Since I've never studied Hindi in a classroom, I feel this is quite an accomplishment. I'd like to take this occasion to share some thoughts on how this works, whether it can work, for the self-directed student.
I bought my copy in Delhi when I took my trip a few months back, on the theory that, even if I didn't read it, it would be an interesting novelty to have. Now that it's summer, I've been able to take a good crack at it and build up some momentum.
My new goal is to reach Christmas by Christmas. Which is to say:
- Chapter 12 starts with the words "Christmas was coming."
- In the Hindi translation ("Christmas aa raha hai"), this lands on page 179.
- As of this writing, there are 164 days until Christmas.
- I'm now on page 22, so if I read around a page a day (156 to go), I'll have Christmas with young Harry.
Potter for Language Learners
Ordinarily, it seems, these things are done as enticements for young students -- a treat after hard work. In beginning Latin, for instance, there is an awful lot of boring memorization of nouns and irregular verbs, repetitive and uninteresting drill sentences such as "The sailors went on the boat. The sailors set sail. The boat sailed on the ocean."
You don't really come down from this in modern languages. I remember French classes being completely uninteresting drills on commonplace items -- newspapers on tables, how are you, my aunt is a bus driver, shall we see a movie -- until I actually went to France for the first time.
Throw in Harry Potter, and suddenly the cat turns into a woman. The motorcycle came from the sky and landed on the street. The boy had a scar shaped like a lightning bolt. The attraction is obvious.
The Culture Barrier
However, Harry just doesn't translate. Wikipedia lists a great number of problems in translating the books. Let's stick close to the Hindi.
In Hindi, Hagrid in Book 1 Chapter 1 works out to be a pretty gross character. His hair is completely untamed, like a jungle. Instead of importing the English polka-dotted, the translator has him blow his nose into a spotted (speckled, dirty) handkerchief. At last he gives a cry like a wounded dog.
Dogs are sympathetic in English, but not so much in India. Making Hagrid out to be all dirty and snotty and then comparing him to a dog simply doesn't work. The dog that comes to mind is a street dog. Reading it in Hindi, you are right alongside McGonagall asking "How can you trust him with a baby?!"
Language Is Culture
Language isn't just a cipher code, where you decode ABC from ZYX. Reading original works in the target language are not just about expanding vocabulary. You learn idioms, jokes, turns of phrase and basic proverbs. You get a sense of the inner life of the language.
Potter-in-translation is working directly against this purpose -- it is trying to convey an accurate sense of English -- and Wizarding(!) -- culture in the target language.
That means, for all the hours and hours of effort I'm putting into reading Hindi Harry Potter -- I have to keep putting in even more watching Bollywood films, listening to Hindi music, reading Hindi newspapers.
When Worlds Collide
Oddly, though, culture seeps in at the edges. You find it in ways you might least expect.
Like many other languages, colloquial Hindi uses a lot of English for its 'modern' Western vocabulary -- Mistar Dursley is a daarektar of a kampanii that makes drils. By quite a contrast, Albus Dumbledore (although he is a Prafessar) wears chashma (glasses), a choga (a robe), and his light putter-outer is translated as a batti bujhaane vale yantra. The more we leave Privit Draiv, the more we enter the Wizarding World, the closer we seem to get to vernacular Hindi usage.
For a person whose goal is not merely to absorb but to interact, I think reading Rowling in translation can become a gateway to switch between the cultures naturally.
Rowling describes (magic notwithstanding) a world I am familiar with. Privet Drive is a very ordinary street, a samanya sadak; now that I know what it looks like in Hindi, I can describe my own street. I can talk about my own world.
Being able to speak every day in Hindi, about the things I see every day -- will mean that when I eventually get back to India, my Hindi will hit the ground running. I will be able simply to add vocabulary as it comes up.
The English Horizon
Colloquial Hindi also has the unusual feature of borrowing Urdu and English quite commonly. As a practical matter, I will never speak only 100% pure Hindi in India. Reading Potter in Hindi models, in simple language, how this can be done without lapsing--or being pushed--into speaking pure English. "My dear professor," says Dumbledore, before he continues in Hindi.
In Sum
You never for a moment forget you are reading a translation. And as a translation, like 99% of translations, it both fails to capture the brilliance of the original and the flavour of the target language.
However, I can't think of a single thing that would be better to read for an intermediate student. I won't be memorizing literary or poetic words; I will have the chance to use my rapidly-expanding vocab in daily conversation; I will get accustomed to thinking about familiar things with new words; and the vocabulary will be mutually reinforcing with my other study materials.
In the end, the loss of cultural immersion is kind of a wash. I don't learn anything about my target culture, but I'm also not getting fatigued constantly thinking about it, either.
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