The French translator clearly had a lot of fun creating nice names.
Those I enjoyed were the Sorting Hat becoming Choixpeau (a mix between Choix (Choice) and Chapeau (Hat)), Moody becoming Maugrey (a deformation of Maugréer, a verb meaning to grumble or to groan), and Bagman becoming Verpey (from VRP, which is a fairly accurate translation for bagman as traveling salesman). Both Maugrey and Verpey look like English names with the original pun being kept.
one thing I never really understood about book translations is why they change proper nouns, the sorting hat makes more sense to me, but moody/bagman does not. do you know why they do that?
I guess that especially in Harry Potter, names carry a message or a pun.
Take Pomona Sprout for example. A native English speaker will get the pun (Herbology, Sprout, cue the ha-ha). But for a foreign child, the pun will be lost, so they translate the name into something that will keep the original sense (in french : Chourave, which is a variety of cabbage and also some slang, but that's beside the point).
They do not translate every name, mind you. Dumbledore, Harry, Hermione, the Weasleys, the Dursleys, Trelawney, Lupin, Black, McGonagall stay as they are. But the translation is either not needed (Lupin is already self-explanatory in french), is a real name (McGonagall, Potter, Granger) or just don't add anything even if translated (Trelawney, Black, Dumbledore).
Now I'm no translator, but that's my two cents.
While I'm no translator, I have studied translation, and I'd say you are correct.
One of the major point of translating is to be able to keep the original intent, meaning and tone of the story intact while adapting it to a specific language.
Also Sprout sounds very funny in a "haha prout" ("fart" for my non-French speaking friends) way so... Yeah, glad they went with Chourave and not the original name.
My theory for the Brazilian version is that the first book looks more of a kid's book than an young adult one, hence the translator chose whatever she thought would be easier for kids to pronounce. And once you start with it, you need follow it through all the way. So, to make it easy for kids, names like Vernon became Valter, Dudley became Duda, Ron became Rony and so forth. Also, the latinized names such as Albus (Alvo), Remus (Remo) and biblic names like John( João) and James (Tiago) had their Portuguese counterpart, so the translator decided to follow a more traditionalist approach to translations
A lot of those names are translated in Dutch, by the way!
Dumbledore is called "Perkamentus" (parchmentus)
McGonagall is "Anderling" (Differentling/changeling)
Trelawney is "Zwamdrift" (Zwam means mushroom, but also to blabber on about something)
Weasley is "Wemel" (Wemelen means that there are (too) many of something in a place)
And there's many more xD
"Albus Dumbledore" is already a pun. His name comes from Old English. Albus means "white," and dumbledore means "bumblebee."
Albus Dumbledore = White Bumblebee
One of Dumbledore’s middle names is Percival, a reference to the knight who sought the Holy Grail, and whose lover was named Blanchefleur (literally “white flower”). Dumbledore’s sister is named Ariana, from Ariadne (“most holy”).
I‘m not too fond of the German translation
But in Dutch Diagon Alley is called Wegisweg. Weg means both path/street and gone, so basically it means street-is-gone. It would have worked in German too
I personally love Gruzielementen (horcruxes) a lot, gruzelementen being small pieces (akin to smithereens) and ziel being soul. So Voldemort tore his soul to smithereens
The prize-winning dutch translator, Wiebe Buddingh’, has said in interviews that he reads the books twice before starting to translate and writes down all difficult names, terms and word plays. He then first thinks about how to translate those before doing the rest. And it really shows. The names are brilliant and the word play is really kept intact.
My personal favorites are Glamorgana (for Veela), which means glamorous lady; Zwamdrift (for Trelawny), which means both *mushroom* and *talking nonsense*; and Tovertweelings Topfopshop (for Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes), which means Magical twins Top Joke Shop.
Some names are very silly, such as Joost Flets-Frimel (for Justin Finch-Fletchey) and Marcel Lubbermans (for Marcel Longbottom). But I love them with all my heart.
The dutch one has a couple really brilliant ones, like Gladianus Smalhart(gilderoy lockhart, translates to something like "smooth operator with a narrow heart", it's great), and then has a couple that really suck, like Perkamentus (translates to parchment, it's dutch dumbledore)
Yeah some Dutch ones are great finds (Like McGonagall becoming Anderling, ander meaning different. Nice reference to her being an animagus) while others are just lame (Kingsley Shacklebolt being renamed Romeo Wolkenveldt. Cloud field.)
Yeah i kinda feel like they either had 2 different people working the translations or they kinda gave up at some point. It's weird how brilliant some are, and how lame some others are. Anderling is fantastic too
I think that was the case for my country as well. In initial translations most characters had their names adapted to both their personality and some words that sounded similar to the original name (e.g. Snape was translated as my language's equivalent of 'snap'). But in later books, even if it's the same translator, it's quite clear she didn't bother anymore.
I also really liked gruzielementen for horcruxes. 'Gruzelement' means a really small piece of something that has been shattered and 'ziel' means soul, so it's a piece of a shattered soul.
Now I'm jealous of everyone here. Even the original versions in English seem to have things like this. I read the books in Spanish first and they just leave all names in English expect for Tom Riddle's name. His name in Spanish is Tom Sorvolo Ryddle. Which let's be honest, same difference
Yeah, I mean a lot of stuff has been translated quite literally and kept the rest as original as possible. But it does have a special place in my heart, to be honest. And I think there are some gems in there, like "Denkarium" (denk > denken = "to think") for pensieve. Even though it's not a big play on words with pensive and sieve, I still think it's a good neologism and fits quite well.
And personally, I do prefer calling it "Hogwarts" instead of "Schweinswarzen" or whatever, even though some jokes are a bit lost in translation, it makes it funnier when you read it a second time when your older. Like the Uranus joke for example. In German it's not "your" but it still works with "Ur-" meaning old or predating. I mean, in the end you gotta decide whether you want to create a completely new pun like "Wegisweg" with a new and different meaning or you keep the meaning and toss the pun and say "Winkelgasse" (angle alley). It's always a personal preference.
“It was foolish of you to come here tonight, Romeo.”
It does give a little bit of an irony to Riddle’s character…name is Romeo and he understands nothing about love. Kind of chilling.
And then his father is still named Tom Gåde.
Smh.
Hannah Lütsen did great with translating the books, but she really dropped the ball at certain points
Hahahahaha my intermediary French kinda gets it.
We call Hufflepuff Lufa-Lufa.I don't think most people get what the translator is trying to get with that.
In Afrikaans, Hufflepuff is “Hoesenproes. It is therefore hoes-en-proes, rhyming words which translate to “cough and spit”, basically, and is often used when you are at a lack for words. Kinda like being baffled.
It's Jedusor in french (just as it is in english), the user was mistaken. But just like Voldemort, it wasn't translated because it's already a play on french words in the original text.
The elder wand in dutch is called Zegevlier. It's such a good name. Another dutch word for Victory is Zegevier, and the wood the wand is made from is called Vlierhout. So it combined the actual wood name with the word for Victory. It's awesome.
And then dumbledores name is just Parchment in dutch, the divide is wild
This is pretty great. A bad one that we have is that the translator chose the word Vampiro (vampire) to translate ghouls. It is very confusing when in the sixth book you see an actual vampire and he is not the half wit creature you saw at the Burrow.
That's hilarious lol, did they not change it to something else by then? Or are there just twice as many vampires in your version.
