wheel of accents and that came up, he has that accent because he's from a rural place associated with a lower level of education and more communal lifestyle. This helps to convey Hagrid's character.(he's a kind hearted, animal loving, simpleton) However a west country accent wouldn't mean much to non-English people so they chose to use a rural japanese accent to convey the feeling and symbolism behind the accent not the literal accent itself. Similar things are considered for all cultures and languages by translators.
Also, the books are targeting children and early teenagers. Which are less aware of the world beyond the local.
If I wrote something like, "Harry unwrapped and devoured his packet of Ho-Ho-Dings before he had even taken his seat in the booth. They cream-filled, chocolate covered cake was his favorite thing in the entire world, and a rare treat when he was still a member of the Dursley household."
Now I don't need to make up some new snack in order to take the place of the one I've just created here, it's described well enough in the text that even a young child could understand what it is. But then again, I'm a much better writer than Rowling, so I guess this isn't much of a problem for me :)
They could've just added footnotes lol
I’ve read every single Harry Potter book, a few twice, seen a few of the bad movies...
And I never realized “Diagon Alley” was supposed to sound like “diagonally”. :/
Well did you see the second movie ? Because they litterally spell it out for you when Harry takes the floo powder for the first time...
No
It’s not supposed to. You’re supposed to say the words separately that’s why when Harry says “diagonally” in the second film he ends up somewhere else cos he said it wrong.
The movies aren't that bad... Maybe not as good as the books but definitely not bad. :)
The movies are frickin' good ! Unless you watched the Lego ones of course...
This made me grateful my country was colonised by the British... but I now wonder what I've missed out on from books translated from another language to English! Excellent work Vox :)
Kimberly Mbogori
Where are you from, I'm from Singapore, also a former British colony and all the millenials here speak English.
+gelKo Kenya here
yeah I'm in Australia and I'm glad we pretty much got the original here. as far as i know, anyway
I'm from Hong Kong, God save the Queen!
Come back to being a British Colony, all of you !
Some Russian quirks:
1. Voldemort got changed to Volan-de-mort. the only explanation I have for such a change is to make a reference to Voland/Woland from The Master and Margarita, who is the literal Devil.
2. Gryffindor and Slytherin stay more or less the same but Hufflepuff becomes "Puffendui" and Ravenclaw "Kogtevran"(raven's claw) founded by Penelope Puffendui and Kandida Kogtevran.
3. Snape depending on which translation you read is "Severus Snegg"(Severus Snoww?) or "Zloteus Zlei"(Villainus Evil?).
For the Snape one, I'm guessing snow because he's "cold, harsh"
did anyone got annoyed by the unreadable calligraphy wanna be handwriting?
git cursive m8
Anastasia Pallo Never seen cursive before?
and that boring voice of hers
How about that shaky cam at 2.08?
ronald bangtidy I think the point was that it was really bad cursive...
The Finnish translation for the Philosopher's stone (Viisasten kivi) and all together has been consisted with one translator.
She kept most first and surnames as same but changed few surnames to fit more to Finnish readers culturially.
Severus Snape had his surnames translated into Kalkaros = kalkkarokäärme (rattle snake)
Sirius Black means exatcly the same as Sirius Musta.
Professor Quirrel was changed into Professori Orave (which is also a wordplay on squirrel (orava))
Tom Marvolo Riddle's name had his name changed into Tom Lomen Valedro in Finnish and that created acronym = MA OLEN VOLDEMORT
She was also able to translate most of places into Finnish and have them some sort of wordplay or have it same meaning as English one would.
Hogwarts was translated into Tylypahka = tyly (rude, brusque) and pahkasika (warthog)
Diagon Alley became Viistokuja = viisto (diagonal) kuja (alley)
Also lots of spells were translated into Finnish to mimic the same understandment for them. Since English and any other Romantic language speaker can somewhat understand Latin, Finnish translator wanted Finnish readers to understand them the same way.
Expelliarmus was translated to Karkotaseet = karkota (expell, repel) and aseet (weaponry)
Expecto Patronum became Odotum suojelius = Odotan (I wait) and suojelius (the guardian/patron)
Lumos was translated into Valois = valo (light) and valoisa (bright)
She also changed name of Quidditch into Huispaus. And as well the ball had their names changed into Kaato (Quaffle), Ryhmy (Bludger) and Kultasieppi (Golden Snitch).
A Horcrux was also translated ito hirnyrkki = hirveä (awful, horrific) and nyrkki (fist).
Ordinary Wizarding Level examination (O.W.L) and Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Test (N.E.W.T) were translated into Velhomaailman Ihmeisiin Perehdyttävä -tutkinto (V.I.P.) and Se Uskomattoman Paha, Erittäin Rakas -tutkinto (S.U.P.E.R) respectively.
