Aihe: Let's discuss Harry Potter!

[Zenzibar]

I made this topic because some of you requested that here should be a topic in English because here already is a topic in Swedish. In this topic, we are going to talk about Harry Potter books, movies and games and everything you can imagine… IN ENGLISH.
I hope you find this topic useful and good for your English skills. Don’t be afraid to discuss with people, if you are unsure with your English. We don’t correct anyone or judge their skills. We just talk with each other and hopefully learn the language in the process.  :)

Tein tämän topikin, koska jotkut teistä ehdottivat, että ruotsinkielisen topicin lisäksi pitäis olla myös englanninkielinen topic. Tässä topicissa me puhumme Harry Potter kirjoista, elokuvista, peleistä ja kaikesta mitä kuvitella saattaa... ENGLANNIKSI.
Toivon, että tästä topicista on hyötyä ja se auttaa teitä englannintaitojenne kanssa. Älkää pelätkö muiden kanssa keskustelemista, jos olette epävarmoja englannintaidoistanne. Me emme korjaa ketään tai tuomitse heidän kielitaitoaan. Puhumme vain keskenämme ja toivottavasti opimme kieltä samalla. :)

- - - - -

So. I could start by asking a few questions and then you can talk freely. :)
Have you read the Harry Potter books in English? Was it hard? Did you think the English books were different from Finnish books? If so, why?

Have fun!

[Indigo]

English, nice. :) There will be many mistakes in my text. :D
Yeah, I read the last book in English. First I used dictionary while reading, but then I think that I don't need it. Sometimes it was very hard and I don't understand anything, but mainly I understand. And I don't know what I say about reading by different languages... It's kind of fun because then I learn a lot.

Damn, this is hard to write in english. :D

[Tohäätu]

I haven't read any Harry Potter book in english, because there is so much difficult and J.K Rowling's own words. I think I'll read them in english, when I have learn enough english to undestand them.

[Stargazer]

Have you read the Harry Potter books in English?

Not yet, but I'm planning to do so as soon as possible. When I have enough money, I'll buy Philosopher's Stone - I don't like using library cause' I'm sometimes very slow reader (particularly when book is written in other language than Finnish) and I prefer owning the book instead of just borrowing it. After I've read the first book, I'm going to collect the whole series in English one by one (not all at the same time, I won't ever have so much money :'D) and read them after I have bought them.

I'm sure I understand almost everything in English books, but I know it will take much longer to read the first book in English than it took in Finnish, even though the English version is much shorter. Okay, I've read much texts in English, but 223 pages - it's very much. So, I don't think reading HP-books in English is difficult, but absolutely slow - at least at the first time.

Sorry if there's horrible grammatical mistakes in my text :'D

[azze]

I have read three first books in englsih and now i'm reading the fourth one, i'm almost read it and i'm going to read rest of them. it is quite slow to read in englsih, becouse i've used to finnish and i'm not very good in english so i don't understand everything :D

[Suvituuli]

I was fool. I haven't read any books in English, and guess which was my first book then... Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix. Yeah. The longest book of course <3 I remember how painful it was to read it till the end of the book but I survived :D I didn't understand ev'ry word - to be honest, I understood only few words and nothing else - but I remembered the plot 'cause I'd read that book before in Finnish. With my memories 'bout Feeniksin kilta, word books and my stupidness (I'd decided to read the book so I couldn't have stopped..) I read it through. I will NEVER do that again :D It took me weeks to read it whereas I read the Finnish one in couple of days. Hmm.
I think I've read some other Potter books in English, too, but I'm not sure .___ö Maybe the first one? Oh, yes, and the second book also. They were much easier to read; they were shorter than OP but I also were better in English. It was kinda surprise how I'd gotten better without noticing it!

(If you find mistakes, please let me know so I can get even better, okay? :)

[Beatrix]

Me too! ;D
I bought DH last year, but I still haven’t read it much. It’s not so hard because I have read it in finnish earlier..
My big sister has tried to get me read Philosopher’s Stone awhile but I didn’t want to :D Now it doesn’t feel so bad idea anymore.
Reading Harry Potter –books in English is maybe hard because there’s so much weird words! x) Quiddich? Quidditch? What was it? o__O
Argh! It’s so easy to read this topic, but when I’m trying to write something.. x__x Still wanted to try.