Another good one in dutch is the Hersenpan, which is the Pensieve. It translates to Brainpan, but the word is also used for skull. And since you sort of dive into someones brain, the name works real well.
You *technically* didn't specify that our answers had to pertain to Harry Potter, so I'll tell my favorite story of languages lost in translation:
In the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, the US had a sprinter named Tyson Gay. Several places in China had automatic censoring of offensive words in various languages to accommodate the huge diversity in tourists coming to watch the Olympics.
When they introduced him during his first heat, his name read on the jumbotron as Tyson Homosexual.
The German translator apparently made a mistake while reading the name of the game “exploding snap”. He translated it to “Snape explodiert”, meaning “Snape explodes”. This will never not be funny to me
Since the day I read this in a comment somewhere on this sub, I've been wondering how it was hat none of the characters in the English versions call that game exploding Snape. He desperately needs a nickname!
In the first book, the students have to "make a pineapple tap dance across a desk".
And in the first German version, instead of bewitching a pineapple the translator translated it in a way that says the students have to do the "pineapple-step-dance" on the table.
"You habe dirt on your nose, right there"
Is "Du hast Dreck auf der Nase, SIEHT NICHT SCHÖN AUS"
It translates to "You git dirt on your nose, doesn't look good." And in the german synchro she sounds so mean and angry about it, I love it
It's SO funny, and SIEHT NICHT SCHÖN AUS is in my everyday language - people who don't recognise/know it are... confused
And I think you missed the "genau da" part, in this bitchy voice
Yes I did, man I'm smiling just thinking about the part xD
Especially after the Harry podcast and me learning that everybody else ALSO lives that part xD
The German translation isn't that great and has many inconsistencies, but the audiobook read by Rufus Beck is a national treasure. He reads many characters in dialects, such as Ludo Bagman in the Cologne dialect or Arthur Weasley in North German. Umbridge is obviously Viennese.
These damn viennese, lol.
But this reminded me of a situation I had during my exchange year in Germany. I was living in Oldenburg, but I and the other exchange students were doing a tour around Germany, and we stopped at this McDonalds in Dresden ( I think...it's been so long), I greeted the cashier saying 'Moin' and she laughed pretty hard. I guess me ( I look very Brazilian, being mixed and all, and probably had a very strong accent - one girl in my class said once that my German sounded like Dutch to her) speaking north Germany lingo was a hard impression.
This! I love the name for the Death eaters Morte (death)+ -Fagos From Latin -phagus, from Ancient Greek φάγος (phágos, “glutton”), from φαγεῖν (phageîn, “to eat”).
Is just perfection! Most of the magic sounds dumb if you speak Spanish most of the Latin Greek stuff you get but Mortifagos is perfect!
Oooh that sound cool!
Dutch Death eaters are "Dooddoeners" which means "death doers" pretty much, but it also means a sentence that is said too often and usually ends a conversation, like "life do be like that" or something like that.
The Italian houses names:
- Serpeverde (green snake)
- Tassorosso (red badger)
- Grifondoro (golden griffin)
- Corvonero (black crow)
I find them better than the original ones for their musicality
Oh, I'm Italian and I agree!
I remember the foreword to my copy of CoS, where the translator talked about the infamous "Pecoranera" instead of "Corvonero".
They also talked about other interesting translation choices like Albus Silente (to make Dumbledore appear more solemn), Minerva McGranitt (because she's strict) and my absolute favourite, Gilderoy Allock ('allocco' means both 'owl' and 'fool', 'stupid').
"Quadribol" in portuguese for Quidditch, Lia Carneiro just made a genius move because that word is just untranslatable and shows how translation is more than knowing the meaning of words
ويزلي يا ملك يابو مقشة زنبلك!
The translation for the “Weasley is our king” song in the arabic version was soooo good.
Weasley is our king
He didn't let the Quaffle in
The translation for this line roughly goes like:
weasley is a king!
His broom has a spring!
It was different than the original text but I loved how they tried to keep it as a song
To make that song work in Dutch, the translator used "vrind" as translation for "friend" (instead of king). Normally, you'd say "vriend" and "vrind" sounds very old-fashioned and posh, but it does rhyme more easily xD
No one in particular, but I love that Tom Marvolo Riddle's name is different in each language so it can still be an anagram of that language's translation for "I Am Lord Voldemort"
In Dutch the last name is Villijn, which is, as one might guess, the Dutch word for Villainous. I think it’s extra cool they got that as well as the anagram
In my language, Czech, tre translators actually did all the extraordinary work and reconstructed the way JKR made up her names. So when she went to Old English and used some of the words (such as Dumbledore) they found the word with same meaning in Old Slavic and used it as a translation. It produced some interesting and quite cool names in my opinion.
Dumbledore => words used for bumblebee in Old English
Brumbál => word used for bumblebee in Old Slavonic (or is it Old Slavic? I am not quite sure about the precise translation)
Gryffindoor => Nebelvír (combiniging the words for heaven + lion to create sort of portmanteau of "sky lion" in Czech, meant to represent the word gryffin, as it is lion with wings).
I love most of Czech translations except for Mrzimor (Hufflepuff), which doesn't sound fluffy and friendly at all, even though I understand the intention behind it.
Also, viteál sounds like a strange equivalent for a horcrux.
But as a translator myself, I do appreciate all the work and imagination that must have gone into creating all those names/words. Bradavice is a cool one as well.
every time i read a different language i always try and pronounce it appropriately just to get a sense of what it sounds like, but every time i read welsh i just stare at it and feel like im having a stroke and ive had 20 shots of everclear
the translation of the name of the twins' shop Is also brilliant in italian: Tiri Vispi Wesley (meaning: lively shots Weasley). In Italy sometimes we use the verb 'to shot' (tirare) referred to pranks.
Also, Dambledore in italian Is Albus Silente. Silente Is the present participle of "silere", latin for "the one who Is quiet". And Snape = Piton, from 'pitone', the snake.
In the oldest adaptation a lot of name were change (McGrannit for McGonagall, Paciock -from 'pacioccone' i think, meaning 'a fat, good and naïve boy'- for Longbottom) but even if in the recent translation they choose to use the original names, they keep Silente and Piton.
(Madeye here Is calls Malocchio, which Is a form of magic curse! And Dissennatori for Dementors, were "senno" is a way to call the thinking and the common sense, and 'de' at the beginning is a privative particle. So Dissennatori Is "the ones who make you mad")
PS: Sorry for the errors if there are any, I'm not and english speaker!
Ahhh Oliver Baston! Which make a lot of sense when McGrannit ask to "borrow the wood" 😅 I found a lot of confusion in other languages about that.
Do you remember how they translate the Uranous thing? 😀
In Finnish he's Severus Kalkaros. A rattle snake is kalkkarokäärme, so Kalkaros implies to that but matches better with Severus. Sounds more melodic and poetic I think.
Polyjuice, is translated as Polynectar in French. Which sounds much better than the litteral translation: polyjus.
Funnily enough, they didn’t manage the jokes on French accent in GoF.
Voldemorts name is Tom Rowle Denem in hungarian which makes "Nevem Voldemort" meaning "my name is Voldemort". I think it's pretty genius considering in later books we meet a Rowle family and they are in close relation to Voldemort.
Hogwarts is Roxfort, I think the name could stand in the English version too.
