Laowai Chinese 老外中文

Hanzification of Olympic Names

2008 August 16 – 9:47 am

Categories: General | 15 Comments »

As I watch the starting line up for Michael Phelps’ next race, my two thoughts are:

1. Maybe the Chinese commentators are right.  Maybe he is an alien (wàixīngrén 外星人), and that’s why he swims so fast (he does have slightly webbed toes I’m told).

2. What a lot of work someone went to, translating ALL these people’s names into hanzi characters (there are over 10,000 athletes at the Beijing games).

As the only major world language that refuses to use an alphabet, Chinese requires that every single foreign proper noun (names of people, countries, films, etc.) be crammed into one or more hanzi characters.

Sometimes they try to translate the meaning of the original name.  I’ve heard from ever so many Chinese how proud they are of the translation of “Gone with the Wind” into a single character in Chinese: piāo 飘.

But most often, and this is certainly the case for these Olympics, names of people get pseudo-transliterated into Chinese based on the sound of the original name.  Phelps is pronounced: “fēi ěr pǔ sī” and the characters that go along with that are supposedly 菲尔普斯. (For the record, I don’t think that sounds very much like “Phelps”).

So, here’s what I want to know:

1. What’s the process for choosing the characters?  The countries have all been done for a long time, but you’ve got to imagine a bunch of people’s names came up for this session of the Olympics that no one had ever hanzified before (Hungarians, for example).  There’s got to be some governmental bureau dedicated solely to this sort of thing, right?  Anyone know how it’s done?

2. What about single letters? Is there a standard “pinyin” way of saying English letters?  Some are obvious, like “A” is pronounced “ei1″ in pinyin.  But what about other letters that don’t easily fit into the pinyin system?  Like CJ Bruton.  His Chinese name is “CJ·布鲁顿.”  What’s the pinyin for THAT?  Xī Jiē Bùlǔdùn?

They (whoever THEY are) didn’t hanzi-fy the “CJ” part of his name.  That means they’re just going to pronounce it like “see jay” (in English), right?  (Like CCTV, they alwasy say something that sounds like, “see see tee way.”)  Well, if they can learn to pronounce the “C” and “J” without having a hanzi-character holding their hand, why do they hanzify everything else?  What are the pinyin-izations for the 26 letters of the alphabet?  They’ve got to be codified somewhere, right?  I think they’re all first tone.  Anyone?

Stuff You Might Be Hearing: Olympics TV

2008 August 11 – 9:17 am

Categories: Listening | 6 Comments »

If you’re watching the Olympics in China (as I am) here are some words that come up all the time on the TV that you might as well know (if you don’t already).

It’s so hard to use the TV as listening practice, I thought I’d try to help stack the deck in your favor.  If you can get to where you recognize these really common words when they come up, that’ll free your brain to listen to what else is being said, hopefully.  It’s still a kind of magical process (and truthfully, the TV is often WAY to fast), but maybe this’ll help.

I’ve left out anything related to specific sports or events.  You’re on your own for those as well as the ubiquitous (and often baffling) country names.

Venues

• niǎocháo 鸟巢 = The Bird’s Nest (the main stadium)
• shuǐ lìfāng 水立方 = The Water Cube (the swimming venue)

Medals

• jīnpái 金牌 = gold medal
• yínpái 银牌 = silver medal
• tóngpái 铜牌 = bronze medal
• kuài 块 = (measure word for medals)
  • yí kuài jīnpái 一块金牌 = 1 gold medal
    
• bānjiǎng 颁奖 = to award a medal
• guànjūn 冠军 = champion

Ceremonies

• Àoyùnhuì 奥运会 = The Olympics (abbreviation for Àolínpǐkè yùndòng huì 奥林匹克运动会)
• kāimùshì 开幕式 = opening ceremony
• guānzhòng 观众 = audience
• nǚshìmen, xiānshengmen 女士们先生们 = ladies and gentlemen
• qǐng qǐlì 清起立 = please stand
• guógē 国歌 = national anthem

Teams

• duì 队 = team
  • zhōngguó duì 中国队 = China’s team (in whatever sport)
    *They don’t say in sports it’s “China v. America” they always say it’s “China’s team v. America’s team” (I guess so people don’t think those players out there ARE the whole country. Whew! Thanks for the clarification.)
• dàibiǎo tuán 代表团 = delegation [represent group]
  • zhōngguó dàibiǎo tuán 中国代表团 = The Chinese delegation
• xuǎnshǒu 选手 = contestant [choose hand]
  • shíwǔ hào xuǎnshǒu 十五号选手 = contestant/player number 15
  • míng 名 = (classifier for famous/honored people)
  • yì míng xuǎnshǒu 一名选手 = a contestant
• duìshǒu 对手 = opponent [against hand]

Matches

• chǎng 场 = (measure word for sports events)
  • zhè chǎng bǐsài 这场比赛 = this game/match/race
  • bànchǎng 半场 = halftime
• lún 轮 = round (of a sporting event)
  • dì yī lún 第一轮 = first round
• juésài 决赛 = final round
  • bàn juésài 半决赛 = semifinals
• zàntíng 暂停 = timeout
• shīwù 失误 = mistake/fault
• fēn(r) 分(儿) = point/points (score)
  *a lot of commentators are from north where that “-r” gets added

Exclamations (by commentators)

(In alphabetical order.  Of course, some of these will be appropriate for some events more than others.)

• chūsè 出色 = outstanding [out-color]
• hǎoqiú 好球 = good shot (in any ball or “ballish” sport)
• piàoliang 漂亮 = beautiful
• qiǎomiào 巧妙 = clever
• jīngcǎi 精彩 = brilliant / spectacular
• kěxī 可惜 = too bad
• shǎnshè 闪射 = shining
• yíhàn 遗憾 = too bad / regretful
• jiāyóu 加油 = Come on! (cheering someone on)
  *I had to add this, even though it’s not really the commentators who say it

If anyone has a suggestion for something that belongs on this list that isn’t here, please feel free to share (I may add more as the weeks go on too).

We Are Ready: Beijing Olympics Song

2008 August 6 – 10:00 am

Categories: Songs | 9 Comments »

Since this is a strictly apolitical, language-learning blog, I’d like to go on record as saying I’m posting the lyrics to this song because:

1. The Beijing Olympics are just around the corner and you’re likely to hear this song on TV or the radio or at a shop at some point (if you haven’t already).  The best way to improve listening and vocabulary is to actually understand what you’re hearing.

2.  I translated it a long time ago because I had to learn it for a campus talent show the students asked me to participate in last semester.  So why not post it?

If anyone knows who any of those singers are, I’d love to know.  Please leave a comment informing all of us (with the time in the song so we know who you’re talking about). And, as always, suggestions for better translations are welcome as well.

But wait there’s more! Brand new for me, I thought I’d take a page out of Joel’s book and actually embed the video right into the post (scroll to the bottom).

Lyrics (English, pinyin, 汉字)

We are Ready (printer friendly)
(requires Adobe Reader, which is available here).

NOTE: To download the document directly to your computer without viewing it in your internet browser, right-click on the link and select “Save link/target as…”