Solomia watches Harry Potter, the second (and then the third) film, to get the reference of the car that she makes for the fair fest we have at Hnat’s Kindergarten. It’s Harry Potter themed.
She watches it off the iPad, as it’s too scary for the kids for us all to watch off the projector. Plus, she works in the kitchen, so she needs lots of lights. Anyway, that’s a minute detail.
I’ve watched some of it with her too. In general, I don’t like the first four films, and books too. My favourite are from 5 to 7, they’re the most grim.
Anyway, that got me thinking: they’re still good, these early episodes. I did not like them in the childhood, because I did like the book more. And they felt to be rather a parody, or an advertisement for the books (like most films, right?).
But to get the whole thing, and to imagine much more beyond the told story, you have to understand the culture behind it. That’s what I mostly hadn’t during my childhood. Harry Potter was the first book that got me into English language, as I was reading the absolutely awful ruzzian translation. In the childhood, I’ve started reading the book when I was 11, so in circa 2000. If not for my classmate in school, my best friend of the time, I’d never know what Harry Potter is. By that point, at least four books were written. I won’t remember the exact years I’ve been reading them. As soon as my friend bought them, I wasn’t even following. I lived in a completely different world back then, and Harry Potter was a minor fairy tale, not being too popular.
I’ve got to re-read the whole thing when I was about 19 or something, and I couldn’t understand most of the translation, the language. I got furious, downloaded an English version to my mobile phone, Motorola MPx200, and was re-reading the scenes I couldn’t get in the original. That was weird, I didn’t know English good enough to understand properly, but the ruzzian translation was so bad, I got more meaning reading the original.
Later on, my first fully English book would be Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence, I’ve been reading it for a year and a half. It turned out to be too complicated for me, but I’ve got through it.
Now, Harry Potter’s English is pretty simple for me, and I understand everything, either it’s a spoken language in the film, or written words in the books.
However, cultural element is not as simple as it may seem. There are many tiny elements on which neither the films, nor even books elaborate. Now I see them, but I wonder which part I’m missing. Is it a lot? I start feeling it is a lot.