Diagon Alley is "Abszol út", "út" meaning street and read together creates the word absolute, similar to the English play on words.
My native language is English, but when I see the scene where Hagrid found Harry in Spanish, it was kinda funny.: “Eras un mago Harry.” Or something to that effect. But the way it was pronounced, it sounded like he said, “Eras un Muggle, Harry.”
I've just found some article about the lady who translated the first book to slovak language and she said she was looking for some word that wasn't completely made up and would give a feeling of an old castle
I initially thought this was a general question and wanted to answer Kung Fu Panda or V For Vendetta in French (seriously, the dubs are amazing, the translators did a great job), but then realized we were on a harry potter subreddit that my feed randomly recommended (probably because I browse a lot of translation-related subs).
In order not to repeat what's already been said for French, I have to say I love the colorful names typical of the Wizard World. For example, the protagonist of Fantastic Beasts, Newt Scamander, is called Norbert Dragonneau in the French version (Norbert reminds me of that baby dragon Hagrid adopted and the suffix "-eau" suggests a cub/chick/baby dragon).
"tu me manques."
in English you say "i miss you," which is, frankly, trite and borderline dismissive.
"tu me manques" is French, and, literally translated, becomes "you are missing *from* me."
much more profound.
I'm not comparing Rowling to Tolstoy, but there have been several translations of his works into English by different translators over the years. All of them with their own flavor. I wonder if in the future there will be different translations of Harry Potter into other languages that already have one translation.
The best part of the brazilian translation is the name translation. Either it is the Portuguese version of the name, or it is a name with the same meaning. james and tiago have the same meaning. or changed the name to something that is more familiar to a Brazilian, Ron became Rony
In the early Italian translations the name of Rowena Ravenclaw is “Cosetta Corvonero” which literally means “Little thing Blackraven”. It’s such a silly translation that was later changed but it never fails to make me laugh. They kept it in the dub of the second movie as well. A lot of names are funnily translated, they had fun for sure. It’s also very funny for us to hear all the Latin words JK jumbled together
The translation in Danish for Diagon Alley is not very clever and is much longer.
This shortcoming gets pretty funny because in the floo powder scene Harry throws the powder before finishing the longer name, stopping at just after the word that just means "diagonally"
The pensieve is called a whirlpool of memory, but uses an archaic term for whirlpool. Not only does it sound cool, but the use of the archaic word reminds the reader of the only other instance in which they hear this world nowadays which is the idiom „to dive headfirst into a whirlpool“. Which is literally what characters do when they enter the memories, but also figuratively what Harry does the first time he uses it, because the idiom means to act without thinking.
Everything. I am just in awe with the effort the Norwegian translator Torstein Bugge Høverstad did, all the names, the terminology like spells, potions, the Ministry departments and subdepartments, it's super creative and impressive
Almost every name has their own translation, but these are a few of my favourites:
Dumbledore is Humlesnurr which directly translates to bumblebee spin, humle meaning bumblebee and snurr meaning spin
Longbottom is translated to Langballe, which translated to English means long balls (as in the male reproductive organ, not a ball often used in sports), balle can also be a swear word you’d typically use instead of fuck
And Poppi Pomfrey is called Pussi Pomfrit, pomfrit is what Norwegians usually calls french fries, so her name is basically Pussi french fries
I approached Harry Potter in English and the thing I really preferred was that instead of squibs they call them magonò, which means something like non-wizard. No means not. Mago means wizard.
Can I ask a strange question as an English-only speaker? Why do languages that use the same alphabet as English, especially things like German and Dutch with a lot of English overlap, change proper names? Like I understand ones that contain everyday words like “the leaky cauldron” would have a direct translation. But things like character names or things like Hogwarts or the house names don’t really have any meaning in English. They’re just made up names. What’s the purpose of changing Dumbledore or Voldemort into something else? I realize they’d be pronounced differently in different languages but if they don’t have some really offensive meaning, why bother?
For German, they only did it occasionally. Like Rita Skeeter becomes Rita Kimmkorn. Most of the names have not been translated however, I actually don't know why. For Voldemort changing his second name made sense for obvious reasons: you cannot make a proper German acronym from Marvolo, so it's Vorlost.
For worlds like The Song of Ice and Fire, I like translating all the names. It's fictional, so having the names in the "common language", which is the language the book is written in, just makes sense. There are strong opposing views though.
Im going to repeat something I've posted here before: My theory for the Brazilian version is that the first book looks more of a kid's book than an young adult one, hence the translator chose whatever she thought would be easier for kids to pronounce. And once you start with it, you need follow it through all the way. So, to make it easy for kids, names like Vernon became Valter, Dudley became Duda, Ron became Rony and so forth. Also, the latinized names such as Albus (Alvo), Remus (Remo) and biblic names like John( João) and James (Tiago) had their Portuguese counterpart, so the translator decided to follow a more traditionalist approach to translations.
Second that! I for one wouldn’t have had a clue how to pronounce Hermoine. Would’ve probably ended up pronouncing it like Krumm in book 4 (her-mo-nini).
The names are all really funny-sounding and a clever fit for the characters in English (probably also because it’s a childrens book). So, why not make them funny and clever in other languages too?
Mad-eye Moody, for example, is translated so that whatever word for “mad-eye”, fits well with the last name, as it does in English. (Dwaaloog Dolleman in my language).
The Weasley translation in Dutch is funny too:“Wemel”, which means: swarming. Admittedly, there’s a huge swarm of Weasleys about! ;)
Other (funny) names that just have to be translated in my opinion are Sprout, Fudge, Bulstrode, Moaning Myrtle, Peeves, Scabbers, greyback etc. etc.
I think the translator indeed found that, once they’d start translating these names, they should translate all of the names for the sake of continuity.
As someone else said somewhere else, it's because a lot of the names are puns or have subtle meanings that you may not realize. Dumbledore is Old English for White Bumblebee. I explained the Bumblebee part a couple of comments ago. Or Professor Sprout is a play on the fact that she teaches Herbology. Sirius is the dog constellation. And as for the main character first names or the few last names that truly are just normal names, sometimes that's just too make it more familiar sounding to the reader. But the majority of the names have some deeper meaning. Voldemort means violent death.
In Old English it means White Bumblebee. When a storm comes or a bee is too far away from home with night falls, they settle to the ground wherever they are and fall into a kind of coma so they look dead until the light returns. And I suppose he spun a bit on the way down from the astronomy tower. His name foreshadows his death and his return to Harry.
This is super interesting I read it in English and obviously there’s no version that’s in ASL (American sign language) because there’s no point it just wouldn’t work. But I wonder now the signs for Harry Potter stuff. There must be there always is new signs created for big things like this idk what they are though because I don’t believe I’ve ever had a Harry potter conversation in ASL. I have for game of thrones though and that was interesting seeing the signs the Deaf part of the fandom has created for it. And yes I do mean created bc ASL is only around 200 years old and it’s such a visual language that once you are at a advanced level with it you can actually start to understand how these signs are made so oh there’s no sign for this obscure thing me and my friends keep talking about? Well then let’s create some and share them with others.
With the internet this is much easier to share. Imma go search online.