As someone who knows English, Finnish and Swedish I have never been a fan of the Finnish translation.
Niklas Forsman I as well know these languages (in fact have read almost every Potter book in those languages). The Finnish translation for me gives the spirit of small knowledge that we wouldn't have achieved if Finnish translator left names, spells etc untouched.
I did enjoy the Finnish translation, it didn't kept the British feeling in the book fully but enchanced it with our own cultural atmosphere. Swedish translation on other hand is very loyal to the British version and changed few things here and there to have a some sort of connection with the Swedish readers.
I don't know about you but I set myself in different mindset and understandment as I change the language, it gives a new experience with same story but from another point of view, as I would say. In Finnish I am sey with my mother tongue so I am all set. English being almost like my second language I find myself thinking and rereading again. And with Swedish I find myself learning the language more than diving deep into the story.
ClawOfTheRaven I think you hit the nail on what annoys me the most with Finnish translations in general. In this case it didn't keep the British feeling fully and changed the cultural atmosphere. The Potter books are very British, they are set in Britain and they are supposed to be very British (and not Finnish, at all).
I don't see anything wrong in doing like the Chinese did. Put footnotes to explain word games.
A good translation shouldn't change the books, the feeling they give or give out different information than the original. It should be the same book just in another language. And everyone will read the book from different perspectives, a Brit might think "nothing special here" and a Finn might think "wow, what is that?" and its okay. Changing stuff like food and a boarding school to orphanage (I know the Finnish version didn't do this) changes the book to something else than it is.
I have to disagree here. As someone who's read the books as a kid in Finnish and as a teenager in English I have to say I think the Finnish translation is brilliant and doesn't erase the British feeling of the original books. I haven't read the books in Swedish, though, so I can't compare the Finnish translation to that one.
HP and the Philosopher's stone was always meant to be read by children, and so in the same manner as the American translation changed some bits to be more interesting for children, so did the Finnish one. Without making changes in the punny names Finnish children would have lost all of the hidden, quirky meanings. And I think these quirks are one of the main things the Potter series has that makes it unique and compelling. Having footnotes like in the Chinese version might have been interesting, but then again it would have made the book quite heavy to be read by children.
And as for the "British feeling", I always got that when I was reading the books in Finnish as a child. I never imagined the story taking place in Finland. So many of the characters and places had names that sounded totally British and not Finnish at all, the books used imperial units for measurements, they wore school uniforms (not a thing in Finland) and there were many more cultural British things that aren't the same in Finland, and that I learnt from the books. Besides, there are very few castles in Finland, and they are very different than those in the UK.
What you said about what a good translation is like, I think that applies to the Finnish translation. The Finnish translation focused heavily on the feeling that the original book gives to its readers, at the cost of making some details different. And that feeling of how amazingly weird and quirky the wizarding world is, that feeling that comes through words and references, is one of my favourite things about the books, and I find that that feeling comes through very well in both languages. But I do understand that when comparing to many other translations, especially to those that are in the same indo-european language family, the Finnish translation seems to have changed too much.
Beside the point, my personal favourite thing about the Finnish translations is how they gave Hagrid a cool dialect.
+Niklas Forsman You probably know that there are many different styles of translating. Sometimes it serves the text better to have it translated very strictly, in almost word to word style, but in the case of Harry Potter I think the Finnish translator did the right thing and chose the style of "kotouttaminen", integrating the text with Finnish culture and language. The chosen translation style depends on many things such as the target audience, the purpose of the text and on the preference of the translator. I really enjoy reading the Harry Potter books both in English and in Finnish, because they both have a very specific and a very different feel to them. And as a linguistic nerd I truly enjoy comparing the two! :)
I grew up with the Swedish translation. My favourite translation is from the 2nd book "The Chambers of Secrets" where Voldemort reveals to Harry that his (Swedish) real name "Tom Gus Mervolo Dolder" becomes the anagram "Ego sum Lord Voldemort", meaning "I am Lord Voldemort" in Latin. A very clever translation considering the heavy amount of Latin used in the books.
And also. They translated 'calmly' into 'angrily'
hahahah classic
I never though about this isue before. Amazing episode guys!
I did.
"Issue". 😊
Actually comes up quite a lot, not so much recently due to bi-linguists, but throughout history translating books to different languages change a lot of what was being said.
harry potter and the translator's nightmare... great title but u know the americans wont understand "translator" so u gotta use a basic word so they's understand... o yeah drag the canadians down with them too
Issua
I love how the Mainland Chinese version said Yorkshire was in the south of england
poppy yerrall and Dundee was in England at all
And that bonfire night was a celebration of bonfires
It didn't actually, Vox got the English translation of the Chinese wrong. It says:
“肯特郡在英格蘭南部” = (Kent County is in the south of England)
“約克郡在英格蘭北部“ = (Yorkshire County is in the north of England)
“丹地是英格蘭北部海港” = (Dundee is England's northern harbour)
So yeah, the Chinese translator got Dundee wrong but they were correct about Yorkshire.