Forgive me, I really suck at english :'D I hope there's something right in this message..

[Marsi]

Right now I'm reading the books in English, and now it's time to read the Order of the Phoenix... Well, I started to read it already in November :'D I'm so ridicolously slow. I like reading in English. After the three first ones I didn't have a chance to get GOF right away, so I started to read that one in Finnish again... But I couldn't : D It was just too strange.
When DH appeared, I tried to read it in English, but I had too much work with school and I was even slowlier, and then my sister wanted her book back. I remember it was quite hard to understand all of it, because I hadn't read any books in English before. But now I think it's quite easy and fun. :)

[Lauren]

I have red just the 7th Harry Potter book in english. I bought it immediately when it came out because I really wanted to know what it would happen in that book. It took quite a lot of time but finally I could red it (my english hasn´t been so good...). But it was actually pretty fun to read it and I learned pretty much english, I mean for example my spoken english hasn´t ever been as good as now. But as somebody already mentioned it was a little bit difficult to understand some expressions but ´cause I had red those Harry Potter books in finnish almost too many times usually I finally understood.

Soo, what else I could discuss about Harry Potter in english:D (hee, this is so fun [offtopic]I mean usually I write english just in some school writings and I think it´s not so fun because then I have almost every second to think, have I wrote something wrong or something[/offtopic]) But have you ever though how fun, wonderful, amazing and everything else it would be to go to act in Harry Potter movies and/or meet all those actors? I gave much if I could<3 And then it would be fun if Robert Pattinson were there. I´m not his fan, I just would like to ask him is it fun to be a cute, glittering vampire:´D Of course I´d like to see all those others too. I´m already now excited to go to watch that last Harry Potter movie in next summer. Before that I´d still like to see that first part of last movie too because I´ve seen it just once and then I was too excited to focus on it, so now I don´t remember anything. That´s not nice:(

I just mentioned my that time I´m in Vuotis has rised much in a very short time. I´m a little bit scared about that ´cause I´m pretty sure that if it keeps on that rising my life has gone:´D(Do you know what could be the name of that time in english? Maybe anti-living-time or something, no idea...)

[Kara]

Umm... I haven't yet. But I have all of them (I think) in English. Once I started PS, but I never got further than few first chapters... I've practically bought DH for myself (yeeeah mum paid it though :DD) and umm... I did read it! Well at least a few pages... Okay. Maybe I'll some day finally encourage myself to get reading :P I promise, I'll do it before... I turn 20. At least one of the books :D I suppose that they are better in English. At least they're more like Jo meant them to be. Her style, I mean. I think every time one translates books to a different language, it gets a bit of her/his style with it.
But umm. I'm not sure have my English skills got any better from those times when I read a bit of the books, but I assume it's going to be a little hard, but not too much. I haven't really read much in English, but I understand it quite well. Ofcourse it's a bit different from school books 'cause it's written for native speakers, but anyway...

[Tohäätu]

My father have read Harry Potters in english. If I remember right, he was in England with my brother, when they published Harry Potter and deathlu Hallows in England. Of course he bought it. If I want start read Harry Potters in english, it will be easy to me, because my father have bought many of them in their original language.

[EJR]

I'll try to write something...
I haven't read Harry Potter books in english, but I have started - stop at first book about that when he go  first time to Hogwarts...
I read now at finnish, but then I think I'm going to star in english again... maby

[azze]

Wohoo! Goblet of Fire read! I i'm not sure to continue reading in english, i'm so lazy :D but, let's watch if I get some powers to continue

And btw I think there should be a topic to free talk in englsih, not just potter, i like to talk englsih :D

[Hidarico]

I will now respond to these questions, at least at first glance ... see if later also something to talk about. x]

