Harry Potter in German, not Czech

The official translation of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix into German is scheduled to hit shelves on November 8. But at the Harry auf deutsch site (here's Google's English), a community has sprung up to perform a distributed translation. Every volunteer works on five pages, with the aid of a Potter-specific dictionary, and after turning in a German version, works on the prose to ensure it reads smoothly. In an unrelated effort, some schoolboys who did a Czech translation and posted it to a private website have been sued by Albatros, the Czech publishing house who will have the official translation out in February. Looks like Harry is crushing more than the Hulk.

Oh, and please don't post spoilers, it's still too early :)

Whats the bet...

That the story is...er...altered to some degree by that fanbase translation? "Ouch stoßen mich nicht dort! Meine Esel bereits Hurts!" besagtes Harry. "OH- Harry kannte ich Sie immer war ein GANZ spezieller Junge!" geächzter Professor Dumbledore. "Hey geben das Weibchen mir etwas von diesem voldemort liebend!" squeeked Professor Flitwick. ;) Never trust the fans!

Karma whoring (Re:Whats the bet...)

Babelfish translation:

Ouch do not push me there! My donkeys already Hurts!" mentioned Harry. "Oh Harry I could do you was always a WHOLE special boy!" geaechzter professor Dumbledore. "Hey give me the female somewhat from this volume that place loving!" squeeked professor Flitwick

Re:Karma whoring (Re:Whats the bet...)

That's really disturbing...considering I used babelfish to create the german text in the first place...

Re:Whats the bet...

Of course, your somewhat bizarre German aside (the occasional english word in there makes me think you might have used BabelFish to generate this text), you're actually providing the best argument against the (thankfully relatively few) slashdotters on this thread who think that there's nothing wrong with a community-led translation of a book. It is possible for somebody, in translating a book, to add or change material substantially. In distributing their translation of the Harry Potter book, this group would be claiming that their translation was a faithful reproduction of J.K. Rowling's original work - but if they had added or altered material in the process (even to the extent of adding pornographic material, as you so amusingly suggest...), they could be doing Ms Rowling something of a disservice in the eyes of Germans who read that translation.

This is why copyright protects an author's right over derivative works, including translations - it should be up to the author/publisher to select who is allowed to make the official translation, giving them some means to control what is put out in the author's name in other languages.

Sounds quite vulger to me...

I mean a Hairy Artist who works in clay sure don't sound like a childrens story to me.

At least he uses open source web browsers...

Re:Sounds quite vulger to me...

At least he uses open source web browsers...

Maybe they should've changed the title to Harry Potter and the Order of the Mozilla FireBird(tm)?

What Censorship

Hey idiot, Harry Potter is not your work. How and when they choose to choose to release the translated work should be up the the publisher.

Inconsistancy in tone/style between translators?

I know this varies greatly between languages but won't the reader notice the 5-page "boundries" where the translator changes.

Most of the time there is never a 100% "correct" translation from one language to another and relies on the translator to make the judgement. This is not a problem when it's one person doing the translation as they would more likely to be consistent throughout the book, but when you have multple people it's bound to be very tricky.

Re:Inconsistancy in tone/style between translators

Yes I read that part, I guess it depends on the language. English being Germanic should n't be too much of a problem I guess.

The problem I'm thinking of is more subtle in that if you imagine converting the english version into an audio book even a persons voice and their inflections effect the mood.

So if you have different people just reading out the english, although word-for-word accurate would end up not being much fun to listen too.

The person doing the second-pass will probably have to do quite a bit of editing. What might be more useful would be of they had more than one translation of that section, the would choose one which "gelled" the most and required the least editing.

Re:Inconsistancy in tone/style between translators

Yeah, but even so, the "second pass" would probably take almost as long as a complete translation, if they want a consistent language.

It is an interesting project though, copyright issues aside. Wonder how good/quick a distributed translation would be?

Side note: Many professionals already use machine translation for a first step, but then there is the slow and careful process of crafting the book in a new language, adapting it to a local mindset, making it more than just a translation.

One typical example of the hard work of a translator is, of course, Tolkiens works.

Should the translator treat middle earth and the shire as *our* earth and england, or as a fantasy world?

In the first case, you want to keep references to english customs, manners and names. Otherwise you might want to adapt the characters and places to your local culture.

Now, Harry Potter is explicitly in england, so this is not such a problem, but you still want to check your cultural bearings.