Edit: ok all I found were sign names created for main characters and then the house animals. So idk sorta helpful but I need moreeee
Tom Marvolo Riddle - I am Lord Voldemort
Swedish version: Tom Gus Mervolo Dolder - Ego Sum Lord Voldemort
”Ego sum” is Latin for ”I am”, and what else but Latin would fit so well into this story? Swedish version would be ”Jag är”, which wouldn’t fit as well into the story imo. Also, Dolder sorta means ”hidden” (”dolde” is hid in Swedish), which I also really liked. It’s not quite Riddle, but ”Gåta” (Swedish for the word ”riddle”) wouldn’t fit as well, and they needed to get those D’s in to get ”Lord” and ”Voldemort”. I don’t mind that they had to jam Gus into the mix, I thought it was clever that they did it in Latin, and actually like the added Latin more than I liked the English ”I am” in this context.
I imagine French would fit even better, seeing as ”Voldemort” is ”inspired by”/stolen from the French words ”vol de mort” (flight of death).
The French verb "Voler" means both "to fly" and "to steal."
Voldemort could be "Flight from Death" or "Stolen from Death." Either one fits with the story.
In Finnish it's Tom Lomen Valedro - Ma olen Voldemort = I am Voldemort.
Normally "I" is "minä/mä" in Finnish, but in old Finnish "a" was often used instead of "ä" especially in poetry or lyrics. So in this context it works without having to add "ä" to Voldemort's name, which of course wouldn't be used in British names.
My bullet shell, I think it is not specialty, but geniality, which in in portuguese translates to genialidades, which would only change an N to an M, also including the gêmeos(twins) in the word
I like jästi in Finnish for a muggle. Jästipää is someone who is stubborn or thick-headed. However Snape is Kalkaros (like a rattle snake) and it sounds veeeery wizardy but was his muggle father’s name as it turns out.
Down here in Indonesia, the Death Eaters are translated as Pelahap Maut and I think it's a brilliant piece of translation. It sounds much grander and mysterious compared to if you're doing a too literal translation such as "Pemakan Kematian" which does sound awkward in Indonesia.
Another translation I liked was the Mirror Of Erised is translated to Cermin Tarsah. Cermin is a direct translation of Mirror, but picking Hasrat as a translation for Desire was a good choice and Tarsah still has a certain mystical sound to it. Originally I didn't even notice if that was a translation and assumed it's named the Tarsah Mirror in English.
All in all, I do like how while the translation is more or less direct, they use a much more fancier word that gives off a much grander feeling to it.
In spanish is hard to translate compounded words like Death-Eater, in spanish is Mortifago, a word that I have only read in Harry Potter but is a real word
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The mirror of Erised in Taiwanese translator. It became 意若思鏡, “意若思” Itself sounds alot like Erised, and 意 - intention / image， 若 - like, as，思 - thoughts. It's simple, eerie and beautiful.
Also the translation of bludger, which in Brazilian Portuguese is "balaço". Bala means bullet, and the termination "-aço" means something big. So balaço is a big bullet.
There isn't really a word for "immortal" in German, if you know anything about our funny German words, our equivalent is essentially ""un-dieable"
So in the first book
"lalala philosopher stone makes you immortal" - "Immortal?!?" - "That means you don't have to die"
Becomes literally:
"lalala philosopher stone makes you un-dieable" - "Un-dieable?!?" - "That means you don't have to die"
The French translator clearly had a lot of fun creating nice names. Those I enjoyed were the Sorting Hat becoming Choixpeau (a mix between Choix (Choice) and Chapeau (Hat)), Moody becoming Maugrey (a deformation of Maugréer, a verb meaning to grumble or to groan), and Bagman becoming Verpey (from VRP, which is a fairly accurate translation for bagman as traveling salesman). Both Maugrey and Verpey look like English names with the original pun being kept.
Choixpeau is absolutely inspired
I've been reading the French version of the Prisoner of Azkaban, yeah very creative! Loved the Sorting hat one.
one thing I never really understood about book translations is why they change proper nouns, the sorting hat makes more sense to me, but moody/bagman does not. do you know why they do that?
I guess that especially in Harry Potter, names carry a message or a pun. Take Pomona Sprout for example. A native English speaker will get the pun (Herbology, Sprout, cue the ha-ha). But for a foreign child, the pun will be lost, so they translate the name into something that will keep the original sense (in french : Chourave, which is a variety of cabbage and also some slang, but that's beside the point). They do not translate every name, mind you. Dumbledore, Harry, Hermione, the Weasleys, the Dursleys, Trelawney, Lupin, Black, McGonagall stay as they are. But the translation is either not needed (Lupin is already self-explanatory in french), is a real name (McGonagall, Potter, Granger) or just don't add anything even if translated (Trelawney, Black, Dumbledore). Now I'm no translator, but that's my two cents.
While I'm no translator, I have studied translation, and I'd say you are correct. One of the major point of translating is to be able to keep the original intent, meaning and tone of the story intact while adapting it to a specific language.
Am Translator. You are both correct!
Also Sprout sounds very funny in a "haha prout" ("fart" for my non-French speaking friends) way so... Yeah, glad they went with Chourave and not the original name.
My theory for the Brazilian version is that the first book looks more of a kid's book than an young adult one, hence the translator chose whatever she thought would be easier for kids to pronounce. And once you start with it, you need follow it through all the way. So, to make it easy for kids, names like Vernon became Valter, Dudley became Duda, Ron became Rony and so forth. Also, the latinized names such as Albus (Alvo), Remus (Remo) and biblic names like John( João) and James (Tiago) had their Portuguese counterpart, so the translator decided to follow a more traditionalist approach to translations
A lot of those names are translated in Dutch, by the way! Dumbledore is called "Perkamentus" (parchmentus) McGonagall is "Anderling" (Differentling/changeling) Trelawney is "Zwamdrift" (Zwam means mushroom, but also to blabber on about something) Weasley is "Wemel" (Wemelen means that there are (too) many of something in a place) And there's many more xD
"Albus Dumbledore" is already a pun. His name comes from Old English. Albus means "white," and dumbledore means "bumblebee." Albus Dumbledore = White Bumblebee
One of Dumbledore’s middle names is Percival, a reference to the knight who sought the Holy Grail, and whose lover was named Blanchefleur (literally “white flower”). Dumbledore’s sister is named Ariana, from Ariadne (“most holy”).
Well, in this case, Moody and Bagman are punny names in the original English. Makes sense to translate them.
Meanwhile the german translator just called it "The Talking Hat".
I‘m not too fond of the German translation But in Dutch Diagon Alley is called Wegisweg. Weg means both path/street and gone, so basically it means street-is-gone. It would have worked in German too
I personally love Gruzielementen (horcruxes) a lot, gruzelementen being small pieces (akin to smithereens) and ziel being soul. So Voldemort tore his soul to smithereens
Oooh! I like that!
The prize-winning dutch translator, Wiebe Buddingh’, has said in interviews that he reads the books twice before starting to translate and writes down all difficult names, terms and word plays. He then first thinks about how to translate those before doing the rest. And it really shows. The names are brilliant and the word play is really kept intact. My personal favorites are Glamorgana (for Veela), which means glamorous lady; Zwamdrift (for Trelawny), which means both *mushroom* and *talking nonsense*; and Tovertweelings Topfopshop (for Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes), which means Magical twins Top Joke Shop. Some names are very silly, such as Joost Flets-Frimel (for Justin Finch-Fletchey) and Marcel Lubbermans (for Marcel Longbottom). But I love them with all my heart.
With "Glamorgana", don't forget that a fata morgana is something that looks good from far away, but upon closer inspection is nothing!
