Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wunderbar, July 14, 2001
Chances are if your thinking on buying this book in German, you've probably already read the Englsih version, so I won't bog you down with any lengthy opinion on the story itself except to say it is a modern classic, full of mystery and suspense that can be enjoyed by kids and adults alike.Foreign language versions of English novels are notoriously difficult to translate, largely due to the high number of English words which have no exact translation in say, German or French. But on the whole, this was an exceptionally translated peice, with no major blunders sticking out (the Spanish version is full of them) The most obvious chnage is of "Hermione" to "Hermine" Perhaps Hermione would feel strange to pronounce to a native German speaker, not sure on that one. A lot of people will tell you Spanish and French are far easier to learn than German. I found German more fun to learn, most people who say it is a difficult, technical language do not know that English and German belong in the same group of languages (Germanic) French, Spanish and Italian are in a completely different group (Romantic) So to brush up on language skills, or just to have fun reading a novel in another language, HP is probably the most fun and easy to understand novel on the market.
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent translation, June 28, 2000
This translation of Harry Potter pulled even this native speaker of English along almost as well as the original book, and I would recommend it for anyone who's had a couple of years of German as a skill and vocabulary builder. If you're struggling with Goethe or Thomas Mann, you need something that will show you that German can be fun to read, and this book will do the trick nicely. I suppose once could carp at a few things here and there, but this translation is so superior to the French translation that I wouldn't waste my time doing that, except to mention that Hermione's name has for some reason been changed to Hermine. If you get stuck, at least the trot's readily available!
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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
No translation could destroy true magic like this, April 18, 2000
Being German, I read all Harry Potter books in English firsthand and am glad I did, now that I also read Book 1 in German. The translation is not bad - I graduated on German translations of Alice in Wonderland and know how bad translations look - but some things about it really made me angry from knowing I could have done better. It's not only the usual trouble with puns - every translator gets into trouble with names like "Diagon Alley", which was simply translated as "Winkelgasse" - but some phrases simply lose the slight twinkle in Ms. Rowlings eye, though German is not a language lacking fun, or magic, or ... twinkles. The poems (I wonder if there aren't any in books 2 and 3 for translating reasons) are really badly translated. But what disturbed me most was the changing of characters' propper names. If they still call Hogwarts Hogwarts, why then rename Hermione (a Shakespearean name, a true heroine of amazonian rank) to Hermine, which is a name with a taste of old spinsters knitting woolen socks? Well at least Harry kept his name ... Still, the translation seems (for all who have not read the original and don't know the difference) to be good enough to make Harry No. 1 in German bestselling lists as well as elsewhere, everyone loves it and screams for more, so the German publishers have already announced book 5 to be issued in January, 2001 (wonder if Ms. Rowling knows?) Read this book if you're German and think your English won't be sufficient for reading the original text (which is really pleasant to read and will not mean hard work), or if you're a fan and interested in translations. But if you only want to read a German book, read something that was originally written in German, like Michael Ende. But if you're hesitating now, at least read the book in English. No one must go without Harry.
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