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> Fans of The Lord of the Rings will know that much of its magic is linguistic I read LotR in English, and tried to read it in Spanish (My mother tongue). The
by ericol 7y ago
> Fans of The Lord of the Rings will know that much of its magic is linguistic
I read LotR in English, and tried to read it in Spanish (My mother tongue).
The colloquialism of the Spanish version was so off putting and disheartening that I couldn't make it past the first chapters.
- gatherhunterer 7y agoI have heard that translations of Harry Potter are often thought to be better because the publisher diversifies the diction beyond what Rowling used in the original. I remember as a kid thinking that she was over-using so many descriptors, such as "matter-of-factly" for Hermione's dialogue.
- ajuc 7y agoI've read LotR in Polish in translation of Maria Skibniewska (she mostly kept the English names English, only adjusting weird ones to Polish structure where needed - like adding "-a" to female names etc). Then I read another Polish translation, which changed all English names to Polish folk-names to translate the "familiarity" feeling in contrast to Elvish names. It was awful. Baggins was Bagosz. Couldn't finish it. Then I read it in English (still not speaking English that well), and it was OK, but I had much more fun reading it in Polish. I noticed I couldn't skip the nature descriptions as well in English as I can in Polish, so it was much more boring :) But I still think of these characters using the names from that first Polish translation. I guess you get used to the first translation you read, and then you only add secondary names to these characters, without changing the "true name".