DanagastaThe English translations aren't too great, and why did they Anglicize everything?I disagree that the English translations "aren't too great", just my personal opinion.
I'm sure there are some parts that could be bettered but overall I think they're great!
And of course they've had official approval from The Master himself. The English translators were probably the only ones that ever consulted with Hergé and his team to get them to the standard they are. And from all accounts Hergé was most pleased with them.
With regard to Anglicization it's well-documented already on this site; the decision was made back at a time in the 50s when the publishers were taking a gamble on the series and they needed it to appeal to English-speaking kids. It was also pretty standard in publishing of the era - the international language editions published by Casterman also did it, and there are examples of it happening to other characters and series too
The recent black-and-white English editions do not Anglicize as much as the colour books.
Some names are kept the same as the colour editions, otherwise it's a more "faithful" (if that's the word) translation which doesn't necessarily improve it in my opinion. I think it would have been amusing to see Tintin arrive back at Charing Cross at the end of Soviets ! ;-)
Read
this interview with the English translators for more.
Moulinsart remains Moulinsart, but the books could be in English otherwise.Indeed, plenty of other publishers of different languages have chosen to change names and places to fit their respective languages; Moulinsart is Mühlenhof in German, Molensloot in Dutch, Maesymwstwr in Welsh, etc., etc.
Actually, I received two new Swedish editions of
Unicorn and
Rackham recently for my birthday. Although the Château is named Moulinsart there it got me thinking whilst reading it (despite my Swedish being
very limited) that Tintin inhabits a strange world where it's supposed to be set in Belgium but the scrolls, books in the background, newspaper reports and many other things are in Swedish. Even Calculus's name in Swedish - Karl Kalkyl - is based on the English edition.
I believe a good translation should tread the line between retaining the meaning (in the case of Tintin
many puns would be lost on non-French speakers) and trying at the same time not to over-translate from the original and distort the meaning. I think the English editions succeeded in this, enough for it to be a successful series anyway!