安德烈 (Andrea)
Community-Tutor
How chinese people transliterate foreign names Hi, my italian name in Chinese is of course 安德烈 since I saw Andrea Bocelli written like this on Wikipedia, but, my doubt: since there would be other characters good in the same way in order to make the same prononciation, who decide and how which characters should be used to translitterate a foreign name? so why 安德烈 and not 案德烈 , for instance? is there a rule for tones too, like: "in foreign names you should try to start with such tone if possibile?" moreover, I think it's interesting since in a foreign you could also include meaningful character, if possibile, since chinese in this is unique, not having a system for foreign words like Japanese does. thank you
30. Aug. 2017 13:32
Antworten · 10
1
How chinese people transliterate foreign names,I think there is some rules . First of all, Transcription! For example :"Andrea"---"安德烈",“Tyler”---泰勒,“Eric”---埃里克,“Jack”---杰克 Second, we will care about the conciseness and practicality of the translation. For example ,“violin” used to be translated into“梵婀玲”, but no one knows what's that mean when they see that work ,so they changed this name into “小提琴”. But this example is not very good ,because it's not a name . Well ,Sarkozy used to be translated into萨尔科奇, but they changed into 萨科齐to make this name more concise。 Third,there are many characters that sharing the same Pinyin and tone ,why we use this character? (why 安德烈 and not 案德烈) Because Chinese prefer to use those characters which has beautiful image and implication. "安" means safe in Chinese ,like 平安、安和、安稳、安定。But “案” means table in Chinese,so there is no doubt that "安" is much better than “案” . So does “Tyler”---泰勒,“Jack”---杰克, "泰" and "杰" both have good meaning in Chinese . This rule isn't just in name but also in countries name ,like “美国”、“英国”、“德国”etc. what's more ,we will also care about the gender haha . For example : James Monroe and Marilyn Monroe, they have the same last name. But when their name writing in Chinese ,they completely different. "James Monroe" translated into "詹姆斯·门罗" (Monroe---门罗 ) ,to make it more masculine. But "Marilyn Monroe" we translate into "玛丽莲·梦露", (Monroe---梦露 )to make it more feminine. So that's all I know about it ,if you are curious about this ,you can read a book ,《英语姓名译名手册》, it will tell you all the rules ~
30. August 2017
1
I would say that Chinese people tend to choose the more often used characters when translating foreign names. Once a translation is through common use, it will pass down forever. As for tone and meaning, I don‘t think there's think there's any strict rule you need to follow. If so, how could you explain the translation of some slavic names as Януко́вич 亚努科维奇(维奇 is a commonly accepted translation of the ending вич but obviously none of the character here is meaningful )? But when someone get famous in China and he knows Chinese well, he can change the characters used in his name translation. E.G. linguist M.A.K.Halliday called himself as 韩礼德, but ‘Halliday’ is used to being translated as 哈利德。
30. August 2017
1
No, there are no rules. 不过似乎大家都习惯用一些特定的字来音译一些读音,比如: 安 德 罗 哈 利 波 特 逊 等等 特别是对于一些常见的英文名,似乎有一些约定俗成的固定词汇,比如: Jonh 约翰 Johnson 约翰逊 Jack 杰克 等等
30. August 2017
I even think your name has been translated wrong ... it should be an de lei ya ... so 4 characters
2. September 2017
非常感谢!
30. August 2017
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