Mes Rêves #14

#14: Finish a book in French ✓ 

For this goal I chose to read Harry Potter because:

a) I have the whole series memorized so even if I didn't understand the French I would still know what was going on.

b) ...

Just kidding, that was my only reason for choosing Harry Potter.

I knew it was going to be difficult to read a whole book in French, but I didn't realize how hard it would really be until I actually started trying to read. It turns out that having a book memorized and speaking Spanish is not enough to make me a fluent French reader.

But I was determined. I sat in a café for an hour and a half the first day... and made it through the whole first chapter. On the one hand I felt so accomplished for finishing a chapter, but on the other hand I was annoyed at how slow I read. I could have told myself the story in English verbatim faster than I could read it in French.

A little less than a month in (and three or four chapters) I had to put Harry Potter on hold so that I could read The Count of Monte Cristo before I visited Marseille. It was so much fun to be reading in English again that I conveniently forgot about Harry Potter and found other English books to read.

In March I decided it was time to try Harry Potter again. That was the first time I realized how much French I had learned. I was still slow, but I was no longer illiterate-child-who-just-started-kindergarten slow. I could actually read a chapter without having to devote my entire day to it. I started taking Harry Potter with me everywhere and reading whenever I could. The more I read, the easier it was.

Then, three weeks ago I finally made it to the last chapter. But I really wanted a cool picture of me finishing the book, which meant I had to wait for the weather to warm up so that I could finish the book at the park.

Today the weather was beautiful and I finally finished Harry Potter. I read 312 pages in French.

In those 312 pages I learned a lot of interesting things about French Harry Potter:

1. The French version likes to change names unnecessarily. You may think that if Dudley, Dumbledore, McGonagall, Weasley, and Hermione Granger make the cut, everyone will make the cut. This is not the case. Draco Malfoy becomes Drago Malefoy and Snape becomes Severus Rogue (not to be confused with rouge, the color red). Were these name changes really necessary? Why did some people have to change their names and not others?
2. Hogwarts is not Hogwarts. Speaking of name changes, Hogwarts is Poudlard in the French version. Really? Who wants to go to a school called Poudlard?
3. A final rant on names. Gryffindor = Gryffondor. Easy enough. Slytherin = Serpentard. Not as obvious, but still pretty obvious. Hufflepuff = Poufsouffle. A little more challenging, but that word just seems to scream Hufflepuff (perhaps it's the excessive number of 'f's'). Ravenclaw = Serdaigle. What? Where in the world did that come from?
4. French wizards use magical baguettes. True story. A magic wand in French is baguette magique, which now makes me want to wave my bread around and cast spells at people.
5. Voldemort gets another name. In French there is a difference between you formal (vous) and you informal (tu) which means that you can't just have You-Know-Who, you have to have Tu-Sais-Qui and Vous-Savez-Quoi. This is in addition to all of his other names including Celui-Dont-On-Ne-Doit-Pas-Prononcer-Le-Nom (He Who Must Not Be Named). It really gives new meaning to the "fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself" idea.
6. À L'école Des Sorciers is the same thing as The Sorcerer's Stone. The French title of the first Harry Potter book literally translates to Harry Potter at the School of the Wizards. However, when you try and put this into Google translate to make sure you are right, it changes at the last second to "The Sorcerer's Stone" (it works backwards, too). Apparently Harry Potter et la Pierre philosophale just wasn't as cool.

The best thing about reading French Harry Potter, though, was how many new words and phrases it taught me. Like hélas (alas), balai (broom), Dubois (Wood), jumeaux (twins), Moldus (muggles)... Hopefully some of these show up on my French final tomorrow.