How the Harry Potter books were translated into French

One of the best ways to improve your French reading comprehension is to read literature in French. It can be daunting to commit yourself to a full-length novel, but doing so will expose you to a wide range of vocabulary and get you in the habit of reading on a regular basis.

You don't need to start with the classics of French literature. Les Misérables and Madame Bovary are lauded works of art, but they're also very long and written in a register that is somewhat different from the kind of French you're likely to encounter in day-to-day life.

Many readers find it easier to start with books they've already read, or are at least more familiar with. Often these may be books translated from English into French. Of course, reading a book that was translated from French into English usually means you'll be reading a book set in France or a French-speaking country, affording you insights into francophone culture and society as well as improving your reading skills. By reading Les Misérables in the original French, for instance, you'd not only substantially improve your knowledge of the language - you'd also learn a considerable amount about the French Revolution.

Some readers also find it jarring to a read a book in French that isn't set in a French-speaking country, and in which the names of characters and places retain their original names. But some translations make a special effort to translate these too. One of these is the Harry Potter books, which were translated from English into French by Jean-François Ménard, a French writer and translator of children's books. Ménard did not just translate the story; he translated character names, objects and even riddles into French, applying a decidedly French veneer to the magical world of Hogwarts (or Poudlard, 'louse bacon', in French).

In this blog we look at some of the interesting choices Ménard made when translating Harry Potter into French.

For many of the characters in the Harry Potter series, Ménard did not change the names. In fact, several of the characters already have French names, reflecting a popular perception of French-sounding names as being vaguely aristocratic that can be traced back to Norman times.

But for some names, Ménard did feel that the spirit of the original name might be lost if it were not translated directly into French. Chief among these is Tom Malvolo Riddle, whose name is - spoiler alert from The Chamber of Secrets - an anagram of 'I am Voldemort'. The French for 'I am Voldemort' is Je suis Voldemort, so Ménard had to completely change Tom's name, landing on the somewhat unlikely Tom Elvis Jedusor.

Below are some of the character Ménard translated from English into French.

Ménard tried to faithfully translate the names of the Hogwarts houses into French, while making accommodations for how certain things sound in French. Ravenclaw's new name, for example, is a shortening of serre d'aigle ('eagle's claw'), which is a little easier to say than serre de corbeau ('raven's claw').

The world of Harry Potter is filled with all sorts of imaginary phenomena, from sentient sweets to magical hats. Many of these were translated by Ménard too.

Ménard encountered another wordplay conundrum with the Mirror of Erised, which is 'desire' spelt backward. However, the French word for 'desire' (désir) is almost identical to the English, so only a minor change to the spelling was necessary.