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Writing Names In Chinese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| timinstl Triglot Groupie United States timsviajes.com Joined 6904 days ago 88 posts - 92 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Italian, Mandarin | Message 1 of 19 12 August 2005 at 11:52am | IP Logged | ||
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It's my understanding that chinese names are written with characters that sound most like the name, is that true? If so, there are many ways to spell the same name, right? I'm asking becasue I'm practicing translating dialogs and I get stumped with the names.
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| Cthulhu Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7010 days ago 139 posts - 235 votes Speaks: French*, English, Mandarin, Russian | Message 2 of 19 12 August 2005 at 12:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Foreign names aren't necessarily written with characters that sound most like the pronunciation; there are pseudo-official "name dictionaries" which tell you how to write foreign personal names in Chinese, but I'm not entirely sure how they decide which characters to use. They're often not the closest phonetic transcriptions possible (like, for example, David, which as a matter of convention is written as DaWei, instead of either DaWeiDe or DaBiDe), so I can only assume there's some other system partially respsonsible. Some names do have multiple accepted ways to be written though; as long as all you're doing is practicing for personal use, it's not really critical how you choose to transcribe foreign names into Chinese.
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| timinstl Triglot Groupie United States timsviajes.com Joined 6904 days ago 88 posts - 92 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Italian, Mandarin | Message 3 of 19 12 August 2005 at 12:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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I remember that in the movie, Hero with Jet Li, a chinese lady wrote this guys name and he responded with, "I have never seen my name written that way." My mind then went, "Oh, so there are many ways to write a name in Chinese."
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| jradetzky Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom geocities.com/jradet Joined 6994 days ago 521 posts - 485 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, GermanB1 | Message 4 of 19 12 August 2005 at 2:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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And what about names of famous people like Michael Jackson, Osama bin Laden, George Bush, Diego Maradona, etc.? Are they translated as well or can people talk about them using their real names?
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| maxb Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6970 days ago 536 posts - 589 votes 7 sounds Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 5 of 19 12 August 2005 at 2:52pm | IP Logged | ||
As far as I know they all translated. George Bush, for instance, is called 布什 (bu4 shi2). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| victor Tetraglot Moderator United States Joined 7105 days ago 1098 posts - 1056 votes 6 sounds Speaks: Cantonese*, English, FrenchC1, Mandarin Studies: Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 19 12 August 2005 at 5:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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Foreign Names: Such as the ones mentioned by jradetzky, like Cthulhu said, almost have "official" transliterations, a sort of code of transliterations that all journalists and writers follow. There's no specific formula, but I believe they try to use common characters that are easily recognizable and easy to read, sometimes thus sacrificing certain syllables of the name.
The transliterations of many of these names differ in PR China, Taiwan and in Hong Kong. It can be confusing for the learner. timinstl, I will try to answer your question as I understand it. Names might sound the same, but they're not the "same" if they are written differently. Many sounds are popular as names, and many characters can have the same sound. People can only guess how a name would be written if they have just heard it. A lot of parents are very creative and choose these very obscure characters as names for their children - so it's not surprising that another person wouldn't be able to write it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| timinstl Triglot Groupie United States timsviajes.com Joined 6904 days ago 88 posts - 92 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Italian, Mandarin | Message 7 of 19 12 August 2005 at 6:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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"The transliterations of many of these names differ in PR China, Taiwan and in Hong Kong. It can be confusing for the learner."
So that explains why Jet Li's name is Li Lian Ji in Mandarin and Li Nin Kit in Cantonese? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| victor Tetraglot Moderator United States Joined 7105 days ago 1098 posts - 1056 votes 6 sounds Speaks: Cantonese*, English, FrenchC1, Mandarin Studies: Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 19 12 August 2005 at 6:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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The difference between Li Lian Jie and (literal pronunciation) Lei Lin Git (translated as Lee Lin Kit HK government style) is purely a dialectal difference.
That is not the same situation as I mentioned above. As you know, virtually every name has a different pronunciation in a different dialect. What I meant was that many characters have the same sound, and thus people can't be sure of which to write. Exaggerated example: Your name is "Won Of For", when pronounced, the writer has to decide if it's "won" or "one", "of" or "off", "for" or "four". 1 person has voted this message useful |
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