A description of a typically normal (muggle) meal for example might be considered exotic (or gross) by a muslim, hindu or jew. Which is better: to adapt their menu so that the passage wont steal attention from the story, or keep it?

wtf?

People advertise when they break the law now ?

What?

Why is this a suprise? I honestly would expect a publisher to do the same for any other independent translations of titles if they were planning on releasing official translations, whether it be J.K. Rowling, Stephen King, or Hillary Clinton.

Re:What?

All those things are (IMHO) fine. What is NOT fine is ripping a R1 DVD to divx and putting it on your website for R2 users to download. Likewise, it is NOT OK to photocopy someone else's copy of a Japanese magazine. If someone set up a translation service where I gave them my copy of the book in english and they provided me with a translated copy that's fine, but there has to be that initial purchase, otherwise it's simple copyright infringment. Putting the translation on a webpage does not ensure that the reader has purchased a legitimate copy to begin with.

Censorship???!!??

Could jamie please explain why this is censorship? What the hell gives you the right to translate a book (for which the local editor has paid a pretty high price) and distributing it without caring for royalties and profit loss for all parties involved? Is anyone by any chance prohibiting these fine Czech and German people from buying the book in English and reading it at their leisure? Or has the state censored the book to remove parts of the it?

Write your own book, make it freeware and be happy. Harry Potter is not freeware, it is protected by copyright laws and international contracts for localisation / translation. It is, in the least, stupid, to be advocating what is, indeed, piracy.

Re:Censorship???!!??

What the hell gives you the right to translate a book (for which the local editor has paid a pretty high price) and distributing it without caring for royalties and profit loss for all parties involved?

You are right. But should it be wrong for someone who has brought a copy of the book but wants to read it in their native language to have access to that? Note that the book isn't coming out in other languages for months yet. I am sure the hardcore fans that download the translated version will also buy it once it is released.

Is anyone by any chance prohibiting these fine Czech and German people from buying the book in English and reading it at their leisure?

Oh, let me guess! English is your first (only?) language, isn't it? Not everyone speaks English. Even if they do, it is often much easier to read a book translated into your first language than it is to read one in your second. For most people reading is a time to relax and forget - it's easier to do that when you dominate the language you are reading.

Re:Censorship???!!??

I happen to speak 4 languages, and no, English is not my mother tongue. Working in a company that makes money translating, marketing and distributing foreign books gives me an insight into the mess that these people are creating. And, have no doubt, the local publishing houses WILL, at the request of the copyright holder go to every length imaginable to get the people responsible for this mess or they will lose the right to publishing the books. Can't read English properly? Wait a few months for the translation!

Re:Censorship???!!??

Actually I'd be very interested to know what the legal status of translations in copyright law is. My understanding is that copyright law pretty much covers exact copies of the information and not derivative works.

But translations require a certain level of creativity in order to localize the concepts and words into the culture in question. Different translators might make different choices in how to translate a particular phrase or concept thus resulting in a variety of qualities of translation.

A translation is definitely not an exact copy, and might have some merit independently from what it is translating. The question is, is it enough to call it a derivative work? I suspect not, but as IANAL, I don't know.

If it is though, then prohibiting the dissemination of an independent work is by definition censorship.

Re:Censorship???!!??

A translation is a derivative work under U.S. Copyright law and International treaties such as the Berne Convention.

The only way you can translate a work legally if you pay the original author for permission. You own the copyright on the translation (unless otherwise agreed to in the contract for the translation), but generally most contracts stipulate that you still have to pay the original author royalties on copies of the translation you sell, since the author still has copyright on the original, and the only thing that gave you the right to do the translation was to sign the contract.

Make sense?

Harry auf Deutsch

... as an interesting side note, I believe the english Harry Potter books were the first english books to ever hit #1 on the German best seller lists before the German edition arrived.

How unreasonable!

You mean the publishing company that Rowling gave the right to translate and publish her work is suing someone who is releasing that is translating and publishing her work? How could they do that! Copyrights are evil! blah blah blah! [/slashbot impression]

Talk about commitment

You reaally have to be a fan to do something like this. I don't think this will hurt the eventual release of the official translation, given that the project could never release the unofficial translation on the market. It would immediately be pulled back, and no, this is not a censorship issue but an issue of who owns the copyright.

I can't see JK Rowling endorsing the project, at least not officially, but this speaks volumes of how committed the fans are to her stories, and if I were her, I'd be proud.