Yes, I've read all the Harry Potter books in English. Well, not quite as it was difficult than I had imagined. I understand most, but of course I ran between some of the words that I figured out right away. Reading also helped if I'd read the same book many times in Finnish and I happened to remember the lines of those explanations of the Finns. Potter really help my English has improved even further. Yes, English Potters are different than the Finns, and they have a totally different atmosphere and the characters get more depth. Well, I do not really know the answer to why. They were originally written in English, perhaps because of it? Or a relevant impact on their own roots in England. Also, I love to get their real names, rather than dilute a couple of Finnish tanslations. >.<

(If you find mistakes, please let me know so I can get even better, okay? :)

[Nenyan]

Don´t care about the many mistakes that I´m about to do..
I have read only the first and the last book in english. The library that is close to our house doesn´t have any books in other languages and that sucks cuse I don´t have time (not enough strength) to go to the town center. I have tryed to look for the books in english from the bookstore but you woud have to order the books from somewhere and I don´t have enough money to do that.

[Millat]

I have actually read all of the Potter books in English. To be honest, I haven't read them all in Finnish. Starting from the fifth Potter book, I haven't finished the Finnish ones – I have tried but it just didn't feel the same. I can't explain why but when reading Potter in Finnish it seems to lose some edge.

The fifth, the sixth and the seventh book all are somehow special to me. Why you ask? Because of the memories. Let me explain it to you. My fifth book is bought in Strasbourg, France – I was there with my family and eager to get my hands on it on the first day so I dragged everyone along to go and buy it first thing in the morning. I spent one lovely afternoon reading it in some nice park under the sun.

When the sixth one was published I was actually in London. Yes, in London! It was freaky I tell you, all that show and everything that was going on some days before and some days after. The situation was special as well because of the security reasons: the sixth book was published just between the bombings. So, however, lining to get my copy of that Potter book with all those Brits was an awesome experience! It was a lot of fun to see all those costumes and how much people really had put effort on their looks. Some random memory about this is some people who were spreading the word and handing flyers about Potter being so satanic and whatnot – it was kind of hilarious actually! The bothering thing was that on the news they were interviewing some people around 6 or 7am who had already finished the book – and they told about stuff I would have wished to find out myself... I mean it all came without warning, I did not expect any spoilers at that point so it was annoying. At least they had the intelligence not to tell some major twists in the plot but still, finding out something accidentally like that was not something I had hoped for, especially not on the news broadcast without any warning of maybe some minor spoilers. Disappointing journalism, I tell you.

Then, to the last one of the series. It was special because it was the last one. The lining and the people and the atmosphere was just something unbelievable. The last book is special to me also because that one I also read in French. I skipped a class to get it on the day it was out and to those unfamiliar with the French school system, I can tell that they are strict with absences. Just couldn't help it, I had to get my own copy first thing in the morning.

[koipen]

I should have read them english, but at the time my english skills weren't adequate for that purpose, and now HP isn't particularly enthrilling, especially since I have read Methods of Rationality, a terrific fanfic that tells the story of a rationalist Harry. And sci-fi too, which I know feel as a superior form of fantasy. I still have to say that the finnish translation is not too bad, considering some of the anagrams and such (at which point I'm reminded that I don't remember ever reading a bad translation, but that may just be because nowadays I read in English and previously I was just being mostly ignorant in this aspect).

I strongly encourage you to read books in general in english. Mostly you will enjoy them more than Finnish counterparts because the translation cannot fully capture the same feeling the writer laid in them in the original language. Unless you go with something from James Joyce, mst books aare easy going.

[Loure]

I read Harry Potter and the Philosophic Stone in English, but it is sooooooo slow. Uh.
I think that read English is very fun, but I'm not good in kielioppi. Uh, I hate it.
I like this topic, by the way. Thanks a lot!

*bow, bow*

[lustica]

HP in english, no I haven't tried.
My aunt is living in the UK ans she always visits us in summer time. So that year (1997) when the first book was bublished in england she brought it to mee when she came to Finland. She said that the book was a best seller in UK's youth novels lists and that I sould reat it as it would be good for my english skils. Well. I said thank you and read the book in finnish many years later. So The Philosophers Stone is in my bookcase netxt to all other HP's (all others written in finnish) and I haven't read it still. But I have plans to read it, because I'm thinking to read all the books before the last movie to come.

