Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - Page 1 Vocabulary (Anki Deck)

JimmySeal Wrote:Nonetheless, given the vast difference in grammar and ways of expressing things, there's no denying that translators have to make sacrifices in fidelity and naturalness translating in either direction.
The slight differences in usage can compound themselves over time and give you a false sense of how natural Japanese sentences and paragraphs are structured.
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I'm a strong advocate of reading translations of English YA novels in foreign languages. The stories are familiar, and I think that Harry Potter and Lemony Snicket are some of the best YA literature available in any language (of course, I'm not really an authority on the latter part). Still I think it is important to "cut the umbilical cord" as soon as you are able, and that's probably quite a bit sooner than you think

That's a fair point. Obviously something is lost in translation. When we previously had this conversation on the forum I learned that contrary to some other translating customs, Japanese translators would strive more towards fidelity than naturalness. It's this aspect I'd like to better understand, or even if this is still true. I don't deny there may be differences brought on by the translation process, but I want to understand the magnitude, in general (out of curiosity) and in the case of Harry Potter.

There is then the question of the consequences on one's language. I still think this is not clear-cut. Consider the possible variations of style between the native writers in a given language. Camus is not Proust and Proust is not Gracq. Or Hemingway, Woolf, Pynchon, Chandler... I think the variation in style between translations and non-translations is probably not greater than the variation in style between individual writers. So the key is probably to read with enough variety, which goes back to "cutting the umbilical cord" as you say. I intend to do that, but since I enjoy the HP books I will probably read them all to know how it ends.

All in all I was mostly arguing against a simplistic "reading Harry Potter = speak bad Japanese" message for which I see no strong supporting evidence.