Good business/Bad business

I wonder how many fans will be excited about being sued? Even if J.K. has a full right to do so, suing your fanbase isn't the smartest or most polite thing to do. In fact, since they're obviously intelligent and industrious fans (they're translating for God's sake, how many times have you done that for a book you despised?)they're probably the last people you're going to get good press out of. Suing "schoolboys" is like the RIAA suing college students, do it enough and you piss everyone away in disgust.

Re:Good business/Bad business

suing your fanbase isn't the smartest or most polite thing to do

Neither is stealing from your favorite author.

Respect for Laws

Thanks for witty reference to The Hulk jamie. What I want to know is how can ANYONE think that the publisher asserting their rights in this situation is a bad thing?

The very foundation of much of the opensource movement, the GPL license is about respect for law. These people distributing the Harry Potter work are not respecting the law. We can't have opensource without these very same laws.

Slashdot over the edge.

Slashdot has always endorsed tolerance, if not tacit support for intellectual property law violators. For the dozens if not hundreds of articles with little editorial innuendos such as "I guess we'll just all have to move to freenet" to the repeated duplicity of imporing "blame the users, not the technology" and then raising hell when infringing users are gone after, slashdot (editors, and then the lap-dogs of the forums) have shown an ethic that should be denounced. With this article--this blatant advertisement for illegal activity (or activity with clear illegal intent - if you disagree, you fool nobody)--slashdot shows its extremism.

pre-rebuttal: the case of the network wide 'search engine' and the college students was hardly the only such one that /. has complained about, and that one was quickly withdrawn after it proved to be untenable. additionally, that they sued for a enormous amount of money has no bearing on what they might have actually won.

Wanted: English to Chinese translator

Chinese is, after english the most spoken language, with 1.2 billion in mainland China alone. Chinese is also used in Hong Kong, Taiwan ROC, and countless international chinese worldwide!!

Rowling could sure make a couple of billion more if she releases a chinese edition.

Now, I'm just thinking how witches, wizards and Harry Potter magic would fit with the chinese culture. But well, if the rest of the world is reading it, then the Chinese would follow!

After all, who would watch Titanic many times without understanding a word in the dialogue?

Re:Wanted: English to Chinese translator

Oh God, I wish I could have made it through watching Titanic without understanding the dialogue.

Re:Wanted: English to Chinese translator

Chinese is the language spoken from BIRTH by the most people

Wow! When my nephew was born, he couldn't speak any languages at all. He's already two, and he's only just getting the hang of English. How come Chinese babies are all so brainy?

Same day release dates

I hope this doesn't come off as too 'Jon Katzy,' but the internet has made irrelevant this common practice of premiering something in one country and delaying it's release (often for marketing purposes) in other countries. For example, 28 Days Later [imdb.com] was released in the UK on Nov 1, 2002, but they waited until June 27, 2003 before the US release. The DVD-R of this title has literally been floating around the internet for months. Who wants to wait?

The Harry Potter publishers were naive to think this wouldn't happen.

Do you know how impossible that would be?

First of all, let me just say that I've never seen the fascination with HArry Potter. I've read more than my fair share of fantasy novels, some when I was a kid, some in my twenties, but I've never rated the Harry Potter novels to be even in the same league as, say, either the Chronicles of Narnia, the Middle Earth novels, the Dune series or even the Shannara books. Don't ask me why, I just can't seem to find the magic (pun intended) that others do in JK Rowling's creations.

Having said that, I'm not blind to how big a phenomenon Harry Potter has become. JK Rowling herself has said that she's surprised that the plot of this latest book wasn't leaked before its launch, even though the story was a closely guarded secret. Less than a dozen people had read the book before it went into production and the printing lines and distribution centres were closely guarded too to stop any copies of the book getting out before the official launch.

How many copies and how big an exercise are we talking about?

Well, the new book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix, sold 1.7 million copies in Britain alone in its first week. The next best-selling hardback novel that week sold 6,500 copies. That isn't a small margin, it's a gulf.

Multiply that several times to come up with the number that were actually printed - 6.8 million for the original print run and 1.7 million for the second according to several sources. That's a lot of books. In fact, it's the biggest print run in history.

Now, if you had simultaneous launches in several languages then you'd have to have translations sorted beforehand (and worry even more about plot leakages), and have an even bigger print run to cope with all those foreign language versions.

Three words for you: never gonna happen.