The biggest reason for me to read all the books in finnish, althoug I think that I could have managed those in english as well, is all the really cool and gourgeos words that Jaana Kapari-Jatta has made herself. Of course JKR has also invented new words for english, but I found the finnish ones so interesting that I wanted to see if there was new ones in other books. I mean after I had read the first one in finnish I "had to read" all the rest ones in finnish aswell.
 
But what about all other Harry Potter stuff?? Do you watch your HP movies with out finnish subtitles? Do you visit JKR's homepage and hou dou you manage to survive there, as the pages are in english?
-L-

[Arende]

I've read only the first Harry Potter in english. I was so unsure about my english skills before, so I didn't wanna even try reading them in english. I just felt that I could get more out of them by reading in finnish. I think it was few years ago when I finally felt brave enough to crab that english version of Philosopher's Stone and read it. First I was really annoying my older brother by asking almost every word that I didn't really understand, but finally he made me understand that I don't need to understand every word. It's enough if I just understand the concept. After that it was much funnier and faster to read in english.

Now that I've spent over half a year in Ireland and I've been using english in everyday life, it feels perfectly natural to read and write in english. I have just been so busy (yeah righ, lazy more likely) that haven't had time to read anything else than school books. Maybe when I get back to Finland I will hunt the english versions of Harry Potter down and read them :D I really like the finnish versions, but original is always original ;)

Btw, I would like to know what people think about the english names of people and places? Do they fit better than the finnish ones? I seriously adore the work that Jaana Kapari has done with the books. It's very hard to translate that kind of books in which all the names actually mean something in english. Especially when you know that the readers of finnish books will mostly be children. But I have to admit that the spells just sound so ridiculous in finnish. I mean compare "Tainnutu" to "Stupefy". Much more cooler in english :P

[Queen]

I have read the three first books in English, and I'm working on the fourth one. I have all the seven books in my shelf, and the plan is to finish them all. First time that I read Harry Potter in English was about two years ago. I read the 1st, the 2nd, the 3rd and 150 pages of the 4th book. Then I stopped for some reason. I liked reading in English, but I think I just got fed up with Harry Potter at that moment. It sometimes happens, but I always find the books again at some point. ;) So in last January I decided to start all over again, and I took the Philosopher's Stone in my hand and began to read. So, like I said, now I'm reading the Goblet of Fire. And this time I'm determined to finish it! :)

I prefer reading the books in English. For me it's more enjoyable and I get more out of the books by reading them in the language they were initially written. The world that J.K. Rowling created seems even more real in the original books. I never really found it hard to read in English. It was just fun, and it still is. Of course when I read, I don't know all the words, but it doesn't matter a bit. A lot of words can be understood without knowing their exact meaning. Sometimes I use a dictionary to check some words, but not often.

The Finnish versions of the books are good and I like them a lot, but the main reason I prefer the original ones is how many of the translated words sound kind of clumsy. I understand why they have to be translated, and at somepoints I'm really glad that it is so. For example Tylypahka is genious. :D Even so everything just fits better in the English versions.

And about the movies. I have started (not just in HP-movies, but almost all the movies I watch) to use English subtitles in them. That way I can listen to what the actors are saying and also see how the words are written. It's very informative. :) I love English and want to use every chance to learn it. That's why I'm writing this text now, and I have to say I really enjoy it! ;)

[Audra Dancer]

I don't exactly remember if I've read all the books in English or not, but I think so because I guess I own them all in English... Except for maybe one book as I don't remember if I have Goblet of Fire in English. However, if I don't, I'll buy it some day as well. I've bought the second and the third books in English quite recently, though I had read them before in both languages, English and Finnish. I don't even own the Finnish translations of them as I only have the copies Goblet of Fire, Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blooded Prince in my mother tongue. I also have The Tales of Beedle the Bard and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in their initial language. I've also read the one mentioned second in Finnish but that was ages ago.