I'm surprised how there isn't a single mention of translations into Indian languages like Marathi or Hindi. Translators have to change the mostly latin-derived spells to sanskrit ones, retaining the touch of a classical language. For instance, 'Expecto Patronum' becomes 'Pitrdev Saurakshanam', though the meaning remains the same in both. I really wanted Vox to add a point on this. :(
Eesha Tirodkar wow! That is so cool.
I know this was so late, but did the marathi version also use sanskrit like hindi? Or did they just use their own language? I wonder if the tamil and telugu version did the same thing like english = latin, hindi = sanskrit...
I just want to say that in Russian “Harry” is “Garry”
Because the "h" is pronounced as "g" in russian, and in Ukrainian is the complete opposite where the "g" is pronounced as "h".
@@goldpaulike5304 its actually because russian lacks /h/ and in loanwords that sound is replaced with /g/ as the closest approximation because the /x/ it has is "too harsh." as for ukrainian, its orthography didnt keep up with the sound shift that lenited /g/ into /ɦ/ so thats why the letter with the value /g/ in russian has the value /ɦ/ in ukrainian
Reminds me of Hannibal and Gannibal
As a Ukrainian reader of harry potter books I completely disagree with what this video stated about the interpretation of the books in Ukraine. There's no such thing as changing boarding school to orphanage, it's clearly stated in the books and the concept of boarding schools is not that foreign to Ukrainian people to make such a drastic change
The Chinese translator said Yorkshire was in the South, and Dundee was in England...? 😂
I remember reading the chamber of secrets in spanish (latin american version) and in my book the I AM LORD VOLDERMORT word game wasn't changed at all. They threw it in english and between parenthesis was the actual meaning in spanish YO SOY LORD VOLDEMORT.
Carlos Elías That's a lazy translation
oh indeed , but I can understand it since they didn't want to change Tom's last name like in the European spanish books.
-Ayse- Tozlu Hay una versión latina???? yo sólo he leído la de Salamandra.
En México solo hay la versión española O__O
Yo soy Lord Voldemort
Gracias Spanish translator fo keeping most of the original words intact. You’re a unknown hero for many generations.
5:15 *angry Scottish noises*
*Dundee is in Scotland not England
Isn't angry the default?
In the Hindi translations, they incorporated the ancient language Sanskrit instead of Latin for all the spells. That's a huge cultural shift considering that Sanskrit is the language of our Holy scriptures and used even now by priests when they perform rituals in our culture.
Oh, really?! That's so cool! Man, those translators were dedicated.
Joy Vogel I don't know if they got screenwriting credit but the same approach was used to dub the audio for the movies in Hindi.
Harshit Sharma that actually makes it a pretty accurate cultural translation because for most of Christian history ( particularly Catholic) Latin was used in religious ceremonies
That is really cool and clever. Damn, what a stroke of genius!
pitradev sanrakshanam?
Yeah, I do see hints of Sanskrit there.
I've never really read a hindi translation though :/
I think the swedish version of Voldemort's name is one of the few that isn't an anagram in its own language. He's called Tom Gus Mervolo Dolder, which is an anagram for *Ego sum Lord Voldemort*, which is Latin for *I am Lord Voldemort*
Wow this one is amazing !
The Portuguese versions (from Brazil and from Portugal) also differ substantially. Lia Wyler, the Brazilian translator, adapted some of the names (the houses became Grifinória, Sonserina, Lufa-Lufa and Corvinal, and the game became Quadribol) while the Portuguese version mostly kept them in their original form.
The Hungarian translator did quite an awesome job preserving the word plays built in names (or replacing them with other puns that work in Hungarian) and the alliterations. For instance, Diagon Alley became Abszol út, út meaning road and abszolút meaning, of course, absolute(ly). Cornelius Fudge became Cornelius Caramel because we know what caramel means but only those who speak English well or have been to England have an idea what fudge is - and conveniently enough, it even alliterates with the name Cornelius. When an alliteration could have been lost in translation, the other name was usually altered to match: Severus Snape became Perselus just so the name alliterates with the surname (Piton). Professor Grubbly-Plank's name was translated and intentionally misspelled so perfectly that I had read the books in English AND French by the time I realized that that name makes sense in Hungarian, too. The only important word play the translator couldn't work out was the double meaning of elder in the elder wand - both meanings of the word were important to the story and I don't think it's manageable in any other language. Still, the translator chose to switch back and forth between emphasizing the material one time and the superiority another to somehow still imply it and it worked out OK. I don't usually like reading books translated when I can read them in the original language, but Harry Potter's was an outstanding translation which was definitely worth the effort.