Re:Same day release dates

>The Harry Potter publishers were naive to think this wouldn't happen.

It's not the same thing. As far as I know, Harry Potter came out on the same day worldwide. It's just that the translated versions won't be out for a while, which is quite reasonable since translating 700+ pages is not something you can do over a weekend.

They could sit on the english version and wait until the translations were ready, but this creates another problem: waiting for _everyone_ to finish is going to take a ridiculously (sp?) long time (so everyone has to wait), and if you don't wait for everyone you're more or less back to square one: people in smaller markets have to wait for the translation and will not be happy about it. Also, where do you draw the line between popular and not-so-popular languages?

Also, for Harry Potter in particular there were going to be A LOT of people who would not be happy to learn that the (already late) book will take another 5 months to print while it's being translated. And, as another poster has observed, the odds of a story leak would skyrocket.

Traslating a book is not the same as a movie or localising a game. With a movie, there is a LOT less content to work on and the standrards are way lower so it only takes about a week, if that. Either waiting for a week to release the movie, or releasing it a week late in other countries is no big deal. Besides, since most movies have a lot of special effects, you could probably do the special effects and the translation at the same time. Theb problem lies mostly in distribution and marketing.

Video games are even easier since any game that's worth the effort of translating will go through weeks of betas and QA before it goes gold. Having said that, most companies are happy to spend 6 months making a PAL conversion even with no tranlating involved, so I must be missing something ;-)

All to predicable, the publishers are at fault.

I am surprised they let this happen

The thing is, exactly the same thing happened last time, when Book four was published.

At the time, (August 2000 BTW), some German fans started a distributed translation effort, as reported at the time in the Register [theregister.co.uk]

I would have thought, that the publishers would have learnt their lesson, and made sure that translations into the other languages where Harry Potter has a large fan base would be released on the same day as the english version, or failing that, not more than a month later.

Considering the huge volume of pre-orders that there where for book 5 in english, I think it was unreasonable to expect German fans to wait 3 months for the official translation, or Czech fans to wait 8.

Obviously some fans can read the book in english, but considering that the book is aimed at children, many will not, Instead they will ask their parents to read the book and give them the plot highlights. Is it not surprising that some of those adults are organising themselves to translate the book.

I am not condoning the what is happening, it is still a copyright violation, but it was entirely predictable, and IMHO, the publishers only have themselves to blame.

A private website?

What is a private website? One with now external links to it? An intranet? While the auther seems to be implying that since it was "private" nobody should care, wasn't it on the "public" internet?

Could someone translate the webpage?

I don't speak navy-blue text on grainy, dark background image.

Nature Abhors A Vacuum

Nature abhors a vacuum...and apparently, so do geeks.

Although copyright law will definitely come down on the publishers' side, I assume that these translators aren't doing all this hard work in order to thumb their nose at the rights holders. If there was already a definitive German/Czech/Crotobaltoslavonian translation available, then this activity would be unnecessary. However, as far as the official translators go, well, if they can't keep up with amateurs working for free, then they probably ought to be trying harder or reevaluating their processes. If you leave a vacuum, expect someone else to fill it.

Good way to short-circuit the delay, BUT.....

I'm told we'll have the French edition in a couple months -- supposedly, the translator can translate a maximum of 10 pages per day. So if everyone is putting in a total of a half-day's work, they'll certainly manage to finish a lot faster.

They might be missing something, though -- in French, at least, they don't do a straight translation. Rowling makes so many word-plays that a word-for-word translation wouldn't be nearly as enjoyable. The French translator is allowed the liberty of rearranging the games to work out properly in French. My absolute favorite is the Sorting Hat, translated to Le Choixpeau (sounds like "the hat," but words mean "choose-skin."). Also, Tom Riddle became Tom Elvis Jedusor, where Jedusor looks like "game of chance" or "game of spells" and the full name rearranges to Je Suis Voldemort. The houses of Poudlard become Gryffondor, Serpentard, Serdaigle, et Poufsouffle. In the collective translation, I'm sure we'll see some creative input on the word-plays -- but can they be consistent? I somewhat doubt it.

One thing the translators may be seeking to avoid is the over-(ab)use of this translator's power. A friend who had read the English version first threw her copy of Coupe de Feu across the room after one chapter toward the end. The translator had "corrected" something that Mme. Rowling wrote and reportedly has said in interviews that she wrote it intentionally. One surmises the twist may play a role in future books, though it hasn't thus far in Order of the Phoenix.

