Rating: 
Summary: Great!
Review: After struggling with Cicero, I was exited to learn Harry Potter was being translated into Latin. It is wonderful reading something in Latin that I've already read (several times) in English. I actually feel much more confident in my Latin reading ability and might even try Cicero again soon. Bloomsbury says that there are plans to translate the entire series into Latin. I know that I'll be buying them!
Rating:
Summary: Great!
Review: After struggling with Cicero, I was exited to learn Harry Potter was being translated into Latin. It is wonderful reading something in Latin that I've already read (several times) in English. I actually feel much more confident in my Latin reading ability and might even try Cicero again soon. I truly hope they translate the rest of the Harry Potter series into Latin. I would buy them!
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed.....
Review: Although another Latin translation of a modern book is most welcome, I was a bit disappointed in the lack of an introduction by the authour shedding light on the experience of translating this book into Latin, and the lack of a glossary in the back with the "difficult" words.
The other annoying thing is the fact that the authour begins sentences with lower case letters. What was he thinking of? This is simply distracting/annoying.
Rating:
Summary: Delightful
Review: Although I am not a Latin teacher and haven't really kept up with Latin since I took courses in college many years ago, I found this book delightful. The Latin is grammatically easier even than Caesar, and the vocabulary for the most part within the typical vocabulary of high school courses in Caesar and Cicero (but "Gestatio"?), with the usual invented modern words and some that seem to be from late or medieval Latin. For the most part, the meaning even of the unusual words seemed to be fairly apparent. The story is much better than I expected, and the Latin more manageable than Winnie Ille Pu or even Regulus. I might have preferred "Henricus Figulus" -- but there's no reason to be picky with such a delightful book. I'm actually looking forward to Harrius Potter et Camera Rerum Arcanarum.
Rating: 
Summary: Good translation of a modern child's classic
Review: Although this is great practice for those learning latin, i found some questionable choices in his grammar. I actually prefered it in latin to english for this adds some 'difficulty' in reading a childs book. A lot of fun, i hope more come out.
Rating:
Summary: Regarding the Non-Caps
Review: Despite what the person from Huntington said, Latin sentences do not always end with a verb. Nevertheless, it is true that they didn't use capitalization. However, they did not use punctuation marks or spaces between words, either, in Classical Latin. Let's thank the translator for not being too true to the original or else it would be even more difficult to read. In my opinion, capitalizing words would have been nice, making it easier to read. Also, I agree that a glossary should have defintely been added. Not everyone wants to drag a Latin dictionary around everytime they read it. Despite these things, I have enjoyed the book so far and I think the translator did a pretty good job. The book gets four stars for that and an extra one just because someone had the guts to do it.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent translation
Review: Having studied Latin for seven years, I was very excited about the Latin translation of Philosopher's Stone. The translation is very good, marked only by inconsistant spellings of proper names which should have been picked up by any editor. The style is simple enough that any student with a good base of Latin grammar should be able to translate with the help of a dictionary, as the vocabulary will be in any basic lexicon.
Rating:
Summary: Latin is dead! Long live Latin!!
Review: I did not read yet the book, but I will as soon as I can. For the moment, I would like to share this news with people who loves Latin. Valete.
The other day a friend asked me how potato was written in Latin. Yes, Latin, that ancient language that is taken for dead now and was the language of the Roman Empire when Rome conquered the world, some 2.000 + years ago. I asked the same question to an acquaitance of mine who happens to be an expert on such type of foodstuff and the answer was « sorry, there is no sense in that question : potatoes were first brought to Europe when the Spaniards first settled in America after 1492. Even the etymology of the word is of Centro-american Origin » . He was right !! As happened with syphilis, potato was one of the things the Spaniards brought back home when returning from their conquers. There could not be a word for a thing that did not already exist at the time of the Roman Empire when Latin was at its heyday, not to mention many other things that were not yet discovered, invented or even supposed to exist. Sure, potato was not at all alone in this type of category. The same happened with things or words like astronauts, motorbikes, top-models, typewriters, and many others, just to name a few.
