To 'kar raha tha' or 'kar rahe the', that is the question

[rj_anderson]

Gacked from the ever-wonderful fuseno8, whose links bring all the authors to her yard -- a v. interesting article about the difficulty of translating HP into Hindi. becominghuman, I thought of you:

Should You Address Prof. Snape with Respect?

And in other HP news, I am driving into Toronto today to have supper with melissaanelli! I haven't seen her in person since October 2002,

Comments

[lydaclunas]

Have fun! Say hello for me!

[wahlee_98]

Way fun! Tell Mellie hi for me. :)

[gramarye1971]

Neat article. ^_^ I seem to recall that in the Japanese editions, Harry doesn't tend to refer to Snape as 'Snape-sensei' -- McGonagall is 'McGonagall-sensei, and other professors including Dumbledore get the sensei honourific, but not Snape.

(Hagrid goes one step further and speaks of Dumbledore as 'Dumbledore-sensei-sama'. My eyebrows went up when I read it -- 'Highly Revered Professor Dumbledore'? He doesn't have to say another word to let anyone know just how highly he regards Dumbledore.)

Cool.

[anonymous]

Thanks for thinking of me! :-)

And here's a little example of respectful Hindi usage... :-)

"Aap se milkar bahut khushi hui".
(I am very glad to meet you.)
Aap = You, formal.
se
Milkar = second person form of To Meet
bahut = very much
khushi = happy
hui = am (first person).

Note that in English, the first person subject (I) is used, but is implied in hindi.

W

[anonymous]

Interesting. I read Harry Potter in french up to GoF (then my english improved and I got to avoid waiting for the translation) and the translator chose to use "vous" (polite form) for all the adults, including Hagrid, wich was sort of weird because "vous" also creates a distance, which I don't feel at all in the original. Anyway, I'm afraid on the whole, the french translation doesn't do justice to JKR's words.