Autor Wątek: Chinese translations?  (Przeczytany 18494 razy)

Socrates

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Re: Chinese translations?
« Odpowiedź #15 dnia: Marca 03, 2006, 04:37:30 am »
Actually, the tones are very much a part of pinyin; there are 4 of them - on top of each pinyin word you can have the following:

1) /   2) --   3) \/   and 4) \  as well as no tone.  This tells you how to speak the word correctly.

Tones are the tones you give to your words - that is, how you pronouce them.  

For example, saying "Ma" with a / on top would kind of sound like saying a question mark at the end.  The -- is a level sound, kind of high-pitched.  the \/ sounds as if there were three "a"s in "Ma" (as in Maaa), and the final one, \, sounds as if you were angry.  Plus the last one, no tone, which you say normally.  Each tone makes a new word.  Needless to say, if you use the wrong tone, people look at you funny and say "me no speak english".  They think you're speaking to them in a foreign language.

Interesting thing I saw on a website one time (and I used it in practice):

Da Bian with a \ means an examination
Da Bian with a / means taking a crap.

Miscommunications abound.

Cheers, Socrates

jacekmw

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Re: Chinese translations?
« Odpowiedź #16 dnia: Marca 03, 2006, 10:31:53 am »
Actually pinyin does seem like an easier way to learn Chinese - when the tones are part of it. I came to this conclusion after going through this web site http://www.pinyin.org, which explains the sounds, tones, and the way they are represented with Latin characters.
It still looks tedious, but not so hopelss anymore. For some reason I didn't notice (or paid no attention to) these accented characters before. No wonder there was so much fun when I spoke ...

Good luck then

Terminus

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Re: Chinese translations?
« Odpowiedź #17 dnia: Marca 03, 2006, 01:24:00 pm »
God's Mercy, this is terryfying! (and torrific as well :) ).

Socrates, how did you menage to keep up with .... with THIS ???
Jeeeezz....


Socrates

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Re: Chinese translations?
« Odpowiedź #18 dnia: Marca 03, 2006, 09:13:00 pm »
I'm not on top of this at all; I still feel very lost conversing about even the most banal topics.  But while playing chess on the street today (hey, no class, and only minus 10 C or so - summer's here!) I actually had what I consider my first meaningful conversation in Chinese.  Granted there was a lot of handwaving and gesturing, but it was ok in the end.  I think.  
Cheers, Socrates
Ps, ya'll should come to China; it's supercool.  I can arrange your English teaching jobs here so all you gotta do is sacrifice a year of life and come to China.  I'm staying a second year.

jacekmw

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Re: Chinese translations?
« Odpowiedź #19 dnia: Marca 09, 2006, 01:03:03 pm »
Hmmm, another trip to China doesn't sound like a bad idea.
I have really enjoyed my stay in Shenzhen and Guangzhou two years ago. It was a business trip. Out of the 3 weeks I spent there 2 were pure vacation - as I was there together with my Chinese friend. But the last week was really quite an adventure. All I had was a sheet of paper (prepared by my friend wishing me much fun) with Chinese/pinyin(sort of)/english keywords like:
- hotel name
- railways station
- stop/go
- numbers 0-9
The most advanced Mandarin conversation I had was a 15 minute fare negotiation with the taxi driver...  using my 0-9 numbers and hands - a lot.

Staying there for 2 years sounds like even more fun - and surely means a good progress with the language ...
cheers

Socrates

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Re: Chinese translations?
« Odpowiedź #20 dnia: Marca 09, 2006, 04:23:17 pm »
How much did you pay the cabbie?  They always try to rip people off.  If you don't know the city they drive you around in circles for an hour before they get to the place.  Or, if you agree on the price beforehand, they pick up 5 more people along the way and drive them first.  About 2 moths ago I nearly had a fight with a taxi driver who did just that, and then charged me a full price.  When I refused he got out and started grabbing and shoving me.  I was pissed by that time so I flicked out my switchblade and kind of flashed it in his face - that did the trick and he went back to the car.  Later I found out all cabbies have meat cleavers under their seat and huge commando knives in their pockets.  Needless to say, I'll never do the "manly" but rather stupid knife trick again.   After all, I'm outnumbered here by, oh, give or take a few hundred foreigners living in Harbin, 9 million to one.  
Cheers, Socrates

innate

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Re: Chinese translations?
« Odpowiedź #21 dnia: Marca 15, 2006, 07:33:33 am »
By any chance could you point me to something that shows how Lem's name would be represented using Chinese characters?

innate

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Re: Chinese translations?
« Odpowiedź #22 dnia: Marca 15, 2006, 08:52:17 am »
Never mind; I found it myself -- as well as A Perfect Vacuum!

(which, according to google's Chinese translation, contains "perfect vacuum", "Robinson family", "Millions network", "sexual explosion", "team leaders Luyishilu", "Third, alias consequences", "Reverse implied,", "idiotic", "Please write to", "Aisaka the river repair", "You", "people smart Limited", "civilized as wrong", The "impossible" and "can not be the future of life", "not serve", "founding new universe theory")

jacekmw

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Re: Chinese translations?
« Odpowiedź #23 dnia: Marca 18, 2006, 04:11:40 pm »
Cytuj
How much did you pay the cabbie?  They always try to rip people off (...)  After all, I'm outnumbered here by, oh, give or take a few hundred foreigners living in Harbin, 9 million to one.  
Cheers, Socrates

Wow, what a ride...
My experience with cabs was rather pleasant.
The one time I mnetioned in a previous post a cabbie attempted to get me to pay some sort of a surcharge on top of what the meter showed. It was about 30-40 yuans.  I just kept smiling and patiently repeated my story (four-zero-yuans) 3 times pointing at the meter and he gave up. It was not the first time I went there, so I knew the fare and route was right.
On the longest trip to the city park I had another problem. We have agreed on the price with the help of the hotel staff when leaving. Problem was that we have passed through one of the tourist attractions in Shenzhen - russian aircraft carrier Minsk.
Apparently the driver wanted to be nice and stopped there, so I could take a photo. I was quite unable to persuade him to go directly to the park, as I visited this place a week ago. A this time I had my regular, analog camera and pointing it out didn't help - he just smiled and prompted me to take photos outside. Ultimately my determination in repeating the name of the park seemed to resolve this stale mate ...

I didn't get into any dangerous situation, people seemed to be very friendly and definitively not aggressive by any means.
I think it's very intriguing country and I would love to go there again ...