There was one thing he did not translate well, it was Phlegm. In Hungarian it is "slejm", but he translated it as "Francica" something like French kitten, and "franc" is also a mild swearword. But it could not convey all that contempt Ginny had for Fleur. The word Phlegm starts with the sounds Fl just as Fleur's name and is also one syllable.
wow, I just now realised the Grubbly-Plank translation :D
Hungarian: Suette-Pollts professzor ("szúette polc" means "a worm-eaten shelf")
I don't know about what Ukrainian translation they are talking about, but i know just one publisher that translated the HP books into Ukrainian - A-BA-BA-HA-LA-MA-HA, and they did a great job. most of magical words are not translated or translated in a clever way. the cover art is stunning - it's full of little details, and all books standing together form a picture.
so I'm deeply offended by this 'orphanage' nonsence Vox is talking about. there was no such thing in the Ukrainian translation. Ukrainian translation is one of the best.
Their site says: "The Ukrainian translations and book covers of the Harry Potter book series are considered to be among the best in the world. Many experts consider our original covers to be the very best at all…"
ababahalamaha.com.ua/en/Harry_Potter_Series
I was deeply confused by the change mentioned in the video because much of the school system probably doesn't really work if it would just be applied to an orphanage? Like, do the parents of the children never get mentioned again? what explanation is there for wheere they go on holiday breaks??
I was looking for the comment on Ukrainian translation. I love it so much, they did a GREAT job in Ababahalama, I was growing up reading their HP editions, and frankly I can’t read HP in Russian or even English, I don’t get the same feeling of magic 😁
The covers are stunning!
Severus Snape is Perselus Piton in Hungarian.
I think that's a great translation because it has the same "feeling" as the English name, Piton is a snake, and it's still an alliteration just like the original one.
Hungarian is awesome because it's very pun-able (I'm not fluent but my dad is)
Phoenixe1986
That Random Guy eh yeah that's the point, piton means snake over there, saying "snake" over there doesn't bring any creepy slithering feeling at all? But saying piton does? That's the difference in CONTEXT?
The world isn't ruled by the anglosphere, people associate different sounds with different feelings elsewhere, the feelings you associate with a sound may not even exist in a different country, so how would they get that feeling if you just say "Snape" which they wouldn't care for at all?
I swear to god there is a thorough lack of intersectionality in born English speakers...
Bless your heart...
The Hungarian translation was VERY inconsistent in adequacy when it came to proper names.
Some of what the translator did made sense, right? Fudge = Caramel, Moody = Mordon, Crouch = Kupor. Sprout = Bimba.
But he also left a bunch of loaded names completely unchanged, such as Lestrange, Lockhart and Greyback. If Snape must be made Piton, translate the other names too, is all i'm saying.
Then, some of his solutions seemed to be motivated purely by the fear of us not being able to pronounce English sounding names. This could have happened to Crabbe and Goyle = Crak and Monstro. Skeeter = Vitrol. Hufflepuff = Hugrabug.
But if already Crabbe means difficulty, then why on earth are supposed to know how to pronounce Dumbledore? Pettigrew? Shacklebolt? Scrimgeour? Trelawney? Freakin' Fawkes? (You know you had trouble with that one.) All these names were left unchanged, and the list could go on and on.
But let me cite my absolute "favourite" solution from the Hungarian translator:
Horace Slughorn = Horatius Lumpsluck.
The pointlessness of it boggles my mind.
(And finally a special mention for Quirell = Mógus in the what the f*ck category).
Just a few to mention:
🇭🇺 *Severus Snape* in hungarian became *Perselus* (which is similar to the alchemist named Paracelsus) *Piton*
🇭🇺 Hogwarts became *Roxfort*
🇭🇺The founders: *Griffendél Godrik❤️, Hollóháti Hedvig 💙, Mardekár Malazár💚 and Hugrabug Helga* 💛
🇭🇺Tom Marvolo Riddle is *Tom Rowle Denem.* He says: A nevem Lord Voldemort.
🇭🇺And my favorite Diagon Ally became *Abszol út* which means abszolút=absolute. it's basically Abszol Street. 😁
The street where you can find the Pokémon Absol 😅
The narrator has a very irritating voice! Her tone is borderline comatose and she doesn't enunciate properly.
and she makes any context drowsy.
Abcflc I think it's kinda calming
Yeah, vocal fry is cancer.
Modern american Vocal fry. Makes everything sound emotionless.
Abcflc how superficial can one get...