Diagon Alley is translated to Le Chemin de Traverse which means “sideroad” or “the road less travelled.

The change was key, because in the third book Riddle explains that if you shuffle the letters of Tom Marvolo Riddle, you get “I am Lord Voldemort. Brontis Jodorowsky, who portrays Nicolas Flamel in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, is a Mexican-French actor. K. Rowling's beloved series is Jean-François Ménard, who was also Roald Dahl's favorite translator, as revealed in this interview with the French publishing house Gallimard (link in French). I had visions of Hogwart's students walking down the stone corridors, battling monstrous snakes with cheese and ham rolls.Slytherin became Serpentard, while Hufflepuff was changed to Poufsouffle (which sounds so adorably like a Hufflepuff). I had learnt “l’école” which means “the school” and I guessed that “sorciers” meant “sorcerers” or “wizards”.

I know the story back-to-front and therefore can fill in the inevitable gaps in my knowledge of French vocabulary pretty easily. I’ve also noticed just how many changes there are when Harry Potter is translated, some words are changed completely (e. This art was first found on audio books before finding its way onto the covers of a few different translations - the French being among them.

In the French translation, explanations of certain features of British schools unfamiliar to French students were inserted in the dialogues (e. I wonder how many French readers realize just how much Harry Potter à l'école des sorciers and its sequels owe, not just to J.

I understand the change in translation because “leaky” is more commonly translated to “ qui fuit” or “ qui prend l’eau” and Le Chaudron Qui Prend L’eau is a little bit of a mouthful. I know from my students that for many people wanting to have a first go at reading a book in a foreign language, translations of J. I suppopse that the similarities (special words are kept: Quidditsch, Hogwarts…, or literally translated: leaky cauldron = tropfender Kessel) in German edition are more due to the translaters intention to stay as close to the original as possible, while others involve more specifics of their own language. Poppy Corby-Tuech, who portrays Vinda Rosier in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, is a French-British actress. In English, "Hufflepuff" refers to the expression "huff and puff," most notably used to describe the wolf blowing on the houses of the Three Little Pigs.If you’ve read “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,” you’ll know that Voldemort’s real name is “Tom Marvolo Riddle,” which when scrambled up spells out “I am Voldemort. Additionally, Aussies are much more likely to have read other books set in British boarding schools, so are more likely to be at least vaguely familiar with the concept. At least some content in this article is derived from information featured in Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery. And talking of French names, Rowling's own liberal use of them gives the translator an extra headache. That really has been driving me crazy, maybe the word ‘philosophy’ is particularly scary to French kids because its compulsory to do it for their BAC!