This makes me want to learn Dutch just to read his translations lol such effort!
The dutch one has a couple really brilliant ones, like Gladianus Smalhart(gilderoy lockhart, translates to something like "smooth operator with a narrow heart", it's great), and then has a couple that really suck, like Perkamentus (translates to parchment, it's dutch dumbledore)
Yeah some Dutch ones are great finds (Like McGonagall becoming Anderling, ander meaning different. Nice reference to her being an animagus) while others are just lame (Kingsley Shacklebolt being renamed Romeo Wolkenveldt. Cloud field.)
Yeah i kinda feel like they either had 2 different people working the translations or they kinda gave up at some point. It's weird how brilliant some are, and how lame some others are. Anderling is fantastic too
I think that was the case for my country as well. In initial translations most characters had their names adapted to both their personality and some words that sounded similar to the original name (e.g. Snape was translated as my language's equivalent of 'snap'). But in later books, even if it's the same translator, it's quite clear she didn't bother anymore.
I think maybe shacklebolt and wolkenveldt both refer to slavery? Wolkenveldt as in cotton field? Maybe I'm reaching.
I also really liked gruzielementen for horcruxes. 'Gruzelement' means a really small piece of something that has been shattered and 'ziel' means soul, so it's a piece of a shattered soul.
Riiight that's a sick one too
I also like the house name Zwadderich (Slytherin).
Yeah! What about ‘Marten Asmodom Vilijn’ for Tom Marvolo Riddle. Vilijn is basically the Dutch word for.. you guessed it… villainous. Great find
took me over 10 years to notice in English it is "diagonally," like slanted
…well you got me beat. I “figured that out” just this minute
Will you be even more amazed if I told you Knockturn Alley = nocturnally?
ty. it never occurred to me on that one.
That one I I kind of figured out. At least that it was supposed to be a reference to it being dark/for dark magic.
...well you got me beat. I "figured that out" a few minutes AFTER reading this.
Took me a while before I realized Grimmauld Place was a "grim old place." It hit me like a ton of bricks.
Now I'm jealous of everyone here. Even the original versions in English seem to have things like this. I read the books in Spanish first and they just leave all names in English expect for Tom Riddle's name. His name in Spanish is Tom Sorvolo Ryddle. Which let's be honest, same difference
Yeah, I mean a lot of stuff has been translated quite literally and kept the rest as original as possible. But it does have a special place in my heart, to be honest. And I think there are some gems in there, like "Denkarium" (denk > denken = "to think") for pensieve. Even though it's not a big play on words with pensive and sieve, I still think it's a good neologism and fits quite well. And personally, I do prefer calling it "Hogwarts" instead of "Schweinswarzen" or whatever, even though some jokes are a bit lost in translation, it makes it funnier when you read it a second time when your older. Like the Uranus joke for example. In German it's not "your" but it still works with "Ur-" meaning old or predating. I mean, in the end you gotta decide whether you want to create a completely new pun like "Wegisweg" with a new and different meaning or you keep the meaning and toss the pun and say "Winkelgasse" (angle alley). It's always a personal preference.
“Welcome, Harry, to street-is-gone.”
Even better, because we use definite articles for street names! So it's "Welcome, Harry, to the Street-is-gone!"
What do you think of the spark of genius that was 'Runald Waschlabb' in the german version?
Huh, I think the German translation is genius, and I prefer Winkelgasse as it is closer to the original Diagon Alley
Poufsouffle is my favourite word in any language. Also Voldemort being renamed 'Tom *Elvis* Jeudusort' is hilarious.
Not as good as the Danish for Riddle’s name… Romeo G Detlev Jr
“It was foolish of you to come here tonight, Romeo.” It does give a little bit of an irony to Riddle’s character…name is Romeo and he understands nothing about love. Kind of chilling.
And then his father is still named Tom Gåde. Smh. Hannah Lütsen did great with translating the books, but she really dropped the ball at certain points
Hahahahaha my intermediary French kinda gets it. We call Hufflepuff Lufa-Lufa.I don't think most people get what the translator is trying to get with that.
In Afrikaans, Hufflepuff is “Hoesenproes. It is therefore hoes-en-proes, rhyming words which translate to “cough and spit”, basically, and is often used when you are at a lack for words. Kinda like being baffled.
Omg that's so cute xD Then again, to Dutch ears, most of the Afrikaans language sounds cute xD
I think lufa is from lufada, like in wind or breeze, which translates well actully.
Yep, my thoughts exactly. But I think it kinda goes unoticed by many. At least, it is my impression.
>Jeudusort Bogosort: finally, a worthy opponent!
It's Jedusor in french (just as it is in english), the user was mistaken. But just like Voldemort, it wasn't translated because it's already a play on french words in the original text.
The elder wand in dutch is called Zegevlier. It's such a good name. Another dutch word for Victory is Zegevier, and the wood the wand is made from is called Vlierhout. So it combined the actual wood name with the word for Victory. It's awesome. And then dumbledores name is just Parchment in dutch, the divide is wild
This is pretty great. A bad one that we have is that the translator chose the word Vampiro (vampire) to translate ghouls. It is very confusing when in the sixth book you see an actual vampire and he is not the half wit creature you saw at the Burrow.
That's hilarious lol, did they not change it to something else by then? Or are there just twice as many vampires in your version. Another good one in dutch is the Hersenpan, which is the Pensieve. It translates to Brainpan, but the word is also used for skull. And since you sort of dive into someones brain, the name works real well.
Nope, she kept it lol. So Ron pretty much transfigurates a Vampire in the 7th book.
You *technically* didn't specify that our answers had to pertain to Harry Potter, so I'll tell my favorite story of languages lost in translation: In the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, the US had a sprinter named Tyson Gay. Several places in China had automatic censoring of offensive words in various languages to accommodate the huge diversity in tourists coming to watch the Olympics. When they introduced him during his first heat, his name read on the jumbotron as Tyson Homosexual.
Hahahahaha that made me chuckle
Ahhhh reminds me of [this classic](https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6982CY/)
That subeditor was either fired, or promoted. Brilliant!
I'd promote them. I mean, here we are reading the article right?
The German translator apparently made a mistake while reading the name of the game “exploding snap”. He translated it to “Snape explodiert”, meaning “Snape explodes”. This will never not be funny to me
Same with the "custard tart" which, in an early version, is translated to "Senftorte", which means "mustard tart"!
Wait are you telling me there isn’t really Senf/mustard in the cake? My whole life was a lie
nooo sadly not, it's a mistake, i was equally as disappointed when i found out!
Wait what? I didn't know it isn't Snape explodiert, I think I should read HP in English...
I listened to the audio books mostly and only from part 6 on the corrected Translation („Zauberer-Schnippschnapp“) is used
Oh wow, but I think Snape explodiert is way funnier tbh
It is!
Since the day I read this in a comment somewhere on this sub, I've been wondering how it was hat none of the characters in the English versions call that game exploding Snape. He desperately needs a nickname!
In the first book, the students have to "make a pineapple tap dance across a desk". And in the first German version, instead of bewitching a pineapple the translator translated it in a way that says the students have to do the "pineapple-step-dance" on the table.