Fair use???

Would it be considered legal to download a translation if they had already purchased the english version?

We use that reasoning all the time when we 'translate' from our CD's to MP3 or OGG?

Or... all fans wait longer

The only way around this would be to hold up the release of the next book, everywhere, until all translations have been made. Will these German an Czech fans be happier with that plan?

The Czech publisher...

... seems to be in the employ of the Ministry of Magic!!

That's okay....

I'll wait until they translate it into the original Klingon [kli.org].

In the futile hope of bringing facts into this

BERNE CONVENTION FOR THE PROTECTION OF LITERARY AND ARTISTIC WORKS (Paris Text 1971) [cornell.edu]
Article 8
Authors of literary and artistic works protected by this Convention shall enjoy the exclusive right of making and of authorizing the translation of their works throughout the term of protection of their rights in the original works.

You want to argue fair use protection? Fine, it's arguably fair use to make a translation of parts of the work for your own or strictly limited academic use. Making a full translation of the whole work with the explicit intent to distribute it, while the rights owner is trying to sell her own version, is blatant violation. Mealy mouthed lawyerese that each individual translator is protected by fair use is dissembling of the most pedantic kind. The intent to violate is clear.

Discuss.

Harry Potter in German, not Czech

If I remember correctly, the main difference is that the german translation is only available to the translators and not available to everybody. The same thing was done with HP 4.

The Hulk

Honestly, I don't understand why Harry Potter is always compared to the Hulk. The Hulk is crap from graphics to story-line. It's unnecessarily overrated.

I remember these kids...

from when I was judging ThinkQuest 2001 [thinkquest.org]. They were really, really bright. Needless to say they won a platinum award. Their contest entry is here [thinkquest.org].

The problem with that editorial slant...

Töpfer Harry auf das Deutsch,
nicht tschechisches bekanntgegeben durch Rogerborb auf Tue Juli 08, 10:30 morgens

von der Fremdschlüsselabteilung.
Die amtliche Übersetzung des Töpfers Harry und des Auftrages des Phoenix in Deutschen wird festgelegt, um Regale an November 8 zu schlagen. Aber am auf-Deutschaufstellungsort Harry (ist hier Englisch Googles), ist eine Gemeinschaft entstanden, um eine verteilte Übersetzung durchzuführen. Jeder Freiwilliger arbeitet auf fünf Seiten, mit dem Hilfsmittel eines Töpfer-spezifischen Wörterbuches, und nach dem Drehen in eine deutsche Version, liest Arbeiten über die Prosa zum Sicherstellen es glatt. In einer ohne Bezugbemühung einige Schoolboys, die eine tschechische Übersetzung taten und bekanntgegeben ihm zu einem privaten website von Albatros geklagt worden sind, der tschechische Verlag, der die amtliche Übersetzung heraus im Februar hat. Aussehen wie Harry zerquetscht mehr als das Hulk.

OH- und bitte geben nicht Räuber bekannt, es ist noch zu früh:),

(C) 2003 Rogerborg. You may distribute or sell this content without restriction. Oh yeah? Well fuck Slashdot. Fuck them up their stupid asses. [moviepoopshoot.com] Who gives a shit about who created the content? I translated it, so I own it now. Yeah.

Get the point? By your smug mealy mouthed editorial slant shall we judge you.

Distributed translation sounds impossible

In Harry Potter, you've got such a range of made-up terms, words which are invented by the author, some of which need to be given translations, that you can't expect individual translators working on five-page sections to be able to maintain any kind of consistency.

For example, in Order of the Phoenix, Rowling invents a plant with a latin-sounding name, Mimbulus mimbletonia. What should this be rendered as in German? In English, it has resonance with words like 'mumble', uses the common English surname/town suffix '-ton', and it even refers back to to the Rime of the Ancient Mariner's use of the word 'mimble'. Different translators will approach the task of selecting a German equivalent differently. Some will leave it as is, others will try to select a different latin name that conjures similar imagery in a German mind.

Then you have Rowling's love of writing vocal tics, speech impediments, and dialect (hagrid's speech, for example), which basically requires her to have the character's voice in her head as she transcribes how he speaks. A hundred different German translators can't be expected to have the same 'hagrid's voice' in their mind as they imagine him speaking German, so you'll effectively find his accent changing from page to page as different translators render his speech.

I really can't see this effort producing a half-decent translation job.