Harry Potter in Chinese, Japanese & Vietnamese Translation
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Orchideus

 

Simplified Chinese (China) 兰花盛开!
Lánhuā shèngkāi!
兰花 lánhuā = 'orchid flower' .
盛开 shèngkāi = 'be in full bloom'.
Orchid in full bloom !
Traditional Chinese (Taiwan) 噗噗蘭!
Pū pū lán!
噗噗 pū pū = 'pu pu' (represents sound only').
lán = 'orchid'.
Pu pu, orchid!
Japanese オーキデウス!花よ!
Ōkideusu! Hana yo!
オーキデウス Ōkideusu = 'Orchideus (phonetic rendering).
花よ Hana yo = 'flower' + particle. The particle yo functions as a vocative, that is, it indicates that the (latent) flower is being spoken to.
Orchideus! Flower, (bloom)!
Vietnamese Orchideous!
(Footnote: Trổ hoa!)
Orchideus = Orchideus (English used without change).
Orchideus !

Orchideus is a minor spell spoken by Mr Ollivander when testing the wands of the contestants in the Triwizard Tournament (Book 4, Chapter 18, The Weighing of the Wands). It is used to make flowers sprout from the end of a wand.

The meaning is related to 'orchid'; orchids are kinds of decorative tropical flower.

Mainland translation:

The Mainland translator uses a four-character term 兰花盛开 lánhuā shèngkāi, 'orchid bloom'.

Taiwanese translation:

The Taiwanese translator prefers a three-character expression for translating spells. The first two characters represent a sound, pu pu, followed by the word 'orchid', i.e., lán. (notice how drastically the character has been simplified on the Mainland, as ).

Japanese translation:

The Japanese follows a standard pattern: the English is transliterated first (オーキデウス) followed by a translation into normal Japanese (花よ!). オーキデウス ōkideusu 'orchideus' tries to follow the Latin pronunciation to some extent, expecially the final ウス -usu, but the rendering of the 'or' as オー is pure English.

Vietnamese translation

The Vietnamese translation uses the English word Orchideus unchanged but glosses it in a footnote. The footnote, Trổ hoa!, means 'blossom flower!'

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