Kitty name

[kittygirl]

So, I named my kitten Mei-mei-only to find out "she"'s a boy! What now? Can you tell me the English pronunciation of the Chinese translation of a cool word? I'm thinking Blue, because his eyes will be blue for the rest of his life. Snow, because of his color. Little brother or kitten, or cat, or baby, would all be good too. Help?

[skylee]

Does the cat respond to you when you call "meimei"? I ask because my cat never pays any attention to me whatever I call it (well unless it needs something then he just calls me "mao". ).

If it knows "meimei" is its name and accepts it, why bother to change its name? If it does not, I guess it might behave like my old cat.

"blue" is "lan". "blue eye" is "lan yan". "white" is "bai". "little white" is "xiao bai". "big white " is "da bai". "snow" is "xue". "kittykitty" is "maomao". Note that without training you might not be able to pronounce the "x" in Mandarin correctly.

[kittygirl]

Thanks! I've only had him a week, so he doesn't really know his name yet, but he does usually come when called by any noise right now.

Could you give me some tips on pronunciation? Is "x" the english "zh"? And "mao" rhymes with meow, right?

[skylee]

You can listen to "xiao" by pressing the play button for "xiao3" on the page below. For "xue", press the play button for "xue3".

http://www.chinese-lessons.com/mandarin/pinyin/south_f/x.htm

For "mao", press the play button for "mao1" on this page -> http://www.chinese-lessons.com/mandarin/pinyin/south_f/m.htm

[kittygirl]

Thanks so much for that! That seems really helpful (although still really difficult!). What would be the closes Americanization of "xue mao"? "SHEYmohw?"

[tooironic]

shoe-EH mao

[wayne972]

I don't know the chinese translation for blue but maybe Ice Blue or Blue Ice will work?

[foodtarget]

If I had a cat, I would name him 猫泽东, but that's just me

I think Lan Lan (blue x 2) would be kinda cute, and as for the suggestion of Ice Blue, that would be Bing Lan, which would also be a decent name imo

[Lu]

Since my surname is 施, if I had a cat I would either name it 西 or Nai'an :-)

Lanlan is a good name too, and a lot easier to pronounce than Xuemao.

[imron]

猫泽东

That's a great name

[renzhe]

Haha, that's the best cat name I've ever heard.

[Rosemary]

All of hearers would:evil: goggle at you if you called 猫泽东 in China, I think.