I bought this great book in Japan about Harry Potter. In honor of the first day of sale for the new book I thought I'd tell you about it.

It is a manual, written in Japanese (with quotes from the Harry Potter Book's in English), that explains Harry Potter. It enables a Japanese person to read Harry Potter in english (given previous knowledge of the language) by explaining all the nuances, with special emphasis on the words that are deliberately misspelled in the books to convey an accent. Those of you familiar with the book will remember that Hagrid drops all his "h"s. This makes it impossible to look those words up in the dictionary, so the book has handy charts listing all the words he speaks as they are spelled in the book with their true english spelling beside. It does the same with the Speech of the French school that visits Hogwarts, and says "zee" for "the".

My book also has character sketches for all the main players in the story; notes on the myths, legends, and Latin phrases that show up in the novels (since these are all from a completely different culture); and a long section on spells, enchantments and magical creatures. Kinda crib notes for the book.

The reason I find this all so fascinating is that the Japanese don't have to do any of this. All the Harry Potter books have been translated into Japanese. There is enough of a demand from those wishing to read it in the original language, though, since all Japanese are taught to read and write and, to a lesser extent, speak English from Grade School onward, that the market for a manual such as this exists.

The one I have is the main overview and introduction to the series that covers the first four books. There are also manuals for the remaining books in the series (I'm sure the one for six will be out soon), and more in depth individual manuals for the first four. It's amazing he amount of effort these readers are willing to expend to enjoy the book in English.

One final note Mihoko-san told me: The way the house elves speak is closer to Japanese than the way the people speak. The elves don't use personal or possessive pronouns. Neither do the Japanese, if I am remembering what Mihoko-san told me right. If we were Japanese and you were talking to me, instead of saying "How is your mother?", you would say "How is Joni's mother?" or perhaps more like "How is the mother of Joni?", even though you were talking directly to me, Joni. The Japanese also don't say things like "They say you should exercise every day," because they don't have a "universal you". Instead, they say "It is said that it is a good idea to exercise everyday,". Notice the difference? Very interesting. I made the mistake of saying a sentence like that to Mihoko-san and she replied "But I do exercise every day!" or whatever it was, because she took it personally. She speaks such perfect English that I sometimes forget that her native tongue in Japanese, and so she has the assumptions inherent in that language.

I love learning other languages, or at least traveling to where they are spoken and soaking some of it up. It broadens your mind.