Reading Harry Potter in French part 1

Last month I did a buddy read with Jill from Mama Leest (Reading mom). I wanted to read the Harry Potter series in French. Why? I hear you thinking. I know, I already read it in my native language Dutch and also in English.

I want to improve my French and a great way is to immerse myself in the language. I’ve already read The Little Prince in French. You can read my thought about that one here. The Little Prince is a children’s book, so since that went well, I wanted to do something just a bit harder.

I thought I might be ready for Harry Potter à l’école des sorciers (Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone). I didn't think it was going to be as hard since I’ve already read it in two other languages. I already know what it says. It’s been a while though, since I’ve read the first one, so it's still a bit of a challenge.

I told my friend I was interested in doing this, not actually meaning I wanted to do it now. But I guess I inspired her, because she bought the paperback in French. I asked to borrow them from my wonderful French mother-in-law.

The book took a few days to arrive at my friend’s home. My mother-in-law didn’t hesitate at all to borrow me her Harry Potter books and brought me the books that same weekend. She only found Harry Potter 4-7, but still: Merci maman! I found myself an e-book version of the first one.

So we were both ready to read and to dive into this adventure, that we’ve read so much, but that still manages to enchant us. A piece of both our childhoods experienced in another language. So we agreed to read a chapter a day and in the weekends two chapters a day. On the 18^th of November we started this journey and it came to an end on the 2^nd of December .

I was extremely curious for the names. In Dutch they translated a lot of names, which I wasn’t always so happy about. The biggest example was Dumbledore which was translated in Dutch as ‘Perkamentus’. I prefer the English names in general, but I can get sometimes it might be difficult to pronounce in an another language.

I was pleasantly surprised that most of the names weren’t translated.  Of course they pronounce it differently. Like Hermione becomes ‘Ermion’. But I can live with that. Although, for me this means I already prefer the French version over the Dutch version. The Dutch covers are more beautiful than the original French ones though. :p

While reading the book, I noticed how many details I forgot about the story. For instance: that Harry didn’t like to be with Mrs. Figg. I would personally prefer staying with Mrs. Figg, rather than staying with those evil Dursleys, lol.😂

My friend switched from the French version to the English version when she was at chapter 3. It wasn’t the difficulty, because I’m sure of it that she is definitely smart enough to have actually finished it. But she wasn’t used to reading in French and, as I’ve experienced too, it doesn’t read as fast, since it’s very different from Dutch or English. The origin of those languages lies different, since Dutch and English are Germanic languages and French is from Latin.

So if you’re like us, Flemish or another Germanic language speaker, when you’re reading French it seams like words are flowing where they shouldn’t. So you’ll need full focus to read a French text and some patience. The translation of English comes naturally, whereas translating French in our heads, comes with an extra step.

I told Jill it’s better to read in English, as enjoying the book is the most important thing while doing a buddy read. But I was determined to finish it in French. As I’m a woman on a mission: mastering the French language and conquer that language barrier once and for all.

Another thing I noticed was, that it seemed Hagrid didn’t seem to speak a dialect as he did in English or Dutch. Maybe they thought it was hard enough. But I would have liked to see that in the translation, to get to know some of the French dialects. So I really missed that.

One of the funniest words definitely was ‘baguette magique’ or wand. But if you translate that, it literally means a baguette or the long crispy bread. I can already imagine them fighting with that bread.😅

And the funniest house name of them all: Poufsouflle (Hufflepuff). Some funny name translations were Voldemort's scaredy cat name: Celui-dont-on-ne-doit-pas-prononcer-le-nom. Seems like they couldn’t make that any longer huh… Or another great one: Quasi-sans-tête for Nearly Headless Nick. But in French they leave out his actual name(Nick). So it kinda like: Aha, dead eh? Let’s strip you of your name and personality. Woohahahaha…. And Pomfresh for madame Pomfrey. Or if you somewhat translated it literally: Madame Applefresh.

Somewhere in the middle of the book I discovered a little too late that The Wizarding World website put up some challenges to make while reading the book and also the chapters read by famous actors. The video chapters only are available until the end of December.

But to wrap things up, as this is being magically transformed into a lengthy blogpost, I really enjoyed the French reading experience. From the lovely French humor, fun translations or just reliving some of the happiest sparks of my youth, which was when I was pulled into these magical stories.

I can’t wait to read the second one. But first I’m up for watching the first movie in French. Can’t wait to hear the French voice actors.

Special thanks to my buddy Jill for reading this book together with me. If you can understand some Dutch and like books, definitely visit her wonderful blog. And also very important: Merci beaucoup maman pour ta gentillesse et la volonté de me prêter vos livres!

Are there any books you've read in another language?