Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets |
Chapter Two: Dobby's Warning
(For the romanisation of Chinese and Japanese, see Transliteration. To understand the writing systems of CJV, see Writing Systems. For word order notes, see Word Order)
Where a Vietnamese word has been borrowed from Chinese, the original Chinese characters are shown in parentheses.
| Chinese (Mainland) | 多比的警告 Duōbǐ de jǐnggào |
多比 Duōbǐ = 'Dobby'. 的 de = connecting particle 警告 jǐnggào = 'warning'. |
Dobby's warning |
| Chinese (Taiwan) | 多比的警告 Duōbǐ de jǐnggào |
多比 Duōbǐ = 'Dobby'. 的 de = connecting particle 警告 jǐnggào = 'warning'. |
Dobby's warning |
| Japanese | ドビーの警告 Dobii no keikoku |
ドビー Dobii = 'Dobby' の no = connecting particle 警告 keikoku = 'warning'. |
Dobby's warning |
| Vietnamese | Lời cảnh cáo của Dobby | lời = 'words' cảnh cáo (警告) = 'warning' của = 'of' Dobby (pronunciation: Đốp-bi). |
Dobby's words of warning |
All editions use parallel expressions.
The characters for Dobby in the Chinese versions mean 'many' + 'compare', but this is irrelevant because the characters are used solely for their sound value, not their meaning.
The word for 'warning' is etymologically the same in all three languages and all four versions. Given the heavy use of etymologically Chinese elements in both Japanese and Vietnamese, this is far from surprising. What is perhaps more surprising is how infrequently this situation occurs in the translation of the Harry Potter books.
(A summary of this chapter can be found at Harry Potter Facts. Detailed notes on the chapter can be found at Harry Potter Lexicon)
 Chapter 1 |
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