Ilya and I are working on a readability test that will work across all LingQ languages. I am using the Harry Potter books as the Rosetta Stone to check it across languages.
I already have the books in Russian and French in e-form. If anyone has them in other Lingq languages in e-form, I would be very grateful if you could send me the first chapter, or even the first half a page, for analysis. If you can’t see my e-mail account on my profile page, let me know.
No books will be harmed during the making of this readability test.
Actually, if you have them in paper form, a scan or photo of the first page would probably work too. As long as I can read the words I can type them in if necessary.
Just to clarify: I am looking for the first page of ALL SEVEN Harry Potter books, because they get progressively harder. I have heard that Rowling wrote them as a series of graded readers for high school children, though I haven’t established if that is true, or if so, how effectively she did it.
I have all 7 in Spanish plus others (some Dutch, German, Italian, French, Brazilian Portuguese, Continental Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese.) Let me know how to contact you.
wow! I think you could solve my problem single-handedly! At least if it doesn’t take you much time to collect all that data. If it takes 15 - 120 minutes I can reimburse you through LingQ, if it takes longer then maybe we should rethink the method.
Statistics is not my strong suit, but I think the first page of each ought to be a representational sample. Maybe the first chapter to be on the safe side.
The results for Russian so far aren’t entirely linear. I suspect J K’s method was at fault rather than ours
I’ve added you to my friends, so you should be able to see my gmail address on my profile page.
Are the results for English are entirely linear? If so, then let us blame the Russian translators for screwing JK up;-). But we need to change the area of our research and the target magazines to sent the papers
I haven’t looked at the English versions yet because I have them in paper form and that would involve actual typing I will later this week.
But whether JK got it right or not isn’t important for our purposes. What is important is that lots and lots of LingQ members, whether they are prepared to admit it or not, are familiar with these books, in their native and their target languages, and can lay their hands on copies if necessary. If I had chosen the secret scrolls of Saint Copernicus this would be a rather academic exercise.
I admire you growing sense of market Helen. But shouldn’t we follow the traditional highway of an academic exercise? I mean you first write the papers, then add your results, then we formulate the research goal and shuffle the authors?
I wish I could get my hands on a copy of the series in Italian, read them when they were coming out but wouldn’t mind reading them again, especially if I can get them in my target language - Italian. I’m interested in seeing the results of this.
Some electronic versions of the books were Fan translations…made before the actual translated versions were released. Some counterfeit versions of the books also used the fan translations…so it might be important for those that send the books to make sure they are sending the actual translations of the books.
I thought about that…also there may be more than one “official” translation in some countries. For the purposes of syntactic analysis though, it shouldn’t make a difference, as long as the translator hasn’t wildly altered the style of the book.
I read a translation of Dracula in German, which had been shortenend, cleaned up and simplified, presumably to appeal to a teenage readership. There was no mention of the editorial changes on the cover or in the preface. Publishers eh?
I like to own the physical book and only use the e-book for portability (I travel a lot) and easier analysis. Finding words on a paper dictionary is time consuming and boring compared to just clicking on a word and getting the electronic pop-up dictionary explanation. And to the point of the fan translations, even scans I made myself will have some funny glitches in the OCR so reviewing against the actual hard copy is necessary to unravel the real from the OCR version. Although it takes a bit of patience, this can actually be good practice reading to edit a scan of a book against the hard copy! I actually have purchased the hard copy of almost all my e-book Harry Potters. Very expensive hobby this kind book collecting!
Jbudding…I agree entirely. It is too bad that all electronic copies of Harry Potter are pirated. As such, when reading the books you run the risk of poor translation and OCR issues.
I remember being excited when I found an electronic version of my favorite Book, “Ender’s Game” in Chinese. I started to read it, and was very disappointed to find that a major event in the beginning of the book, which was quite significant in the overall plot, was missing entirely from the translation. I found several different copies of the electronic book (a fan translation) and all had the same omission. I can only assume they were from the same source.
