Title: Very poor translation
Product review: I am a Russian-English translator, and a fan of the Harry Potter books. A friend gave me the Russian version of the first book, and I was quite interested to see how it went. To be blunt, it is poorly translated, and appears to be the result of the Russian publisher hoping to get something on the shelves as soon as possible. A great deal of Rowling's humor lies in her turns of phrase, and the translator made only half-hearted attempts to convey these, if he made the attempt at all. I frequently wondered about his grasp of the English language. Most baffling to me was that the translator changed Neville's pet toad into a turtle--but only on some pages. I cannot recommend this book even as a curiosity, since that would only encourage the publisher to continue putting out shoddy work.
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