hi today I'm going to talk about Harry
Potter in translation as you might know
the Harry Potter books have been
translated into at least 67 languages
besides the English one I've only ever
read them in one other language which is
Dutch and Harry Potter books are
actually what got me interested in
translation I have endless lists that I
made when I was younger with all the
Dutch and English names for people
spells magical creatures I never really
went outside when I was a kid
these are book 4 and book 5 in Dutch all
seven Harry Potter books are translated
by Viva bidding according to Wikipedia
Viva bidding translated his first book
in 1978 and it was a Clockwork Orange
and the reason he made this translation
was that his father who was a poet was
originally doing the translation
accidentally threw it out and then
didn't have time to do it so asked his
son for help in general translating a
book comes with a lot of difficulties
here are some things to think about what
do you do about names puns
songs cultural references and as you
might know even the British version had
to be translated into the American one
which is not called the Philosopher's
Stone
but the Sorcerer's Stone besides the
normal changes from jumper to sweater
there are some interesting differences
for example in Harry Potter and the
Philosopher's Stone the sorting of Dean
Thomas left out well in the Sorcerer's
Stone it says Thomas Dean a black boy
even taller than Ron joined Harry at the
Gryffindor table and the British jelly
is changed to the American brand named
jello with a capital J now the
interesting thing is that there are no
set rules for translation so all the
translators and all the different
languages got to do whatever they wanted
so in the German editions
all the English names stay the same
which stays Quidditch but there are some
honorable mentions
for example Sirius Black was translated
to Sirius March in the first book when
he's just mentioned casually and
Schwan's means black in German however
in the third book when he turned out to
be a major character they changed it
back to sirius black and my favorite one
which I got told about yesterday by
German friend is that apparently the
game exploding snap has been translated
as Snape Xcode ëadd which means Snape
explodes
so apparently instead of just playing a
game of snap Harry and Ron are playing
some kind of customized game about an
exploding snake
another really difficult name was Tom
Marvolo riddle which turns into I am
Lord Voldemort doesn't quite work out
the same way in other languages
my favorite solution is definitely the
French one where just sweet Voldemort
turns into the name Tom Elvis jaggies oh
and yes I said Elvis but I want to get
to some of my favorite Dutch
translations were stuff all we have
diagonally which in Dutch is Vespa now
the word Beth in Dutch can mean both
wrote and gone so the word Beth is Beth
technically means wrote is gone
Dumbledore was changed to Becca mentis
which is basically the Dutch word for
parchment but with a Latin suffix to
make it sound more like a name the Room
of Requirement is called the camera
Valhalla notes gammer means room and
whole note means being in desperate need
of something but it also means really
having to go to the bathroom which is
fitting if you remember the first time
this room was mentioned is when
Dumbledore finds it in the middle of the
night when he was looking for a bathroom
that we have for crux which index has
been translated as Lucille amantha who
does the demands that comes from if you
drop something and it breaks into a
million pieces
but the word was slightly changed to
have the word zeal or soul in it so it's
little bits of soul it doesn't flow that
well because there's too many open
vowels in the word but I think it's
still pretty smart and finally we have
the translators favorite word Vela which
in Dutch is clam or Hana a combination
of the word glamour and fata morgana
which is the Dutch word for Mirage did
you know that in the dutch books the
note from Rab is actually from Raz
that's because the last name black is
actually sparks in Dutch and they
basically have the same meaning but
finding all the acronyms and the
different translations did kind of help
us solve the mystery before the book
came out also did you know that Jo
Rowling released an alternative title
for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
just so translators could have a title
that they actually understood the
alternative title was Harry Potter and
the relics of death which is also used
for the Dutch title now what I want to
know from you guys is what languages
have you read the Harry Potter books in
and what do you think about the
translations your French also what is
your favorite translation of the name or
a made-up word in the Harry Potter books
I hope you enjoyed this video and I'll
talk to
guys later Joey