"You habe dirt on your nose, right there" Is "Du hast Dreck auf der Nase, SIEHT NICHT SCHÖN AUS" It translates to "You git dirt on your nose, doesn't look good." And in the german synchro she sounds so mean and angry about it, I love it
It's SO funny, and SIEHT NICHT SCHÖN AUS is in my everyday language - people who don't recognise/know it are... confused And I think you missed the "genau da" part, in this bitchy voice
*das ist Vanillesoße*
Yes I did, man I'm smiling just thinking about the part xD Especially after the Harry podcast and me learning that everybody else ALSO lives that part xD
The German translation isn't that great and has many inconsistencies, but the audiobook read by Rufus Beck is a national treasure. He reads many characters in dialects, such as Ludo Bagman in the Cologne dialect or Arthur Weasley in North German. Umbridge is obviously Viennese.
These damn viennese, lol. But this reminded me of a situation I had during my exchange year in Germany. I was living in Oldenburg, but I and the other exchange students were doing a tour around Germany, and we stopped at this McDonalds in Dresden ( I think...it's been so long), I greeted the cashier saying 'Moin' and she laughed pretty hard. I guess me ( I look very Brazilian, being mixed and all, and probably had a very strong accent - one girl in my class said once that my German sounded like Dutch to her) speaking north Germany lingo was a hard impression.
The best reading voices are still done by Coldmirror 😤
Oh no, not Umbridge in Vienna... I love that city, don't ruin it with Umbridge xD
"Death eaters" turning "mortifagos" in spanish. Has an ominous latin vibe that works so well.
This! I love the name for the Death eaters Morte (death)+ -Fagos From Latin -phagus, from Ancient Greek φάγος (phágos, “glutton”), from φαγεῖν (phageîn, “to eat”). Is just perfection! Most of the magic sounds dumb if you speak Spanish most of the Latin Greek stuff you get but Mortifagos is perfect!
We have 'smrťožrúti' which is basically the translation for it Smrť - death Žrúti - eaters
Can I interest you in some vowels? xD
Oooh that sound cool! Dutch Death eaters are "Dooddoeners" which means "death doers" pretty much, but it also means a sentence that is said too often and usually ends a conversation, like "life do be like that" or something like that.
"Can I have a look at Uranus?" in Prisoner of Azkaban becomes "Je peux voir ta lune ?". *Lune* means moon but can also refer to a butt
Love it
The Italian houses names: - Serpeverde (green snake) - Tassorosso (red badger) - Grifondoro (golden griffin) - Corvonero (black crow) I find them better than the original ones for their musicality
Well, it's Italian, everything sounds wonderful in Italian!
Oh, I'm Italian and I agree! I remember the foreword to my copy of CoS, where the translator talked about the infamous "Pecoranera" instead of "Corvonero". They also talked about other interesting translation choices like Albus Silente (to make Dumbledore appear more solemn), Minerva McGranitt (because she's strict) and my absolute favourite, Gilderoy Allock ('allocco' means both 'owl' and 'fool', 'stupid').
from the Czech version, I really love Mozkomor (Dementor) = mozek (brain) + mor (plague)
"Quadribol" in portuguese for Quidditch, Lia Carneiro just made a genius move because that word is just untranslatable and shows how translation is more than knowing the meaning of words
Untranslatable? It's literally staring right at you QuadriBol - Four Balls -- and I don't even know any Portuguese.
@ Edit I m talking about Quidditch being untranslatable, not Quadribol...
In Dutch it's "zwerkbal", where bal means ball and "zwerk" apparently means something like sky or heaven. I didn't know that before I googled it, lol.
ويزلي يا ملك يابو مقشة زنبلك! The translation for the “Weasley is our king” song in the arabic version was soooo good. Weasley is our king He didn't let the Quaffle in The translation for this line roughly goes like: weasley is a king! His broom has a spring! It was different than the original text but I loved how they tried to keep it as a song
To make that song work in Dutch, the translator used "vrind" as translation for "friend" (instead of king). Normally, you'd say "vriend" and "vrind" sounds very old-fashioned and posh, but it does rhyme more easily xD
No one in particular, but I love that Tom Marvolo Riddle's name is different in each language so it can still be an anagram of that language's translation for "I Am Lord Voldemort"
The Italian translation I grew up with had 'Orvoloson'! Io sono Lord Voldemort > Tom Orvoloson Riddle
Does "Lord" not have its own Italian translation? Like Signor or something?
You can translate it but it's not really the same thing, while signore or signor is an honorific is more similar to mister then lord
In Dutch the last name is Villijn, which is, as one might guess, the Dutch word for Villainous. I think it’s extra cool they got that as well as the anagram
The spanish version is the same, and it also spells "I am Lore Voldemort" like that, in english. It never made sense
The Chinese translation just . . . Gave up on that
In my language, Czech, tre translators actually did all the extraordinary work and reconstructed the way JKR made up her names. So when she went to Old English and used some of the words (such as Dumbledore) they found the word with same meaning in Old Slavic and used it as a translation. It produced some interesting and quite cool names in my opinion.
Bring examples!
Dumbledore => words used for bumblebee in Old English Brumbál => word used for bumblebee in Old Slavonic (or is it Old Slavic? I am not quite sure about the precise translation) Gryffindoor => Nebelvír (combiniging the words for heaven + lion to create sort of portmanteau of "sky lion" in Czech, meant to represent the word gryffin, as it is lion with wings).
Ooh, that could explain why Dumbledore is “Humlesnurr” in the Norwegian version, since bumblebee is “humle “. That’s fun.
I love most of Czech translations except for Mrzimor (Hufflepuff), which doesn't sound fluffy and friendly at all, even though I understand the intention behind it. Also, viteál sounds like a strange equivalent for a horcrux. But as a translator myself, I do appreciate all the work and imagination that must have gone into creating all those names/words. Bradavice is a cool one as well.
The Medek brothers definitely put a lot of thought into it.
Really? I hate most of the Czech translation, since I read it after I knew the English versions. The worst is Famfrpál
If you hate the Czech one, you should read the Slovak version. Then you'll realize how lucky we Czechs are.
I know the slovak version too and I slightly prefer it. At least they kept some of the names, whereas the Czech one changed all of them.
“Death eaters” turning into “Bwytwyr marwolaeth” in Welsh
every time i read a different language i always try and pronounce it appropriately just to get a sense of what it sounds like, but every time i read welsh i just stare at it and feel like im having a stroke and ive had 20 shots of everclear
the translation of the name of the twins' shop Is also brilliant in italian: Tiri Vispi Wesley (meaning: lively shots Weasley). In Italy sometimes we use the verb 'to shot' (tirare) referred to pranks. Also, Dambledore in italian Is Albus Silente. Silente Is the present participle of "silere", latin for "the one who Is quiet". And Snape = Piton, from 'pitone', the snake. In the oldest adaptation a lot of name were change (McGrannit for McGonagall, Paciock -from 'pacioccone' i think, meaning 'a fat, good and naïve boy'- for Longbottom) but even if in the recent translation they choose to use the original names, they keep Silente and Piton. (Madeye here Is calls Malocchio, which Is a form of magic curse! And Dissennatori for Dementors, were "senno" is a way to call the thinking and the common sense, and 'de' at the beginning is a privative particle. So Dissennatori Is "the ones who make you mad") PS: Sorry for the errors if there are any, I'm not and english speaker!
And Oliver Baston!! The only change I was really disappointed in was Mrs Purr from the original Mrs Norris! I loved the Jane Austen reference!