Finnish translations are quite clever, yes, and as I've read tons of translated books I've got to say Kapari-Jatta has made really great work with them. Many of the translated books they've got out there, have been either written very poorly or translated just plain terribly. I really don't get why the qualified translators aren't hired to do the job. And if all that crap I've read or tried to read before quitting in complete frustration and searching the book in it's original language (if I just happen to understand it, that is - if I don't, I usually find English translation if the Finnish one is something completely unreadable), if all that has been done by people who translate for the trade, then I'm really worried about the level of the quality of Finnish translation scene.

I have only one of the movies on dvd and I'm not sure if I'm ever going to buy more. I've got HPB because I got it for Christmas a couple of years ago and actually it was quite good movie, even thinking of movies in general and not comparing it in other Potters. Actually the last movie they made was also quite good. It could have been better and there were some things disturbing me but outright it was quite nice. I've watched all of the Harry Potter movies made so far and when the first one came out I liked it. However, when I watched them again some time later, I didn't find them that good anymore. A thing to mention, I didn't watch the movies  when they were brand new, as I started to read the books first and the book I started with was the fourth one. I got it by accident, I guess I won it from some kind of contest or something. I can't call it to my mind, I just remember reading the book outside our cowshed, lying on the scaffoldings while dad painted the building.

- Audra, who didn't know what a scaffolding was in Finnish

[Amyna]

I have actually read all of the Potter books in English. To be honest, I haven't read them all in Finnish.

Me neither :D Though personally, I got nothing against the translated version, it's just that I'm too lazy. I only got the books in English, so to read them in Finnish I'd have to either buy them or get them from the library or something. Too much of a bother :D

I don't very often read books in Finnish anyways. It's not that I wouldn't like Finnish (I absolutely adore it) it's just that most of the books I'd like to read will never be translated to Finnish. Either they're too old or too silly (I read a LOT of paperback vampire novels). So reading in Finnish is kind of a luxury to me :3

I don't know whether the HP books are more impressive in English or Finnish. The one's I've read in Finnish felt quite the same to the originals. I think I had more problems reading in English when I was younger (12...). Now it's a definite sign of a good book if I have to use dictionaries :D

[koipen]

I don't very often read books in Finnish anyways. It's not that I wouldn't like Finnish (I absolutely adore it) it's just that most of the books I'd like to read will never be translated to Finnish. Either they're too old or too silly (I read a LOT of paperback vampire novels). So reading in Finnish is kind of a luxury to me :3

I don't know whether the HP books are more impressive in English or Finnish. The one's I've read in Finnish felt quite the same to the originals. I think I had more problems reading in English when I was younger (12...). Now it's a definite sign of a good book if I have to use dictionaries :D

Although does the eloquence of the language make the book any more worthy compared to a book that manages to use common words as a tool for higher meanings. And besides, no remarkable writers aside of James Joyce spring into mind when I think of convoluted language (Finnegan's wake).

I have started to read more in Finnish recently, mostly due to my newfound interests in flea markets. When you don't have much of a choice other than Finnish that's what you're going to get. I have found that my reading speed in Finnish and English are pretty much equal, take it as a good sign or not. Finnish does strain my brains less though, and I can read longer strips straight.

But really, some books are just cheaper bought in english, if you are looking for specific ones. I came across purely by luck to Cannery Row and The Scarlet Letter for less than 4 euros, quite the nice find.

[Affu]

Oh, finally. *phew*
I said something about speaking About potter in english, I remember it was in that swedish -topic there.
Now, I started reading potters in english also, again. I have all books in english and finnish, but I just liked to collect them, I really never thought reading them. o_o
I'm currently reading OotP, well.. I've read the first page :D
But I'm gonna read DH in english, mostlky because I wanna know when i'm gonna' get scared in cinemas :D

I got my first english potter from one boy in our school, he sold it to me for 1.50 euros, ofc I bought it OwO
and of course, it was Philosophers Stone.
 I was unsure of my english rfirst, but then i realized that my english-skills gets trained everytime I write/listen/read anything in english, and the most important thing is to be understood, not writing right.

Thanks m8s :3