Harry Potter lost in translation?
By Felicia Bratu
These days everybody talks about Harry Potter; the books, the movies, the games. Harry Potter covers all online and offline media. And the most interesting fact about this phenomenon is that actually, before the movies and the games, people, specifically children, loved the book.
Doctors from an Oxford hospital reported that on the weekends when two of the books were released in 2003 and 2005, the number of children who needed emergency medical attention was reduced by about 50%, compared with other weekend averages.
The books were translated into 67 languages, and Latin and Ancient Greek are two of them. They were also translated from British English to American English.
The first volume title, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, was changed when translated into American English to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone as the translator and the author felt that readers might confuse the word Philosopher. However, some of the readers weren't very happy with these translations.
"Are any books immune from this kind of devolution from English to "American" English? Would we sit back and let publishers rewrite Charles Dickens or Shakespeare? I can see it now: "A Christmas Song," "A Story of Two Cities," "The Salesman of Venice."
By protecting our children from an occasional misunderstanding or trip to the dictionary, we are pretending that other cultures are, or should be, the same as ours." Peter H. Gleick, The New York Times.
A few other words which were translated into American English:
cooker - stove
roundabout - carousel
cine-camera - video camera
mummy - mommy
video recorder - VCR
jumper - sweater
comprehensive - public school
letter-box - mail slot
motorway - highway
multi-storey car park - multilevel parking garage packet of crisps - bag of chips trolley - cart trainers - sneakers jacket potato - baked potato crumpets - English muffins changing room - locker room revision timetables - study schedules
Some argue that by translating into American English, we lose part of the essence of these books. I've seen the movies and enjoyed them very much even I am not a child anymore - personages' British English accent is absolutely delightful and adds extra charm to the entire action.
So, whether or not we should translate from British English to American English, it seems that the general public isn't too fond of the idea, or at least when it comes to novels.
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Canadian labeling requirements
When it comes to product labels, everything is in small details. Designing a simple label for a product can become sometimes a big challenge for a very experimented graphic designer if he/she doesn't know or do not follow the correct requirements when creating the label.
All products sold in Canada should have labels in both English and French.
All the measurements should follow the SI requirements: the net quantity should be expressed in metric units of volume for liquids and metric units of weight for solid products.
Either words or symbols can be used to express units of measurement.
However, only symbols are considered bilingual: if the word used is kilogram (EN), then the label should also show the French equivalent (kilogramme).
Examples of using symbols:
Only lower case letter should be used (exceptions: mL)
Correct: kg
Incorrect: kg., or KG, or kgs
Spacing:
A single space should be used to separate the number from the unit of
measurement:
Correct: 5 kg
Incorrect: 5kg
Rounding off numbers:
usually, when translating US labels, the numbers need to be converted to the SI system.
E.g. 10.5" = 26.67 cm
- when the first digit to be discarded is greater than five, the last digit to be retain is to be increased by an unit:
26.67 cm becomes 26.7
984.50 becomes 984
68.6 becomes 69
6.88 becomes 6.9
More information can be found on:
http://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/internet/index.cfm?itemID=1248&lg=e |
