Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #429709 in Books
• Published on: 1999-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 305 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9782070518425
• Condition: USED - VERY GOOD
• Notes:
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Customer Reviews

Great way to improve your French
I took French years ago but like many US citizens, I rarely had the opportunity to actually use even what little I knew. Remembering the old saw that "If you don't use it, you lose it," I tried from time to time to improve my reading skills by taking up a book that I knew I had enjoyed in English. Although still difficult to find, books in French are becoming more common than they used to be and less expensive too. I found this one with little difficulty on Amazon, and have added other books in the language from the site to my wish list.

I was so successful in reading and understanding the simple French of Harry Potter, that I was almost at my normal reading speed. Although there were sentances and phrases that did not always make sense to me, I found that if I pronounced the French words in my mind rather than trying to translate the material into English, I often understood much better. I also found that the next time I ran across a new or difficult word that I had found in one context, I recognized its meaning much more quickly in another. Just as in learning to read English as a young person, I find that reading persistantly is the key to developing a vocabularly.

Though I don't ever expect to be a fluent French speaker and will probably never sit down and write my reviews in any language but English, I really, really, really enjoyed having an opportunity to re-read Harry Potter, this time in French. I recommend the series to parents of children learning to read French and adults who wish to improve their language skills.

A la rencontre de Harry Potter
(Pardonnez l'orthographe et les accents manquant)

Ce livre est super pour nous faire rencontrer Harry Potter. Comme adulte, je le trouve tres facile a lire, mais comme parent j'apprecie que mes enfants se trouvent resolue a ecoute l'histoire au complet! On en a lu deux chapitre le jour, et ca seulement a cause que ma voix manquait si j'en lisais plus!

Bien ecrit, avec un complot mouvementez, J. K. Rowlings nous apporte facilement de chapitre en chapitre et d'aventure a aventure. Elle nous intrigue avec ses descriptions et nous nous retrouvons a en vouloir savoir de plus en plus.

Personellement, j'ai lu se livre en une journee, et puis les trois livres suivant en moins d'une semaine! Je ne peux attendre a me retrouve avec le tome 5 de Harry Potter.

Je le conseille fortement aux enfants et aux parents.

Good in French, too
Having just finished a degree in English Literature, I've been avoiding any remotely serious reading like the plague. I've also been a fan of Harry Potter since one of my friends sat me down and told me I wasn't allowed to make snotty remarks about Harry Potter fans unless I at least tried to read one of the books. So when I decided that my post-graduation project would be to dust off my French skills, reading the French translations of Harry Potter seemed the way to go.

I was actually pretty surprised at how much I was able to understand. The grammar and sentence structure is relatively simple, and the wry voice and wit of Rowling still shows through. There was definitely a lot of vocabulary that I had to look up, but there was also a lot of vocabulary that I could pick up from the context: in particular, hibou, voler and cicatrice (owl, fly or steal, and scar). Granted, my familiarity with the series provided a bit of that context, so I would consider this to be between reading a book you have no familiarity with and reading a dual language book with the English on the facing page.

My main complaint with the translation is that some of the names were changed. I'm in book 2 right now, and I still have a hard time accepting Professor Rogue as Professor Snape. Neville Londubat is not quite as bad, but I think there could have been a better way to convey that Snape's name has certain connotations in terms of the character's personality.

Overall, I've been thoroughly enjoying reading in French, which I could not say when slogging through some of The Classics in class. The more I read on, the more I realize that I'm not translating to English in my head but thinking in French. Highly recommended.