I like how you handled Spell Creation.

"“Idiot boy,” Rosemburg barked. “You transferred to Durmstrang without knowing German? Did you think we would all speak English just for you, Potter?” "

Also I like this for some reason it just works well here. I felt Harry was somewhat arrogant trying to learn German a couple of weeks before school started and then finding out he might not be good at everything because of how the translation charm barely helped. This just seems to fit well and make the character more realistic. He had a moment of arrogance and is getting his face rubbed into the dirt over it and it just seems to add a good deal of realism to the chapter which is what you need considering how many OCs as well as new school he is having to deal with. The problem with German seems to anchor him into some sense of reality.

Krum not getting along with others seems strange. However him dropping two classes simply because he wants to fly on a broom is utterly stupid. That seems like a strange leap of logic. Especially since Karkaroff wanted him to be the Triwizard Tournament competitor in canon. If he barely had a education because all he did was fly a broom their is no way he would have been chosen or anyone want him to be chosen. Especially if he is barely passing Charms and Transfiguration. Although if he was good at Charms and Dark Arts then Transfiguration would be understandable since he was bad at transfiguration during the second task. Also he seemed if not popular at least respected by other students of Durmstrang in canon. I saw Krum as being a anchor to reality in a school full of OCs and you seem to have totally changed Krum OOC. That's going to make it a even harder struggle to add realism to Durmstrang when you take out one of it's only canon characters and make him a OOC version. Also wouldn't being the best seeker in the school make him fairly popular? Krum's character in this story has really rubbed me the wrong way from when you first introduced him.

 

I disagree with you Jigokuno in the fact that Krum is too out of character. I believe that it was only Karkaroff that wanted Krum to be chosen and that Krum was just respected after getting famous. He seemed a bit lonely in canon actually why else was he always alone in the library and why else would he see Granger as the person he would miss the most.

I really like this story and I hope you make sure you finish it.

 

Same, Krum's isolation can work with what cannon shows of him being lonely. I like the idea you have of Krum working his ass off to become great at Quidditch, and I can see him being an outcast at a purebred school because of that. I would think at a purebred school Quidditch would not seem like a proper profession for any respectable wizard to do, especially the nobility in which they seem to hold themselves. Good hobby to have? Yes. Professional Career for a pureblood? No.

Could you see Princess Diana racing on a broom anyone? Don't think so (A bit extreme, but brings my point across.)

Honestly after you said your were going to Durmstrang in this story I didn't expect much to come from this, thought it would be a flop like many others. Glad you a proving me wrong, this is great shit.

 

He may have become really popular after playing well for Bulgaria and was disliked in Durmstrang until he became famous. A lot can happen in 3 years, he could have proven himself to everyone at some point before the Triwizard Tournament.

 

But if he was so terrible at classes like Charms and Transfiguration why would anyone want him to represent their school? Unless he is amazing at the Dark Arts. It just seems strange such a underachiever becomes the Twiwizard Tournament participant for such a powerful school. I know he was bad at Transfiguration in canon since he did a bad shark transfiguration in the second task but he would have to be amazing at Charms and Dark Arts to even get in the tournament to compete. It seems unlikely anyone would want him to represent their school in such a dangerous tournament if his only skill was flying. Maybe I am being too harsh on him and he is actually a extremely powerful wizard and he hasn't shown it yet. Right now though he seems like a magically weak wizard who can fly well which doesn't make for a twiwizard tournament competitor.

 

Did you even read GOF? The Goblet selects the champions, not the school. And at that point, he was a world famous Seeker so yeah, he probably would get a lot of support and cheers from his school mates, coupled with the fact that he is infact their champion.

 

I like lonely Krum and Harry's struggle w/ German, but U agree that Krum should be more capable.

