Okay, I've finally finished my project that took over a year
- I've read The
Fellowship of the Ring in French!
So, here are some names for you (
Mac has mentioned some on this thread, but a little repeating won't kill anyone):
The Lord of the Rings - Le Seigneur des Anneaux
The Fellowship of the Ring - La Communauté de l'Anneau
The Two Towers - Les Deux Tours
The Return of the King - Le Retour du Roi
Middle-Earth - Terre du Milieu
Frodo Baggins - Frodon Sacquet
Sam Gamgi - Sam Gamegie
Merry Brandybuck - Merry Brandebouc
Pippin Took - Pippin Touque
Strider - Grands-Pas
Bree - Bree
Crickhollow - Creux-de-Crique
Hobbiton - Hobbitebourg
Bag-End - Cul-de-Sac
The Shire - la Comté
Weathertop - le Mont Venteux
Bilbo Baggins - Bilbon Sacquet
The Sackville-Bagginses - Les Sacquet de Besace
Fatty Bolger - Gros Bolger
Ted Sandyman - Ted Rouquin
The Gaffer - l'Ancien
Barliman Butterbur - Prosper Poiredebeurré
Bill Ferny - Bill Fougeron
Black Riders - Cavaliers Noirs
Dark Lord - Seigneur Ténébreux
Mount Doom - la Montagne de Destin
Goldberry - Baie d'Or
Old Forest - la Vieille Foręt
Old Man Willow - l'Homme-Saule
Barrow-Downs - Les Hauts des Galgals
Barrow-Wight - un Etre de Galgal
Saruman of Many Colours - Saroumane le Multicolore
Gollum - Gollum
All in all, I'm afraid the translation is quite horrible. Names like "Saroumane le Multicolore" or "les Piliers d'Argonath" or "Hauts des Galgals" (although it's cute too
) totally cracked me up, they don't sound impressive like they should.
Furthermore, the translator has been incredibly lazy and unimaginative. For example, when there's the gift with the letter "G" for both garden and Galadriel, he has just made a footnote that "garden" is garden in English. (In the Finnish translation, the translator changed the letter to V so that it meant both
Valtiatar "Lady" and
vihreä "green", which was what a good translator should do, if you ask me.) Also, when Legolas cries "
Yrch!" and Gimli says "Orcs!" the stupid translator has them saying "Des
Yrch!" and "Des Orques!". Okay, we know that in such pharses we need the "des" to indicate partitive in French, but why do you have to add it to the Elvish word?!? It makes absolutely no sense that Legolas would start it as it was Westron ie French and then finish with the actual word of his language... such a silly mistake by someone who's supposed to be a professional.
There are other examples like this but they annoy me so much that I won't repeat them here...
Anyway, some (albeit very few) parts sounded good in French, and I need to keep practising my language sklls, so maybe I'll read the two other parts of LotR in French some day... If I do, I'll come here again to share some more names with you.
Meanwhile, comments (and questions) are welcome and definitely new names as well!