Harry Potter lives in the cupboard under the stairs at his uncle and aunt’s house at number four, Privet Drive - until the day when a mysterious letter arrives from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and a giant on a flying motorcycle arrives to change his life with four simple words: ‘Harry - yer a wizard.’
The regular schedule covers one chapter a week, but if you find this too fast, the relaxed schedule covers one chapter every two weeks.
Regular Schedule
Week
Start Date
Chapter
3
Apr 15
Chapter 3
Relaxed Schedule
Week
Start Date
Chapter
5
Apr 29
Chapter 3 (first half)
6
May 6
Chapter 3 (second half)
Discussion Guidelines
Spoilers should always be hidden using spoiler blur.
When discussing a specific section, please mention where you are in the book, ideally by chapter so people reading different versions have a clear point of reference.
Feel free to read ahead if it’s exciting, but please refrain from spoiling ahead of the appropriate week.
If you have a question about grammar, vocab, cultural things, etc - ask! That’s a welcome part of the discussion too, and other readers will be happy to help.
I’ve always loved the instances of humor in these earlier books; a good example is this week, talking about the stick that all the Smeltings boys carry around to smack each other with to build character.
Hi, everyone, I joined Natively recently and am running late, but now reading chapter 3 in Korean, English and Japanese.
I found the description of the wax seal on the letter to Harry interesting. In English it says just ‘eagle’, but somehow it was translated as 독수리 in Korean. Does anyone have any idea why it is?
I found this article, so maybe because 독수리 is quite common in Korea?
Uncle Vernon ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust and flipped over the postcard.
This sentence was as following in Korean version
버논 이모부는 청구서를 북 찢어 여렀고, 더러운 콧물을 쭉 들이켜더니, 우편 엽서를 읽었다
and in Japanese
バーノンおじさんは請求書の封筒をビリビリと開あけ、不ふ機き嫌げんにフンと鼻を鳴らし、次に絵葉書の裏うらを返して読んだ。
So, here I’m feeling Korean version means a bit different from other 2 versions and wondering what made the difference.
Welcome to the group! I’m not a Korean learner either sorry. I can say that I find animal and bird names can be surprising in different languages.
Sometimes another language will use one word for two creatures that have different names in English. E.g. Spanish does not distinguish between dove and pigeon (both are called paloma). I’ve read that several languages don’t have different words for frogs and toads.
Sometimes it’s the other way round and English will only use one word for creatures that have different names in another language. Spanish seems to have several different words for types of owls. And in one chapter of Ciudad de las Bestias in Spanish there were four words that all translated as parrot!
For the seal description Japanese just had a straightforward 鷲 - eagle.
Thank you for the informative reply!
Yeah, in Japanese, we have the word 鷹 たか for hawks, and 鷲 わし for eagles, and I believe they’re basically the same species, just eagles being larger than hawks.
We call both frogs and toads 蛙 かえる , and both doves and pigeons 鳩 はと.
We refer to an owl ふくろう if its head is round, but it will be みみずく if the head has cat’s-ear-like looking feathers on it.
So, the Japanese sense of distinguishing animals might be closer to Spanish than the English one
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