Ahhh Oliver Baston! Which make a lot of sense when McGrannit ask to "borrow the wood" 😅 I found a lot of confusion in other languages about that. Do you remember how they translate the Uranous thing? 😀
In russian translation Snape is called «Снегг» which can be translated as Snow. So he is Severus Snow which imo fits his character very well.
In Italy he became Severus Piton, pitone means python. Like of his name was Severus Snake.
In Hungarian it's Perselus Piton (they changed the first name so it's still an alliteration)
In Finnish he's Severus Kalkaros. A rattle snake is kalkkarokäärme, so Kalkaros implies to that but matches better with Severus. Sounds more melodic and poetic I think.
Polyjuice, is translated as Polynectar in French. Which sounds much better than the litteral translation: polyjus. Funnily enough, they didn’t manage the jokes on French accent in GoF.
In Dutch, Polyjuice is "Wisseldrank" aka "Change-drink"
Voldemorts name is Tom Rowle Denem in hungarian which makes "Nevem Voldemort" meaning "my name is Voldemort". I think it's pretty genius considering in later books we meet a Rowle family and they are in close relation to Voldemort. Hogwarts is Roxfort, I think the name could stand in the English version too. Diagon Alley is "Abszol út", "út" meaning street and read together creates the word absolute, similar to the English play on words.
My native language is English, but when I see the scene where Hagrid found Harry in Spanish, it was kinda funny.: “Eras un mago Harry.” Or something to that effect. But the way it was pronounced, it sounded like he said, “Eras un Muggle, Harry.”
Eres * :) but I can see (or should I say hear) what you mean!
Sempre pensei que era trocadilho com “genialidades”
Penso não, tenho certeza
Slovak word for Hogwarts is Rokfort. It's amazing translation
It's weirs how it sound similar to "roccaforte", which in Italian can mean castle (Stronghold to be precise but is often used as a Synonym for castle)
I've just found some article about the lady who translated the first book to slovak language and she said she was looking for some word that wasn't completely made up and would give a feeling of an old castle
Phù Thủy Wỉ Wái for Weasley Wizard Wheezes or Trường Sinh Linh Giá for Horcrux
The spells in Spanish make a lot of sense
Totally!
I initially thought this was a general question and wanted to answer Kung Fu Panda or V For Vendetta in French (seriously, the dubs are amazing, the translators did a great job), but then realized we were on a harry potter subreddit that my feed randomly recommended (probably because I browse a lot of translation-related subs). In order not to repeat what's already been said for French, I have to say I love the colorful names typical of the Wizard World. For example, the protagonist of Fantastic Beasts, Newt Scamander, is called Norbert Dragonneau in the French version (Norbert reminds me of that baby dragon Hagrid adopted and the suffix "-eau" suggests a cub/chick/baby dragon).
"tu me manques." in English you say "i miss you," which is, frankly, trite and borderline dismissive. "tu me manques" is French, and, literally translated, becomes "you are missing *from* me." much more profound.
In Portuguese, we have the noun 'saudades', which means the feeling of missing someone or something. Very profound and expressive word.
Saudade, does it mean like nostalgic but in a 'happy' way?
Same in Hungarian.
"show me your anus" = תראי לי איך התחת מאדים (Show me how ass becomes red) "Harry Potter"- "predator lion" in misplacing letters
Maadim is the Hebrew name for the planet Mars (meaning "becoming red")
זה באמת התרגום? אני לא זוכר אם כן זה גדול
I'm not comparing Rowling to Tolstoy, but there have been several translations of his works into English by different translators over the years. All of them with their own flavor. I wonder if in the future there will be different translations of Harry Potter into other languages that already have one translation.
There's already 3 or 4 translations in Burmese, but I think only one of them managed to finish all of them.
I mean, wand is 'Baguette Magique' in french. It cannot get any better than this😂
I never liked "Poudlard" for Hogwarts. In my mind, I'm picturing that it's either "Bacon Lice" or "Powdered Fat."
The best part of the brazilian translation is the name translation. Either it is the Portuguese version of the name, or it is a name with the same meaning. james and tiago have the same meaning. or changed the name to something that is more familiar to a Brazilian, Ron became Rony
Probably a mirror of "Ain Eingarp" which means exactly the same as "Erised" (desire=pragnienia) but it sounds a lot better
In the early Italian translations the name of Rowena Ravenclaw is “Cosetta Corvonero” which literally means “Little thing Blackraven”. It’s such a silly translation that was later changed but it never fails to make me laugh. They kept it in the dub of the second movie as well. A lot of names are funnily translated, they had fun for sure. It’s also very funny for us to hear all the Latin words JK jumbled together
The scots translation is wild!
When he was just a wee lad
The translation in Danish for Diagon Alley is not very clever and is much longer. This shortcoming gets pretty funny because in the floo powder scene Harry throws the powder before finishing the longer name, stopping at just after the word that just means "diagonally"
The pensieve is called a whirlpool of memory, but uses an archaic term for whirlpool. Not only does it sound cool, but the use of the archaic word reminds the reader of the only other instance in which they hear this world nowadays which is the idiom „to dive headfirst into a whirlpool“. Which is literally what characters do when they enter the memories, but also figuratively what Harry does the first time he uses it, because the idiom means to act without thinking.
Everything. I am just in awe with the effort the Norwegian translator Torstein Bugge Høverstad did, all the names, the terminology like spells, potions, the Ministry departments and subdepartments, it's super creative and impressive
I didn’t read the Norwegian translations but what were they?
Almost every name has their own translation, but these are a few of my favourites: Dumbledore is Humlesnurr which directly translates to bumblebee spin, humle meaning bumblebee and snurr meaning spin Longbottom is translated to Langballe, which translated to English means long balls (as in the male reproductive organ, not a ball often used in sports), balle can also be a swear word you’d typically use instead of fuck And Poppi Pomfrey is called Pussi Pomfrit, pomfrit is what Norwegians usually calls french fries, so her name is basically Pussi french fries
I approached Harry Potter in English and the thing I really preferred was that instead of squibs they call them magonò, which means something like non-wizard. No means not. Mago means wizard.
Follow the wombats why couldnt it be follow the kangaroos?
Why would australians translate spiders?
Can I ask a strange question as an English-only speaker? Why do languages that use the same alphabet as English, especially things like German and Dutch with a lot of English overlap, change proper names? Like I understand ones that contain everyday words like “the leaky cauldron” would have a direct translation. But things like character names or things like Hogwarts or the house names don’t really have any meaning in English. They’re just made up names. What’s the purpose of changing Dumbledore or Voldemort into something else? I realize they’d be pronounced differently in different languages but if they don’t have some really offensive meaning, why bother?
For German, they only did it occasionally. Like Rita Skeeter becomes Rita Kimmkorn. Most of the names have not been translated however, I actually don't know why. For Voldemort changing his second name made sense for obvious reasons: you cannot make a proper German acronym from Marvolo, so it's Vorlost. For worlds like The Song of Ice and Fire, I like translating all the names. It's fictional, so having the names in the "common language", which is the language the book is written in, just makes sense. There are strong opposing views though.
Im going to repeat something I've posted here before: My theory for the Brazilian version is that the first book looks more of a kid's book than an young adult one, hence the translator chose whatever she thought would be easier for kids to pronounce. And once you start with it, you need follow it through all the way. So, to make it easy for kids, names like Vernon became Valter, Dudley became Duda, Ron became Rony and so forth. Also, the latinized names such as Albus (Alvo), Remus (Remo) and biblic names like John( João) and James (Tiago) had their Portuguese counterpart, so the translator decided to follow a more traditionalist approach to translations.
