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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets |
Chapter One: The Worst Birthday
(For the romanisation of Chinese and Japanese, see Transliteration. To understand the writing systems of CJV, see Writing Systems. For word order notes, see Word Order)
Where a Vietnamese word has been borrowed from Chinese, the original Chinese characters are shown in parentheses.
| Chinese (Mainland) | 最糟糕的生日 Zuì zāogāo de shēngrì |
最
zuì
= 'most'. 糟糕 zāogāo = 'terrible'. 的 de = connecting particle 生日 shēngrì = 'birthday'. |
The most terrible birthday |
| Chinese (Taiwan) | 最慘的生日 Zuì cǎn de shēngrì |
最
zuì
= 'most'. 慘 cǎn = 'miserable'. 的 de = connecting particle 生日 shēngrì = 'birthday'. |
The most miserable birthday |
| Japanese | 最悪の誕生日 Sai-aku no tanjō-bi |
最悪 sai-aku
= 'worst'. の no = connecting particle 誕生日 tanjō-bi = 'birthday'. |
The worst birthday |
| Vietnamese | Sinh nhật buồn nhứt | sinh nhật (生日)
= 'birthday'. buồn = 'sad, lonely'. nhứt = 'most' (dialect). |
The saddest/loneliest birthday |
The Chinese and Japanese translators use a popular everyday word that corresponds to English 'worst', as in 'Man, it was the worst!'. 糟糕 zāogāo, 慘 cǎn, and 最悪 sai-aku are all slightly slangy expressions used to describe distressing (although not necessarily 'tragic') situations.
(A summary of this chapter can be found at Harry Potter Facts. Detailed notes on the chapter can be found at Harry Potter Lexicon)
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