The Japanese translations of the Harry Potter books are *difficult*. Even though they’re children’s books, the vocabulary is really advanced. Light novels are mostly easier to read, contemporary fiction by authors like Haruki Murakami and Banana Yoshimoto are mostly easier to read. Just for that reason, I don’t really recommend them for learners. If you want to read a children’s fantasy novel, try 獣の奏者 or 魔女の宅急便.
I know that it’s something a lot of people do, but if I’m being honest, if you’re going to read something in Japanese anyway, you might as well make it Japanese literature. (Just knowing the story of Harry Potter won’t make reading the Japanese much easier; you just know the outline of what’s being said *despite* not being able to read it)
Depending on your level, there are graded readers for the various JLPT levels, or if you can already read a fair bit of Japanese, I recommend getting some short story collections (短編集), as they’re much more condensed. A set from 森鷗外, particularly including 最後の一句 or 高瀬舟 would be my personal recommendation, but 芥川龍之介 is always a good fallback (I recommend looking for his re-imagining of 桃太郎).
They’re fantastic Captures the universe perfectly I’ve read 1 and 3 all the way through and I like them the same as the Original English ones
Edit: the first one required a dictionary but I was able to learn words like “hagrid, grumbled” etc and a lot of descriptive onomatopoeia
The 3rd I didn’t have to look up much
I read the first volume of Harry Potter as one of my first novels. I was not difficult at all, and I feel like the translation was decent, altough you have to get used to the speaking style of some characters
The Japanese translation is infamously bad and a lot of native speakers have complained about it.
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The Japanese translations of the Harry Potter books are *difficult*. Even though they’re children’s books, the vocabulary is really advanced. Light novels are mostly easier to read, contemporary fiction by authors like Haruki Murakami and Banana Yoshimoto are mostly easier to read. Just for that reason, I don’t really recommend them for learners. If you want to read a children’s fantasy novel, try 獣の奏者 or 魔女の宅急便.
I know that it’s something a lot of people do, but if I’m being honest, if you’re going to read something in Japanese anyway, you might as well make it Japanese literature. (Just knowing the story of Harry Potter won’t make reading the Japanese much easier; you just know the outline of what’s being said *despite* not being able to read it)
Depending on your level, there are graded readers for the various JLPT levels, or if you can already read a fair bit of Japanese, I recommend getting some short story collections (短編集), as they’re much more condensed. A set from 森鷗外, particularly including 最後の一句 or 高瀬舟 would be my personal recommendation, but 芥川龍之介 is always a good fallback (I recommend looking for his re-imagining of 桃太郎).
They’re fantastic
Captures the universe perfectly
I’ve read 1 and 3 all the way through and I like them the same as the Original English ones
Edit: the first one required a dictionary but I was able to learn words like “hagrid, grumbled” etc and a lot of descriptive onomatopoeia
The 3rd I didn’t have to look up much
I read the first volume of Harry Potter as one of my first novels. I was not difficult at all, and I feel like the translation was decent, altough you have to get used to the speaking style of some characters
The Japanese translation is infamously bad and a lot of native speakers have complained about it.
e.g.
https://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q10229602085
https://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q11138377416
https://islaya.sarashi.com/haripota01.html
Personally I don’t see why you’d put much effort into reading anything in translation when there’s so many options for other things to read.