I See...

[sigune]

Last night I dreamt that I had somehow already obtained a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows*. Since in my dream I read the book at work, I am able to share two rather spectacular spoilers! Let's see if I possess the Sight, shall we?



- Snape doesn't appear in the book at all;
and
- Harry doesn't have it out with Voldemort.

Hah! I bet nobody foresaw these developments...

Needless to say, I found the book a tad disappointing. Don't say I didn't warn you!




*For those who are interested, the official Dutch title has just been released (the translation won't be published till November); it's "Harry Potter en de Relieken des Doods" ("the Relics of Death").

Comments

[veradee.livejournal.com]

I wonder what the German title is going to be. "... und die Reliquien des Todes"? I don't know whether the past translations have been identical.

[sigune.livejournal.com]

The other titles were just more straightforward, and the Dutch translations at any rate have been pretty literal so far: "HP en de Steen der Wijzen", "HP en de Gevangene van Azkaban", "HP en de Vuurbeker", "HP en de Orde van de Feniks", "... en de Halfbloed Prins". Only Chamber of Secrets wasn't entirely accurate - it was translated as "Secret Chamber" ("HP en de Geheime Kamer"). In German that seems to have become "Kammer des Schreckens"... - hm. Apart from that, they have been very similar so far (well, there's "Feuerkelch" rather than "Feuerbecher", but my German isn't subtle enough to venture a guess as to why "Kelch" might have been preferable).

[veradee.livejournal.com]

Yes, apart from the "Chamber of Secrets" they are identical, indeed. I don't know why they chose to translate it with "Kammer des Schreckens". It's not as if we didn't have the word "Geheimnis".

"Becher" sounds too mundane to me. A "Kelch" should be slightly bigger. When I hear the word "Kelch", I think of the goblets people used at banquets in past centuries - made from (noble) metal and possibly studded with diamonds. [The goblet used during the sacrement also is a "Kelch" and not a "Becher".] In contrast, a "Becher" sounds like a mug made out of clay or porcelain to me.

[sigune.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see. In Dutch we have the work "kelk" as well; it's also the term for the cup used in Mass - actually, I can't immediately think of another use than the religious one. I suppose it is a more accurate translation of "goblet" than Becher/beker. My dictionary offers "goblet" for "kelk", but in the other direction it translates "goblet" as beker/Becher, kelk/Kelch and bokaal/Pokal :D. And yes, beker is definitely more commonplace than kelk (though apart from the possibility of its being a mug, in Dutch it can also be a Pokal in the sense of a prize). Hm.

Heh. I like criticising literary translations, but I tend to freak out at the thought of having to do my own ;-). I'm never satisfied!

[veradee.livejournal.com]

The cup as a prize would be a "Pokal", not a "Kelch" or a "Becher".

At uni we once translated a short story by Paul Auster. It was very interesting but also very difficult. We never could agree on an expression, although we were only four people. ;)

[shield-wolf.livejournal.com]

The Goblet of Fire was a roughly-hewn wooden cup, not unlike the Holy Grail in the "Indiana Jones" movies -- and probably stemming from descriptions in older sources, but I'm not really up on my Grail legends. So it sounds as though "Becher" may be the most appropriate translation to me.

[veradee.livejournal.com]

I admit that I had forgotten that it is made of wood, but since it's both called goblet and cup in English, I still think that "Kelch" is much more fitting than "Becher".