Find out how the Latin and Ancient Greek translations of Harry Potter deal with modern technology, the wizarding world, and modern culture.
Harry Potter in the Classics: How Latin and Ancient Greek Captured a 20th Century Setting
The Sphinx’s Riddle: Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and Icelandic
The Sphinx's riddle in Harry Potter and the Goblet of First is tough to translate. How's it handled in Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese?
The Big Reveal: the rare Uyghur translation of Harry Potter I just got my hands on…
For weeks, I've been teasing other collections about this rare and fascinating book. Now it's time to unpack it!
Harry Potter in a made-up language? The Esperanto translation!
Esperanto is the only language Harry Potter has been translated into that's completely made up (like Elvish and High Valyrian)! So what's it like?
Low-resource languages: what they are and why they matter
Every so often, I like to talk about low-resource languages. They're a matter of particular importance in today's tech world and, for me, the topic is especially important in terms of expanding access to vital information throughout the world. So today I want to discuss a little bit about what low-resource languages are, why they... Continue Reading →
What’s so interesting about Harry Potter in translation?
A look at what makes the translation of Harry Potter such an interesting phenomenon. Using examples from Hufflepuffs to trolls to the translation of puns, we take a look at what Harry Potter can show us about 80+ language communities around the world!
Dumbledore’s favorite sweet (or drink?): sherbet lemons and lemon sherbets
Albus Dumbledore is a treat. Famously, his favorite treat is the lemon drop. Or sherbet lemons. Or is it lemon sorbet? Translations can't agree on what it is, or on the password he uses for his office in the Chamber of Secrets.
The Spellman Spectrum: rating Harry Potter translations on a scale of literal (source-oriented) to gist (target-oriented) translation
An explanation of the Spellman Spectrum, a scale that quantitatively measures and compares translations of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. A high score on the scale indicates a target-oriented (gist) translation, while a low score on the scale indicates a source-oriented (literal) translation.
“The Dursleys are perfectly normal, thank you very much!”: Idioms, immediately
Harry Potter is a fascinating tale to translate. That famous first sentence shows us just how much thought and creativity a translator must put into communicating this magical world. We'll show you how translators across the world grappled with the Dursleys using 6 different translation strategies!