To mend the situation and to give a hand to the people that still has to use Latin as it were still a living language, like people from the Vatican bureaucracy that have to write a lot of cannonical stuff in Latin, The Libraria Editoria Vaticana, hired a bunch of scholars, led by the recently deceased great latinist, the Italian Carlo Ergg (Carolus Egger, in Latin). After years of difficult work they constructed this 15.000-word beautifully printed dictionary and formed, out of what seems to be strict Latin rules of formation of words, this very rich (but intrinsically weird) book of what can be called modern Latin words. The edition that I have in my hand is for German speaking enthusiasts of Latin, a sequel to the original one, which was (sure) Italian/Latin. The importance Latin has in German, Austria and some other German language countries is paramount, where it is part of the regular curriculum of any student in his/hers teens for at least 6 years. I have been told that in Italy, all the Exact Sciences students have Latin for some 4 or 5 years, which helps them a lot in the build-up of their logical thinking.
Ok, but how is potato to be written in « modern Latin » ? The answer is « tuber solani ». And typewritter ? « mensa scriptoria ». Sex shops ? "Rerum obscenarum taberna". Astronauts? "Nauta sideralis". Soccer is " folle pedibusque ludo".
So, besides the seriousness of such a kind of stull, there is some jocular aspects of it, given the gymnastics the word inventors had to perform in order to have their job done. To sum it up, this is one of the weirdst, although pretty much serious word stuff that I have got in my hands in the last years, and I would like to congratulate the people who made it possible to have Latin reinvented and still useful today. See in this regard the Latin web pages at the Finn radio called Nuntii Latini (news in Latin). Valete !!
Rating:
Summary: Excelent find.
Review: I just picked up a copy myself, and I can't stop singing the praises. The Latin is quite managable, though as another reviewer points out, a dictionary is probably a good thing to have around to help with some of the interesting non-classical words. I was really astounded to find out just how much vocabulary I've retained and how quickly the grammar is coming back. Props to Peter Needham for translating this into Latin in a readable manner. I've still got a ways to go on this one, but I look forward to picking up the second book in the series as soon as it's available. Anyhow, enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Interesting diversion...
Review: I've never read any of the Harry Potter books at all (in English or any other language) but now I've embarked on reading Harrius Potter in Latin, just for fun. I've studied latin in high school and taken courses at university where I studied Latin authors, and I have read Vergil's Aeneid in latin from start to finish (took me two years!), so I have a good deal of experience in reading Latin.
My impression, after having finished Chapter One and started on Chapter Two, is that the Latin in this book is much simpler in vocabulary and syntax than the Latin that would have been written by an ancient Roman author. For example, so far there have been none of the lengthy, complicated "periods" of the type favored by Roman authors such as Caesar and Cicero. In other words, the Latin is very easy, and I've only had to look up half a dozen words in the dictionary. It would be interesting to see what the Latin would have been like if Livy or Cicero had translated Harry Potter into Latin!
For me, it's a fun diversion to read this book. There's nothing wrong with the Latin being "easy". However, for a student learning Latin, I have mixed feelings about using the easy Latin of Harrius Potter to get experience in reading Latin ESPECIALLY if the student in question has already read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in English (from reading other reviews, some of them have read the book in English more than once). Obviously, if you're still learning to read Latin, it's MUCH easier to understand what a piece of Latin is supposed to be saying when you already know what it means because you read the thing before in English. I think if you struggle through a piece by Cicero or Caesar (that you've never read before at all in any language) the grammar/vocabulary will stick with you alot better than if you read something in (an easy variety of) Latin you've read several times in English.
In summary: Reading Harrius Potter might help beginners pick up some vocabulary but I don't think it will help prepare them for Suetonius or Vergil.
Anyway, those are just my two cents worth. I'm really enjoying the story and hope they release future volumes in Latin.
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