Translation of an address

[mulin]

I've taken 2 semesters of Chinese, so I have some basic knowledge and understand quite a few characters.

I need an English translation for an address in China. Addresses aren't as easy to translate as I thought!

Here is the address:

中国广西省南宁市新阳北三路10一号9栋1单元602号房

Here is the part of the address I'm sure I understand:

中国广西省南宁市: China, Guangxi Province, Nanning City

Does "北三路" mean "North 3 Road"?

I don't get what "新阳" means, and I'm afraid I'm totally lost as to the last part of the address: "10一号9栋1单元602号房"

I would appreciate very much any help that any of you smart people can give me!

[cdn_in_bj]

Here is the address:

中国广西省南宁市新阳北三路10一号9栋1单元602号房

Here is the part of the address I'm sure I understand:

中国广西省南宁市: China, Guangxi Province, Nanning City

Looks good so far.

Does "北三路" mean "North 3 Road"?

I don't get what "新阳" means,

Actually, it looks like the street is called "新阳北三路". See the #1 point of interest on the following map:

http://www.mapbar.com/localsearch/#ac=lc&keyword=%E5%8D%97%E5%AE%81%E5%B8%82%E6%96%B0%E9%98%B3%E5%8C%97%E4%B8%89%E8%B7%AF&city=%E5%8D%97%E5%AE%81%E5%B8%82&markerId=MAPPHNQBYWQMXWHNT

Also, instead of trying to translate it into English, it would probably be better to use pinyin: XinYangBeiSanLu.

I've seen some English business cards for Chinese companies here where they translated the address word-for-word and it made absolutely no sense at all.

and I'm afraid I'm totally lost as to the last part of the address: "10一号9栋1单元602号房"

10一号: 11 is the street address

9栋: building 9 in the complex

1单元: 1st entrance

602号房: unit #602.

Not exactly sure how you'd write this in English, however. The 单元 thing always gets me too. Maybe something like this:

No.11 XinYangBeiSanLu, Building 9, Entrance 1, Unit 602.

But no guarantees this will get your letter delivered to the proper destination.

[Lu]

I mostly second that, but please write that road as Xinyang Bei San Lu. (It means Xinyang North Third Road, but chances is Chinese postmen won't understand if you write that.)

And I wonder about 10一号. If they meant 11 you'd think they'd write 11 (or 十一). I suspect it might mean 'the first number 10', with the buildings next to it being 10二 and then 10三, and after a while number 12. Some buildings here in Taipei have something like that. Don't know about Nanning though.

So in English you'd write:

Zhang San

Xinyang Bei San Lu No 10-1, building 9, entrance 1, room 602

Nanning City

Guangxi Province

China

But since it's for a school assignment, they might prefer:

Zhang San

Xinyang North Third Road, No 10-1, building 9, entrance 1, room 602

Nanning City

Guangxi Province

China

[yonglin]

To be honest, I find "translating an address" quite a weird thing to do. I mean, it's not like I translate my address in Sweden into English when I give it to an English speaker. If I did, then an address looking something like this

Rådjursvägen 15b

123 45 Umeå

might turn into something like this.

15b, Raindeer Road

Umeå 12345

which would (1) fail the electronic address scanning system they use these days (because it's in the wrong order), (2) probably wouldn't get there anyway, since no one would connect "Raindeer Road" to its Swedish-language equivalent. Since some people have a hard time writing Chinese characters, I suppose we must accept that addresses are written in pinyin. We note that each Chinese road is likely to have two "official names" (e.g., printed on the street sign). However, for a road like 西大街, this is "Xi Dajie" rather than "West Avenue" 99/100 times.

Two observations:

(1) Addresses written in roman letters (e.g., in Swedish, French, Spanish) get to keep their original formats abroad.

(2) Addresses written in other letters (e.g., Chinese) are subjected to some Anglosaxon address format, even after they introduced a way to transcribe their language into roman letters (e.g., pinyin).

This is what I would call cultural imperalism.

(I bet this practice probably comes from somewhere like HK, where both formats have been used in a parallel fashion for a long time. Thus, it is probably the remains of colonialism.)

[monto]

As a homework, I agree with Lu, especially for understanding of "10一号".