 

My thoughts on Krum:

There is no way in my mind that Krum could become the greatest Seeker in the world by age 17 if he didn't spend an inordinate amount of time practicing Quidditch. Since there is only so much time in a day, I think Krum would have to neglect his academic work at some point. In the Durmstrang I've created, that would definitely raise eyebrows as Viktor isn't interested in moving ahead in classes or being one of the top students. He just wants to play a game.

Natually, when it becomes apparant that Viktor is friggin sick at said game, a lot of people, from Karkaroff to the students, will start to suck Viktor's cock. One of the reasons I wanted to include Viktor in this story is to show his story at Durmstrang as well.

As for lonely Krum, I think there is canon evidence to support this. Viktor does his best to ignore the obsessive fangirls that follow him around, demonstrating a contempt for people who only see him for his fame. Then there is the fact that Hermione is the thing that Krum would miss the most during the 2nd task. Since Fleur's little sister was 8 at the time, and not yet enrolled at Beauxbatons, we have to assume that the people running the task considered everyone.

That means that Krum has no close friends at Durmstrang, no close family, and the person he would miss the most is Hermione, someone he just met at Hogwarts. That shows a very lonely, yet driven, individual. Someone very much like the Harry Potter I've written.

That said, Harry will influence Viktor and help him to become a better wizard by the time of GoF.

 

And when you consider Durmstrang's ultra competitive nature having Krum accepted back into a class he already failed actually says a lot about his natural talent and/or intelligence.

 

Nicely thought out. If you put the same amount of thought into other characters you'll have no problem with expanding Durmstrang.

 

Makes a lot more sense now that you explained it out more.

 

very well explained the santi. it is very convincing now.

 

Harry under the lake? :awesome If they get as close as your showing seems like it. No spying on some girl in the library for awhile will make her the thing you want most. Unless you get a couple good peeks in that is.

 

This is the most overused line in Harry Potter fanfiction and immature writing in general. Cut it out. I highly doubt Harry, or anyone, actually shivers at the thought of anything a librarian would do.

 

I think you went overboard with this accented speech. The spelling you chose seems random and excessive, and it is difficult to read. I had actually to stop and re-read some such passages (which is, obviously, not good for the flow of the story).

You wrote that Grausam spoke English with Slavic accent, but the spelling is all wrong.

Bad: "‘ad", "‘ave", "‘eard" - denotes the silent "h". Slavs don't have silent "h" (and I think neither have Germans), so it has no place here.

Good: "vould" - labiodental [v] in place of the approximant [w].

Bad: "vhen", "somevhere" - random combination of "vh", which has nothing to do with phonetics. You can't just invent accented spelling. Use "ven", "somevere" instead.

Bad: "Dat", "dink", "dey" - this is the worst part, so, please, read carefully my explanation. First, you didn't differentiate between voiced and voiceless "th", which is wrong, because in Slavic voiced "th" will be pronounced as [z], and voiceless as . Second, "Dat" could be the Greek pronunciation of the dental-fricative "th", which in Greek sounds closer to plosives. So, "Dat" could be the correct spelling for the Greek accent, but not Slavic. Also, reading all these "Dat", "dink", and "dey" makes me think that the guy has a broken nose.

And finally, as "Dat" sounds so much like "dast ish", it could denote the accent of a Slav who speaks fluently in German, and not-so-fluently in English. This raised another point: don't mix up different accents, because it is very confusing to read! Unless you know what you are doing (or your last name is Shaw), you will butcher things up very badly.

Excessive: "vos" (was) - voiceless in place of [z] in the end or before another consonant - it works that way for Slavic languages all-right, so it's good, right? No, sorry. When speaking the foreign language we tend to pronounce every sound very carefully, and so "was" could as well be pronounced as [voz] (with very strong, exaggerated, fortis-like [z]). But in fact, "was" is not such a difficult word for somebody beyond the beginners' grasp of English language, so Grausam could have easily pronounced it correctly as [woz].

Bad: "zome" - random, nothing to do with phonetics.

