Harry Potter

Yesterday I finished reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in french! Or should I say, Harry Potter à l'école des sorciers. I like to read when I'm on the bus and the metro in order to pass the time and after reading Bossypants for a second time and then Mindy Kaling's amazing Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, I felt like I should read something in french. I didn't want to pick something I didn't already know because I would be stopping and starting every time I got on and off public transportation, so I decided to re-read Harry Potter!

It was really easy to follow and the great thing about reading it on my Kindle was that when I didn't recognize a word I could put my cursor on top of it and the dictionary would tell me what I was missing! Thank you Amazon. But it was rare that that would happen. I'm sure that knowing the story first helped, but the translation was amazing. It was also hysterical at some points. Take for example Oliver Wood, the captain of the quidditch team (but you should already know that). In the french version, his name is Olivier Dubois. In french, bois means wood so his name translates to Oliver of wood. Cracks me up. 

They did change a lot of words though to frenchify (there has to be a better way to say that) the language. I kept a list while I was reading of all of the differences cause I'm super cool:

Moldus - Muggles

Poudlard - Hogwarts (That was the toughest to come to terms with - how can you change Hogwarts?!)

Croutard - Scabbers

Drago Malefoy - Draco Malfoy

Gryffondor, Serdaigle, Serpentard, Poursouffle - Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Slytherin, Hufflepuff

Severus Rogue - Severus Snape (Another tough one for me)

Argus Rusard - Argus Filch

Madame Bibine - Madame Hooch

Miss Teigne - Mrs Norris

Professor Chourave - Professor Sprout

Crockdur - Fang

Touffu - Fluffy

Neville Londubat - Neville Longbottom

The title is also different in french. It translates to Harry Potter at the school of wizards (roughly). I guess I can't be too mad about that one because the american title is different from the british title, but at least those are along the same lines. This one is just lame. It could be the title of any of the books. Now it's time to start the chamber of secrets!

In unrelated news, if you haven't seen Captain Phillps yet, GO SEE IT. I saw it tonight and it is by far the best movie I have seen all year. And I'm not just saying that because Tom Hanks is in it. I have never felt so proud to be an american than I did when I left the theater. Maybe it's because I saw the movie in a theater filled with french people. Nevertheless, it was incredible and you need to stop reading this blog and go see it. NOW.