Bonnie, the french version has been out for a little while, and as far as I know it’s only one person translating.
I enjoy re-reading in French, even though I speak English OK, it’s still more clear in French, especially all the battles. And, well, ménarad is definitively getting better, he even made quite a few totally brilliant things, like the how he translated the “holey joke”.
In Goblet of Fire, when the sphinx tells Harry the riddle, it’s impossible to translate word for word or the answer won’t make sense. Well, the spanish translator changed the wording and managed to squeeze in her country of origin (Spider=araña, Spain=España). I found that to be sneaky and smart too. Though why in blue blazes she changed Neville’s toad into a turtle, I’ll never know. Maybe she found a toad to be too disgusting for children but I bet she hung up her gloves when Ron started puking slugs in the second book.
ménard remade the whole sphinx riddle so as to get the word “araignée” as an answer.
The mistranlation (“toad” as “turtle”) only happened in the first version and was corrected afterwards. I’m not a great fan of the spanish translator, and “las reliquias de la muerte” is an awful translation (“de la muerte” means “deathly” but it’s also a coloquial and preppy expression for “very cool”)
It’s so strange the spanish translation coming out so late! I’m portuguese and we just just had the portuguese edition out; and the spanish and portuguese are so similar, so why would they take so long? I’ve heard some comments about the spanish publisher, and I have to agree with them. Spanish, you have my support!! Viva Harry Potter!
I’ve got 1 – 6 of the Salamandra books. Yes some minor things are different, but still a good read, and excellent practice for me readng Castellano. Looking to add #7. Ah! But I want to get the version in Gallego!!!
La familia de me esposa eran Gallega!
At this link you can find the Sphinx’s Song in 13 different languages: http://www.iti.org.uk/pdfs/newPDF/HarryPotter.pdf
Well, I’m from Spain, but I speak English so I’ll buy the Spanish edition just because I like to have the books in different languages. But I prefer to read the original versions, because there is some stuff impossible to translate…
People from Latin America should know we don’t like the Spanish translation in Spain either. I thought they were so slow translating it because they make different translations for every Spanish variation of every country…
Yes, the press note says there will be seven different versions in spanish, for Spain (gallego, catalán y castellano), Latin America and United States
hi rosa,
The Spanish language will have only 3 versions: one for Spain (where the language is also called Castillian), one for the US and Central America and another one for South America. Catalan and Galician are not “Spanish” versions as they are different languages. Spain has 4 official languages: Spanish (aka Castillian, spoken by 78% of the population), Catalan (spoken by 17%), Galician (spoken by 3%) and Basque (spoken by 2%). You can’t understand a book in Catalan, Galician or Basque if you only speak Spanish. I know this because I have recently moved to Barcelona (I’m not Spanish myself) and here everybody speaks Catalan and Spanish, and they are different languages.
Hi Iowess.
I know that! I’m spanish myself (and my father is gallego!). What I meant is that Salamandra is in charge of the catalán and gallego versions too, and that partly explains why the release date is so late. Sorry if I didn’t make myself clear! I got my information from the press note Salamandra sent to my magazine (I’m a journalist). But now that you mention it, I can only count FIVE versions, not seven. Maybe there are some DeLuxe or Adult editions…
hi rosa! no problem with that, i suppose that salamandra agents are the ones to blame for this little confusion. i have to say that salamandra will not publish the catalan version. it will be by “editorial empuries”, or at least that’s what a friend of mine said (i’m still not very fluent in catalan so i don’t know exactly :S).
Hi Iowess
You’re right! Empuries is usually the catalán publisher now that you say that…
To all the people that is wondering why the Spanish translation takes so much time to hit store selves, it’s not a commercial strategy, as Fabs says, it’s because there’s only one person working on the translation, while other countries use a team o translators to translate the book. This is supposed to be good, because translations tend to be quite bad when there are several people working on them. Sometimes they are not very coherent. The bad thing is that Salamandra always chooses a bad translator to translate the book… =( I could do better!!