Bad: "dizguzting" - this also hurts my eyes, because if I'm not mistaken, you don't ever pronounce [z] before another consonant in the whole indo-european language group. So, it is also random, and has nothing to do with phonetics.

On the second examination of your "dizguzting" masterpiece, I did notice another bad thing about it: the "-ing" in the end. It is velar-nasal in English. Slavs don't have this sound, and will pronounce an alveolar [n] instead. In fact, it is very difficult to learn how to pronounce "-ing" correctly.

Good: "eef" - long . Slavs pronounce all their vowels with pretty much the same length (duration), with exceptions being, for example, Serbs and Czechs, who have two types of vowels: short and long. Regardless, we don't have "bee", "bead", "beat", "bit", and "bait" [ei] lengths of the same , so "dark" and "duck" will be both pronounced the same way in Slavic accent. I reiterate: we cannot perceive nor reproduce the difference between "bee", "bead", "beat", "bit" and whatever there is in-between, It sounds all the same. Frankly, two tenths of a second (or less) that makes that difference, is pretty darn short time for my ears.

Bad: "Ve" - is also pain in the eyes. It is hard to realise that "Ve" means "We". "We" is a two-letter word, one of which you change to denote the accent == bad. Why not take a step further and write "Vee", or "Wee"? You should have left "We" as it is.

***

So, what are the tips when you want to denote Slavic accent, or any other accents whatsoever?

First, I implore you to use proper English spelling whenever possible, and only use one or two "accented" spellings in key places, to make sure the Reader will notice that the speaker is a foreigner. Use a fruity, amphasized word for that purpose, so there will be no mistaking that the speaker is of the (Slavic) origin. The Reader must read your word, savour it, chuckle to himself, and then move on reading.

To note, using "Ja" as you did, is not what I'm talking about. People don't ever, ever, ever switch between two languages unless they're speaking math, or are greatly excited at the moment (and will let slip such "ja"-s, and "niet"-s).

Explain, tell the Reader that, "You have much practice with Portkey travel, Potter?", said Grausam in English. He spoke with a heavy Russian accent. Or: "You have much practice with Portkey travel, Potter?" said Grausam, rolling his "r"-s with particular savour.

Use less idioms, phrasal verbs, and phraseologisms in accented speech. Make accented speech as unsophisticated as possible. Use simpler sentence structure. Your character must have a favourite idiom, favourite phrases in English that he likes to use.

***

Speaking strictly of Slavic accents, remember:

To denote Slavic accent don't use contractions in speech.

Also, make incorrect usage of articles throughout speech. There's no such thing as articles in Slavic.

Use incorrect prepositions in phrases. Phrasal verbs is a nightmare even for somebody who can speak confidently in English.

Mangle up tenses. Verbs in Slavic and English have different set of tenses, and these sets are not equivalent.

In Slavic, things have masculine or feminine, as well as neuter, gender. Like "ship" is commonly a "she" in Scotland, so animals, birds, cities, tables, and kitchen sinks are all gender-endowed in Slavic languages. House pets and common animals will never be referred to as "it"; in fact, their grammatical gender will depend on their actual gender. In Slavic, we also tend to "guess" the gender of the person when it is unclear whether it is a man or a woman. We can adopt a speech with only impersonal pronouns, but it is very tiresome and sounds alien. Also, for example, the phrase in English "it cannot be done that way" with Slavic accent will become "you cannot do it that way". In Slavic, "it" is lie.

Demonstrative pronouns is a difficult concept. In Slavic languages, the distinction between "this" and "that" is vague, less definitive. So, "this" and "that" get often confused with each other. Use that.

Also, personally, I tend to generalize: use "we" instead of "I" when I provide opinion about something, and tend to postulate things. I'm pretty sure it is a common trend in Russia. Also, I don't like to bother with complex sentence structures, as shorter sentences are much easier, but - what is important - it makes me sound rude and/or stupid.

