LotR - Well translated?

[Reyna Evergreen]

I go to a french school, where LotR (Seigneur des Anneaux) is very popular, but mostly the french version. I read it in english though.

I was talking to my friend about FotR, and he had a completely different idea of what was going on. You might say he could have understood the story a different way, but I read a bit of his copy and was not impressed.

Tolkien's great vocabulary was completely errased, and replaced by simple dialogue we knew since we were young.

So know my friend doesn't know how great of a writer Tolkien was, because this particualr copy wasn't well-done.

Would anyone know why?

[Birdland]

I'm not sure about the why, Renya. (How does one get selected to be the "official" translator of an author's work?) But here are some great threads discussing the various translations of the Master of Middle-earth: Translations (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=001109) and Seigneur des Anneaux! (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=002188)

Maybe these will help.