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Gerald's Spanish Language Blog

By Gerald Erichsen, About.com Guide to Spanish Language since 1998

Harry Potter translation incredibly bad

Tuesday September 9, 2003
Just how bad is the bootleg translation of the bestseller Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix that is circulating in Venezuela? So bad that the anonymous translator apologizes frequently throughout the translation. In fact, on one page the translator warns, "Here comes something that I'm unable to translate, sorry." Among the idioms the translator couldn't grasp were "breathy" and "the old one-two."
 
This isn't the first rogue Spanish-language edition of the book to appear; another one, said to be a poor and incomplete translation, appeared earlier this year in Chile. The official Spanish translation isn't due out until late this year.
 
Despite the awfulness of the translation, Caracas readers have been eagerly buying the book. The price: about $25 U.S. per copy. Read more... (Sources: VHeadline.com, BBC)

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