As for real posting thing, I agree with yonglin, a letter with address in English may have trouble in reaching the destination. A a letter to China, It is better to just give the names of the city, province and country in English, which followed by full address in Chinese. I.E.

To: Nanning City, Guangxi, PR China.

中国广西南宁市新阳北三路10一号9栋1单元602号房

王五 收

I believe it is just a homework and the address is not real one, because 广西 is not a 省, it's 广西壮族自治区.

[liuzhou]

because 广西 is not a 省, it's 广西壮族自治区.

True, but many people refer to it as 广西省. I've even seen it on local government websites, signs etc.

[cdn_in_bj]

And I wonder about 10一号. If they meant 11 you'd think they'd write 11 (or 十一). I suspect it might mean 'the first number 10', with the buildings next to it being 10二 and then 10三, and after a while number 12.

Good catch - I had missed that originally. I'd be interested in knowing what the "right" answer is.

[mulin]

Thanks for all your help! You were very helpful.

Actually, this was not homework, it's an actual address of a person who lives in Nanning. I made a wire transfer of money to a friend, and my bank wanted the recipient's address "in English".

The recipient is the one who wrote "广西南", and not "广西壮族自治区". I'm not sure why, as she is Chinese (and I assume she'd know the difference) - maybe she thought it would be better understood as a "province" and not an "autonomous region".

I agree with those of you who said that the practice of translating Chinese characters and addresses into Western address formats is sort of a remnant of imperialism. I told the person at the bank that addresses doen't exactly translate word for word, but it seemed immaterial to her.

[monto]

"province" vs "autonomous region".

There are five autonomous regions : 西藏、新疆、内蒙古、宁夏、广西。

So far I haven't seen a single case there “省” was used with 西藏、新疆 or 内蒙古.

[skylee]

Have you seen any cases of referring Ningxia and Guangxi as 寧夏省 and 廣西省 respectively?

[monto]

Have you seen any cases of referring Ningxia and Guangxi as 寧夏省 and 廣西省 respectively?

For 廣西省, in the No.1 post of this thread, there is one. And have a French friend who used "Guangxi Province" many times and I had to just follow his finally. We travelled a lot in Guangxi, between 防城港 (Fangchenggang) - 南宁 (Nanning) - 百色 (Baise) repeatedly.

I haven't seen "寧夏省" but think it is possible someday. Of course, we can't expect such mistake in official documents or big newspapers.

[roddy]

I haven't seen "寧夏省" but think it is possible someday. Of course, we can't expect such mistake in official documents or big newspapers.

Used to be 宁夏省 before 1949, didn't it?

[HashiriKata]

Used to be 宁夏省 before 1949, didn't it?

Yes, up to 1958.

[Lu]

But the money is going to the bank, right, not to that address? In that case, I'd just give them the pinyin and let them deal with it.

中国广西南宁市新阳北三路10一号9栋1单元602号房

Zhongguo, Guangxi zizhiqu, Nanning shi, Xinyang bei san lu 10 yi hao 9 dong 1 danwei 602 hao fang.

[mulin]

"Lu" wrote:

But the money is going to the bank, right, not to that address? In that case, I'd just give them the pinyin and let them deal with it.

*******************

Quite true, and that's what I basically ended up doing, with the help of several people on this forum. Once I knew what the address said, anyway!

[liuzhou]

I haven't seen "寧夏省" but think it is possible someday. Of course, we can't expect such mistake in official documents or big newspapers.

I don't know about Ningxia but I often see Guangxi referred to as 广西省. Including in official documents and big newspapers.

You can see it here in Baidu News.

[monto]

None of Baidu News with the mistake seem to be of any "official documents and big newspapers".

But still is surprised by the quantity.

[imron]

Is Xinhua big enough?

[monto]

Is Xinhua big enough?

Xinhua is big enough. But please note that the news they put on the net was responsible only by one or two persons as the source who may not be even employees of Xinhua. Concerned with our topic, Xinhua is not the source of the wording.

[imron]

So when an article says 来源：新华网 who should I expect the source to be if not Xinhua? And if the article begins with something like 新华网南宁１月１０日电（记者张周来) who should I expect the author to be, if not a Xinhua reporter?