***

If you want to describe native Slavic speech, you could also note that the native speech is rich with fricatives and africatives (the sibilant consonants). There's also a vowel that has no equivalent in English (close central vowel ы). Everybody knows the typical rolling "r". There're plenty of differences, Slavic speech is not even rhythmically the same as English.

***

If you still want to use spelling to denote accent, let's look at what makes Russian accent (because I know Russian the best, heh).

- velar "n" (-ing) has no equivalent in Russian and will be pronounced as "n" (-in).

- plosives [pbtdkg] will be pronounced with less aspiration, and they are harder (fortis), while in English plosives sound closer to fricatives. (Sadly, it cannot be shown with spelling)

- neither voiced, nor voiceless "th" have equivalents in Russian. They will be pronounced as [z] and respectively.

- "r" is an alveolar hard, trilling (rolling) consonant. I think it is the same "r" as in scottish dialect, at least I can hear no difference between them. (cannot be shown with spelling)

- velar fricative "h" has no equivalent in Russian, and will be pronounced as [x] (as in scottish "loch"). (to show this with spelling use "kh", or whatever combination seems appropriate)

- "w" has no equivalent in Russian and labiodental [v] will be used instead

- "l" has equivalents only on western Slavic languages. In Russian "l" is a dental consonant. (cannot be shown with spelling)

- Russian vowels do not differentiate in length. Also, "Box" and "fur" will be never pronounced correctly. Russians use different allophones for [u:], [ae:, a:], and [o:]. This fact is also hard to reflect upon with just spelling. Use descriptions, like "his vowels sounded a bit off, especially his 'o' when he said he's been waiting for me."

- Stress (emphasis) is not fixed in Russian words, it could be anywhere in the word. When unsure, the English will place the stress on the first vowel (if I'm not mistaken), while the Russian will stress the vowel in the centre of the lexeme (usually the second vowel from the end).

 

Well, you're thorough I'll give you that. I'm not expecting the author to make any changes based on the fact that it's an annoying little nitpick that won't even matter in a few chapters anyway.

At the moment, the barely coherent speech and fragmented dialogue is helping to portray the new environment Harry is in.

I'm guessing once the language charm is finished and Harry understands German, all accented words will disappear from the story on the basis that it's annoying to read and a bitch to write.

 

Jesus fuck...almost every person in this thread has posts equal or longer than the author's chapters.

@Alexeyy: given the nature of the language charm, and the fact that it barely works for Harry, the broken speech patterns make perfect sense. I'm assuming it's a platform upon which, as Harry improves, we'll see less and less broken areas.

It's supposed to be difficult, because he doesn't know the language yet. Unless you expect the author to do the following:

@Amerision: I shivered at the thought of Banner (a 50+ yr old woman) posting about how badly she wants to fap in the No-Fap Thread.

I shivered at the thought of walking in on David Beckham tonguing Brad Pitt's ass.

I shivered at the thought of the 2 girls (and one cup) sharing a backyard with mine.

...meh. So maybe most people wouldn't really shiver, but if the author changed it to, say, mentally shivered, I could tolerate that.

Santi: I'm fighting every instinct that would normally make me hate this story, but it's not nearly as terrible as I expected. i still hate the premise of Harry going to Durmstrang because he has no friends and wants to learn advanced magic, but considering just how much work you went through to actually get him there...as if anyone with a desire to be a great wizard would leave the school with the greatest fucking wizard as headmaster (a role that's secondary to being an honorary grandparent, mind you) an animagus as a transfiguration genius, a dueling champion as a charms professor, and Snape. You even hinted at Sirius's breadth of knowledge with his casual offer to teach a Ministry-regulated charm to a 1st year, indicating yet another font of knowledge.

But since you insist on going the Durmstrang route, and you have crafted this rather well, you might as well do your thing. 3/5

 

I agree. Please do not use this.

 

Before I read any of the new part of Chapter four on here, is there any diffrence between the posted version on FF.net and this thread? Just wondering incase I am required to re-read.

Please excuse me if this has been asked already.