Since I’ve known it was a possibility, I have wanted to be able to read a book in another language. I studied two years of Spanish in High School, which didn’t get me to the point I could read a book. I took a semester of German in college, which was about one-year’s high-school learning, so not enough.
I tried Navajo in the 1990s from audio tapes and a handout. Didn’t get far at all.
When DuoLingo came out, I started with Italian. That fit with the violin-making vibe. I also used the Pimsleur Italian course and a handful of language-learning books. After a couple years of that mix, I found a local Italian teacher and added a few lessons with her into the mix. I could read simple newspaper stories and even a couple of easy, short books. Success! But then my ancestors started talking to me. I looked to the north.
I have since partaken in a couple of other DuoLingo courses, including Scots Gaelic, where I got no where close to being able to read more than sentences, and Norwegian, which I have spent the most time on.
I have finished other online Norwegian courses, as well as a couple of free courses offered by various universities in Norway. I’ve studied with hardcopy language-learning books, such as Skapago’s The Mystery of Nils volumes1 and 2. I have gone through the Pimsleur Norwegian audio course. I got to the point I could read short popular science stories. I can make sense of some jokes. I’ve read a few short, easy books. So, success again!
Recently, though, I’ve entered a strange mental space when it comes to reading in Norwegian.
I have long been part of an online language cafe, where we meet in chat rooms with people who are at the same level in learning. We try to speak to each other in Norwegian, ask how we’re doing, what’s the weather like, and so on.
For a few years now, one of the fellows there has run an online book-club, and the books have been the Harry Potter series.
I am not a huge Harry Potter fan. It was fun. But I also realized the language level in the books is actually quite high. They are kids’ books, but complicated kids’ books. Too high for me.
This year, the third year of the club, they are reading the third book in the series, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, or Harry Potter og Fangen fra Azkaban. I decided to take the plunge. I got the e-book version and the Audible version. After a couple weeks of not total failure, I ordered the hardback version, used, not new, from a Norwegian seller.
We meet every other week, Sunday mornings my time, and discuss a chapter. Currently we are reading Chapter 9, “Grim Defeat”, or Kapittel Ni, <<Tungt Tap>>.
Something weird is happening in my head. When I previously read a Norwegian book, a sentence might appear as << Hesten løpt rundt banen og hoppet over gjerdet. >> and in my head I would convert to “The horse ran around the field and jumped over the fence.” Maybe not 100% word-for-word, but my brain would work word-for-word as best it could.
Now, in Harry Potter 3, when I read a chapter for the first time, I put the headphones on, fire up the Audible version, which I’ve set to 85% speed to give myself a chance, and read along in my hardcopy as I listen to the narrator.
A sentence from chapter 9: << Lærerne fat på unnskyldninger for å følge ham bortover gangene, og Perry Wiltersen (sikkert på morerns ordre, tenkte Harry) skygget ham overalt, som en spesielt selvgood vakthund.>>
The corresponding sentence in the English version: “Teachers found excuses to walk along with him, and Percy Weasley (acting, Harry suspected, on his mother’s orders) was tailing him everywhere like an extremely pompous guard dog.”
If you drop the Norwegian text into an online translator, it comes out fairly close.
However, some are not so clear. The last sentence of chapter 8 in Norwegian is <<Ikke god å kommen ut for, han der Serius Svaart.>>. Drop that into an online translator and you find something like “Not good to run into, that Serius Svaart guy.” Whereas the sentence in the (American) English version is: “Nasty temper he’s got, that Sirius Black.”
True Harry Potter fans will also note that the character names are not the same, with the exception of Harry Potter himself. Since I am not well-versed in Harry Potter lore, this is not a huge problem in my head. I can barely keep the names straight in either language.
So here’s where I’m starting to feel weird. In my initial read-through, I don’t translate anything, I don’t look up anything, I don’t read the English version first. I just sit there with my headphones on, listening and reading along in Norwegian.
And I get the idea of the story. I know what’s going on. I could explain it to you in my own words after having read it.
But I didn't really "understand" the words, the individual words.
That last sentence of chapter 8, I understood the feeling of it, what was meant by it, even though those words don’t actually make sense to me on first reading.
After my first read-through of any chapter, I do not have all the details. If I stop and look at the words on the page in front of me, I’m lucky if I know what half of them mean, individually in English. But in context, I understand what’s going on. So I’ve stopped worrying about it, and just read the first time through.
Now, when I'm on my second or third time through a chapter, I do tear it apart, try to understand what this or that word means. Not always successfully. The thing about the Harry Potter books is that they are relatively deep in the language — a combination of words means something different than the combination of definitions (translations) might mean.
People who are bi-lingual or more must have already experienced this. It’s new to me. And it’s made me question how it all works. Here I am, writing — putting shapes in an order — and you are reading it, interpreting it, and creating your understanding of what I’m trying to convey.
It’s just black shapes against a white background. Or vice-versa if you are in dark mode.
So strange to think that we all have decoded our language into meaning, and to wonder at the similarities and variations that exist from person to person.
<<Hesten>> means “the horse” which means a certain sort of animal that you are thinking of right now. You may even have a color-scheme and a location in mind, even though none was mentioned.
Language itself is more magical, and weirder, than any of the Harry Potter stories.
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