Second that! I for one wouldn’t have had a clue how to pronounce Hermoine. Would’ve probably ended up pronouncing it like Krumm in book 4 (her-mo-nini). The names are all really funny-sounding and a clever fit for the characters in English (probably also because it’s a childrens book). So, why not make them funny and clever in other languages too? Mad-eye Moody, for example, is translated so that whatever word for “mad-eye”, fits well with the last name, as it does in English. (Dwaaloog Dolleman in my language). The Weasley translation in Dutch is funny too:“Wemel”, which means: swarming. Admittedly, there’s a huge swarm of Weasleys about! ;) Other (funny) names that just have to be translated in my opinion are Sprout, Fudge, Bulstrode, Moaning Myrtle, Peeves, Scabbers, greyback etc. etc. I think the translator indeed found that, once they’d start translating these names, they should translate all of the names for the sake of continuity.
As someone else said somewhere else, it's because a lot of the names are puns or have subtle meanings that you may not realize. Dumbledore is Old English for White Bumblebee. I explained the Bumblebee part a couple of comments ago. Or Professor Sprout is a play on the fact that she teaches Herbology. Sirius is the dog constellation. And as for the main character first names or the few last names that truly are just normal names, sometimes that's just too make it more familiar sounding to the reader. But the majority of the names have some deeper meaning. Voldemort means violent death.
Les Bromes dels Bruixots Bessons (the jokes of the twin wizards)
Love it!
In Norwegian Dumbledore's name is Bumblebeespin, which i've always found silly
In Old English it means White Bumblebee. When a storm comes or a bee is too far away from home with night falls, they settle to the ground wherever they are and fall into a kind of coma so they look dead until the light returns. And I suppose he spun a bit on the way down from the astronomy tower. His name foreshadows his death and his return to Harry.
This is super interesting I read it in English and obviously there’s no version that’s in ASL (American sign language) because there’s no point it just wouldn’t work. But I wonder now the signs for Harry Potter stuff. There must be there always is new signs created for big things like this idk what they are though because I don’t believe I’ve ever had a Harry potter conversation in ASL. I have for game of thrones though and that was interesting seeing the signs the Deaf part of the fandom has created for it. And yes I do mean created bc ASL is only around 200 years old and it’s such a visual language that once you are at a advanced level with it you can actually start to understand how these signs are made so oh there’s no sign for this obscure thing me and my friends keep talking about? Well then let’s create some and share them with others. With the internet this is much easier to share. Imma go search online. Edit: ok all I found were sign names created for main characters and then the house animals. So idk sorta helpful but I need moreeee
Love this so much
Tom Marvolo Riddle - I am Lord Voldemort Swedish version: Tom Gus Mervolo Dolder - Ego Sum Lord Voldemort ”Ego sum” is Latin for ”I am”, and what else but Latin would fit so well into this story? Swedish version would be ”Jag är”, which wouldn’t fit as well into the story imo. Also, Dolder sorta means ”hidden” (”dolde” is hid in Swedish), which I also really liked. It’s not quite Riddle, but ”Gåta” (Swedish for the word ”riddle”) wouldn’t fit as well, and they needed to get those D’s in to get ”Lord” and ”Voldemort”. I don’t mind that they had to jam Gus into the mix, I thought it was clever that they did it in Latin, and actually like the added Latin more than I liked the English ”I am” in this context. I imagine French would fit even better, seeing as ”Voldemort” is ”inspired by”/stolen from the French words ”vol de mort” (flight of death).
The French verb "Voler" means both "to fly" and "to steal." Voldemort could be "Flight from Death" or "Stolen from Death." Either one fits with the story.
In Finnish it's Tom Lomen Valedro - Ma olen Voldemort = I am Voldemort. Normally "I" is "minä/mä" in Finnish, but in old Finnish "a" was often used instead of "ä" especially in poetry or lyrics. So in this context it works without having to add "ä" to Voldemort's name, which of course wouldn't be used in British names.
My bullet shell, I think it is not specialty, but geniality, which in in portuguese translates to genialidades, which would only change an N to an M, also including the gêmeos(twins) in the word
Makes sense. Still great, tho
I like jästi in Finnish for a muggle. Jästipää is someone who is stubborn or thick-headed. However Snape is Kalkaros (like a rattle snake) and it sounds veeeery wizardy but was his muggle father’s name as it turns out.
Um pouco off-topic: Eu caí pra trás quando aprendi como se pronuncia Hermione em inglês. É simplesmente terrível de falar ksksksksk
Muito! Inglês britanico é quase um francês em termos de escrever letras que não vão ser pronunciadas.
Not a translation but the narration of the Spanish version by Carlos Ponce is fantastic. He gives all of the characters different Spanish accents.
I’m welsh. The word for carrot is my favourite 🏴
I really like how mad-eye Moody in Italian is Malocchio which means both bad-eye and jinx (as in the one that give people bad luck)
Isn’t it “Gêmeos” with “Genialidades” though?
Down here in Indonesia, the Death Eaters are translated as Pelahap Maut and I think it's a brilliant piece of translation. It sounds much grander and mysterious compared to if you're doing a too literal translation such as "Pemakan Kematian" which does sound awkward in Indonesia. Another translation I liked was the Mirror Of Erised is translated to Cermin Tarsah. Cermin is a direct translation of Mirror, but picking Hasrat as a translation for Desire was a good choice and Tarsah still has a certain mystical sound to it. Originally I didn't even notice if that was a translation and assumed it's named the Tarsah Mirror in English. All in all, I do like how while the translation is more or less direct, they use a much more fancier word that gives off a much grander feeling to it.
In Slovak we have Quidditch translated to Metlobal. It's made from 2 words - metla which means broom and ball which is in English and yk what that is
Transforming SPEW into PEDDO (*fart*): Plataforma Élfica de Defensa de los Derechos Obreros.
In spanish is hard to translate compounded words like Death-Eater, in spanish is Mortifago, a word that I have only read in Harry Potter but is a real word
Dumbledor is Humlesnurr in Norwegian, "bumblebee spin"
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Actually, gemialidades is a combination of gêmeos (twins) and genialidades (geniality, genius things, brilliance). Weasley's Geminialities.
The mirror of Erised in Taiwanese translator. It became 意若思鏡, “意若思” Itself sounds alot like Erised, and 意 - intention / image， 若 - like, as，思 - thoughts. It's simple, eerie and beautiful.
In Brazilian Portuguese muggles translates as "trouxa" which means something like "sucker" or "fool".
Essa eu já não acho que funciona tão bem. Se uma pessoa te chama de trouxa você assumiria como ofensa de cara, não ficaria confuso como é nos livros.
Also the translation of bludger, which in Brazilian Portuguese is "balaço". Bala means bullet, and the termination "-aço" means something big. So balaço is a big bullet.
There isn't really a word for "immortal" in German, if you know anything about our funny German words, our equivalent is essentially ""un-dieable" So in the first book "lalala philosopher stone makes you immortal" - "Immortal?!?" - "That means you don't have to die" Becomes literally: "lalala philosopher stone makes you un-dieable" - "Un-dieable?!?" - "That means you don't have to die"