Groups - "El Hobbit"

A friend of mine was telling me he had read Harry Potter in Spanish, and that sparked me ….I should think of a book that I have enjoyed and know well and find it in Spanish. The Hobbit jumped to mind. In English it is written in a style more like for children, so it should be easy to read in Spanish, too.

I was right. I couldn’t find the full Hobbit in Spanish at our library, but I found a graphic novel, El Hobbit, in Spanish. The dialogues ring true, the pictures help with context and it is still a 133 page hardcover book. I read it all last night, some of it out loud to the kids using the characters voices. It was pretty fun.

Here’s the thing, though. I’m sure as I look it over again I’ll have more questions, but the big thing that stuck out was the use of “vosotros.” My guess is that this is Castilian Spanish…ok. But in some of the dialogues, where characters are talking just to each other, only 2 people involved, where I would expect “tú” or maybe “usted”, the choice is vosotros and that verb conjugation.

 Gandalf and Bilbo meet for the first time (so Bilbo thinks, anyway) on the door step of Bilbo’s house. They are chatting about stuff and then dialogue follows:

[Bilbo] ¡De ningún modo, mi querido señor! Veamos, no creo conocer vuestro nombre..

[Gandalf] Sí lo conocéis, Bilbo Bolsón, aunque no sepas que es el mío.

[Bilbo] ¡Gandalf! ¿No seréis el mago errante que solía contar historias maravillosas de dragones….

The book is fun. But that was a question plaguing me right off the bat. Inquiring minds would love to know…