Post by maaria on Jun 16, 2018 12:46:56 GMT -5
I’m new here, hello everybody!
I’m from Finland but moved to Sweden when I was 22, almost 11 years ago. I grew up obsessed with BSC but the series were translated slowly into Finnish. I remember buying the newest book, Hello, Mallory, and waiting for Jessi’s secret language because the title sounded interesting (I love languages!).
They eventually translated up to Kristy and the Mother’s Day Surprise and then stopped. I bought a couple of books in London and read all BSC books in English at every library I could, but that’s not a lot. Now I finally bought some of the newer ones on Amazon and found this board too - I think I’m even more obsessed now than two decades ago!
Once, before reading any BSC in English, I saw a couple of Swedish BSC books at a friend’s, and thought they had changed the names... before realizing the names were changed in the Finnish ones as the Swedish book I was looking at had the original names. It’s really weird, the names in the Finnish books are nothing like Finnish names. They just don’t sound very stupid if Finnish kids pronounce them as they are written (Finnish is pronounced the way it is spelled).
The club in Finnish books:
Lisa Thomas
Anne Spier
Valerie Kishi
Susan Gill
Violet Schafer
Mallory Pike
Jessi Ramsey
Logan Bruno is Bruno Logan (!!!)
David Michael is simply David. (I don’t have the book so I can’t check if Emily Michelle got to keep her second name.)
Myriah is Miriam.
Lucy (Lucille Jane) Newton is Jane (Janette Lucy) Newton.
Stoneybrook is Stonebrook!
All the other names, if I haven’t forgotten some, are the same.
The first books were translated by the same translator as the Harry Potter books, by the way!
Now I have bought BSC books in Swedish too. It seems they were published in Swedish three times: 1989-1990 as ”Våran klubb” (our club), I have the books 1-6 and I don’t think there’s more. The names were Kristy, Mari, Cindy, Sara and Dawn.
Then 1992-1993 as Barnvaktsklubben (the babysitters club), I have the books 1 and 7-11 and I think that’s all. The names were not changed and, beside the names, only minor changes were made in book 1 from the first edition.
And then 1999 as The Babysitters Club, by the same publishing house as the 1989-1990 books. The books were numbered 1-6 but they are Dawn’s Big Date, Mallory and the Dream Horse, Jessi’s Gold Medal, Stacey’s Choice, Mary Anne’s Makeover and Claudia’sFreind Friend. I have all but MA’s makeover and it seems like there’s no more (nothing for Kristy!)
The names were not changed. I’m happy I found these newer ones because I only have Jessi’s Gold Medal in English and had never read the other ones (I only finished Jessi’s Gold Medal yesterday). But I’m not a big fan of Swedish translators, they’re usually not as good as the Finnish ones. They seem to have skipped some challenging parts and made the text just a little shorter and less complicated.
I also have Mallory and the Trouble with Twins in Italian. No changed names there either, I don’t know Italian well enough to say if the translation is good or not (but well enough to read a book I’ve read in other languages, and this one is my favorite BSC book).
I’m from Finland but moved to Sweden when I was 22, almost 11 years ago. I grew up obsessed with BSC but the series were translated slowly into Finnish. I remember buying the newest book, Hello, Mallory, and waiting for Jessi’s secret language because the title sounded interesting (I love languages!).
They eventually translated up to Kristy and the Mother’s Day Surprise and then stopped. I bought a couple of books in London and read all BSC books in English at every library I could, but that’s not a lot. Now I finally bought some of the newer ones on Amazon and found this board too - I think I’m even more obsessed now than two decades ago!
Once, before reading any BSC in English, I saw a couple of Swedish BSC books at a friend’s, and thought they had changed the names... before realizing the names were changed in the Finnish ones as the Swedish book I was looking at had the original names. It’s really weird, the names in the Finnish books are nothing like Finnish names. They just don’t sound very stupid if Finnish kids pronounce them as they are written (Finnish is pronounced the way it is spelled).
The club in Finnish books:
Lisa Thomas
Anne Spier
Valerie Kishi
Susan Gill
Violet Schafer
Mallory Pike
Jessi Ramsey
Logan Bruno is Bruno Logan (!!!)
David Michael is simply David. (I don’t have the book so I can’t check if Emily Michelle got to keep her second name.)
Myriah is Miriam.
Lucy (Lucille Jane) Newton is Jane (Janette Lucy) Newton.
Stoneybrook is Stonebrook!
All the other names, if I haven’t forgotten some, are the same.
The first books were translated by the same translator as the Harry Potter books, by the way!
Now I have bought BSC books in Swedish too. It seems they were published in Swedish three times: 1989-1990 as ”Våran klubb” (our club), I have the books 1-6 and I don’t think there’s more. The names were Kristy, Mari, Cindy, Sara and Dawn.
Then 1992-1993 as Barnvaktsklubben (the babysitters club), I have the books 1 and 7-11 and I think that’s all. The names were not changed and, beside the names, only minor changes were made in book 1 from the first edition.
And then 1999 as The Babysitters Club, by the same publishing house as the 1989-1990 books. The books were numbered 1-6 but they are Dawn’s Big Date, Mallory and the Dream Horse, Jessi’s Gold Medal, Stacey’s Choice, Mary Anne’s Makeover and Claudia’s
The names were not changed. I’m happy I found these newer ones because I only have Jessi’s Gold Medal in English and had never read the other ones (I only finished Jessi’s Gold Medal yesterday). But I’m not a big fan of Swedish translators, they’re usually not as good as the Finnish ones. They seem to have skipped some challenging parts and made the text just a little shorter and less complicated.
I also have Mallory and the Trouble with Twins in Italian. No changed names there either, I don’t know Italian well enough to say if the translation is good or not (but well enough to read a book I’ve read in other languages, and this one is my favorite BSC book).