I don’t like that the American version of the books are different than the British versions. To me, it’s unauthentic.
The problem I have with people complaining about this is that they assume that everyone can understand the British version right away. Sure, 15 year olds might know how to Google translations of the word Philosopher and jumper and realize that it’s totally different from how they understand it but maybe not so much for the 8 year olds. I can only speak for myself but if I read a book at that age and couldn’t understand even the slightest details about the story, I may have not enjoyed it as much as I did nor probably wouldn’t have bothered picking up Chamber of Secrets.
I’m 23 now— and a whole lot familiar with the British language— and I’ve been wanting to read the UK version for curiosity’s sake. I bet it’d be wonderful and even be like a totally “new” way of reading the series but I still can’t disregard the fact that I owe the American version my childhood for it is the version that introduced me to this magical world.
There will always be some things that will be lost in translation but what people should understand is that the reason behind changing words or phrases or even names (for some languages) is not because they do not respect the way JK Rowling originally wrote Harry Potter but how they wanted to reach out to other countries and nationalities as well the best way they possibly can.
