Chapter 4: The Leaky Cauldron

Simplified Chinese (Mandarin: China)
破釜酒吧 Pòfǔ jiǔbā	破 pò = 'broken, damaged, worn out, dilapidated'. 釜 fǔ = 'cauldron' (old). 酒吧 jiǔbā = 'bar'.	The Broken Cauldron Bar
Traditional Chinese (Mandarin: Taiwan)
破釜酒吧 Pòfǔ jiǔbā	破 pò = 'broken, damaged, worn out, dilapidated'. 釜 fǔ = 'cauldron' (old). 酒吧 jiǔ-bā = 'bar'.	The Broken Cauldron Bar
Japanese
漏れ鍋 More-nabe	漏れ more- = 'leaky' (moreru = 'to leak'). 鍋 nabe = 'pot, pan'.	The Leaky Pot
Korean
리키 콜드런 Liki koldeuleon	리키 콜드런 liki koldeuleon ='Leaky Cauldron' (phonetic)	Leaky Cauldron
Vietnamese (Chinese characters show etymology)
Quán Cái Vạc Lủng	quán = 'inn'. cái = a counter or classifier for objects. vạc = 'cauldron, pot'. lủng = 'pierced through with holes'.	The Holey Cauldron Inn
Mongolian (new)
Цоорхой тогоо Tsoorkhoi togoo	цоорхой tsoorkhoi = 'hole' . тогоо togoo = 'pot, pan'.	The Holey Pot

This is the place where Fudge had Harry stay for a week after he was rescued by the Knight Bus.

How is 'Leaky Cauldron' translated

A cauldron is an old-fashioned word for a kind of very large pot. It has special connotations in English because witches customarily use cauldrons to make potions.

• The Chinese versions use the term 破釜 pòfǔ, where 破 pò means 'broken, shabby, decrepit' and 釜 fǔ is an old word conveying the old-fashioned flavour of 'cauldron'. In fact, 破釜 is from the Chinese proverb 破釜沉舟 pò-fǔ chén-zhōu, which means 'break the cauldrons and sink the boats' —— in other words, 'to burn one's boats' or 'burn one's bridges'. This dates back to a story from 207 B.C.
  
  
  Xiang Yu was deputy commander of a rebel army fighting against the faltering Qin dynasty. The rebels were camped near a river waiting to attack the Qin army. Fearing defeat at the hands of the well-trained imperial troops, the commander-in-chief of the rebel army persistently held off from battle for a month and a half. As morale declined among the men, Xiang Yu decided that his only option was to kill his wavering superior and take the troops across the river, where he ordered them to sink their boats and break their cooking pots. With their way back cut off, the rebel army fought valiantly and won a great victory.
  
  Needless to say, this story doesn't have much to do with Harry Potter's Leaky Cauldron; it is simply a ready-made, familiar expression that the translators have used.
  
  
• The Japanese translation uses 漏れ鍋 more-nabe, a compound expression composed of 漏れる moreru 'to leak' and 鍋 nabe meaning 'pot'.
  
  
• The Mongolian translation uses the word цоорхой tsoorkhoi meaning 'hole' or 'gap'. In the context it means something like 'holey'. Тогоо togoo is a very general word for a pot, pan, kettle, or cauldron. The meaning is thus 'holey pot'.
  
  
• 'Leaky Cauldron' is translated into Vietnamese as vạc lủng ('holey cauldron') at this chapter. Back in Book One, where the Leaky Cauldron first appeared, the translator used the English name Leaky Cauldron, with the suggested pronunciation Lit-ky Côn-rơn.
  
  
• The Korean translation is the only one to simply transliterate the sound as 리키 콜드런 Liki koldeuleon.

What kind of establishment is the Leaky Cauldron?

In the UK (and other places like Australia and New Zealand), a pub is usually a place that offers alcoholic drinks in the saloon, meals in the dining area, and accommodation upstairs. In other countries, however, it has often been borrowed as another name for a 'bar'.

• In the two Chinese-language versions, the Leaky Cauldron is called a 酒吧 jiǔbā (literally 'liquor bar'), which is not quite accurate. The word 酒吧 jiǔbā (bā is from English 'bar') is purely a place for drinking, so the Chinese versions effectively have young Harry spend a week in a bar!
  
  
• The Vietnamese uses quán meaning 'inn', which is more appropriate than a bar.
  
  
• The Japanese, Korean, and Mongolian translators don't add a word meaning 'bar' or 'pub'.
  
  However, in the text of the chapter the Japanese translator uses the borrowed word パブ pabu. This is also not ideal because pabu in Japan is now just another word for 'bar' — there are lots of establishments calling themselves pabu in Japan that are nothing like real English pubs. The problem, of course, is that it is hard to find an appropriate word to render the word 'inn'. Japanese-style words run the risk of conjuring up images of traditional ryokan. Borrowings from English, on the other hand, tend to lose the quaint connotations of the word 'inn'.

(Korean appears thanks to "Hiro".)

(Detailed notes on the chapter can be found at Harry Potter Lexicon)

⇚ Chapter 3

Chapter 5 ⇛