It is not specific to Harry Potter. All translations into Japanese are written using a sort of translationese. That is the desired writing style for translated works in Japan. In English speaking countries we prefer naturalization over accuracy.
They are two different styles of translation, neither of which is better than the other. It is something to be careful of when you're studying a book as a source of language instead of reading it as application of your knowledge though.
See http://repository.library.ualberta.ca/ds...l+2009.pdf for a paper about it by my former translation professor.
Also:
http://members.shaw.ca/yukarim/03Meldrum
http://members.shaw.ca/yukarim/02Meldrum
If you absolutely must study from translated works for some reason, at least have the sense to mine vocabulary and grammar in isolation from their context. If you see something you don't know, try to find it in some native text and add THAT to your SRS. Don't just add the sentence patterns into your SRS as-is. Yes, if you read lots of other native material you will probably eventually offset the "damage" done by Harry Potter etc, but why spend time learning unnatural Japanese to begin with?
By all means read HP in Japanese for enjoyment, but don't sentence mine it.
They are two different styles of translation, neither of which is better than the other. It is something to be careful of when you're studying a book as a source of language instead of reading it as application of your knowledge though.
See http://repository.library.ualberta.ca/ds...l+2009.pdf for a paper about it by my former translation professor.
Also:
http://members.shaw.ca/yukarim/03Meldrum
http://members.shaw.ca/yukarim/02Meldrum
If you absolutely must study from translated works for some reason, at least have the sense to mine vocabulary and grammar in isolation from their context. If you see something you don't know, try to find it in some native text and add THAT to your SRS. Don't just add the sentence patterns into your SRS as-is. Yes, if you read lots of other native material you will probably eventually offset the "damage" done by Harry Potter etc, but why spend time learning unnatural Japanese to begin with?
By all means read HP in Japanese for enjoyment, but don't sentence mine it.
Edited: 2009-12-28, 9:17 pm