Two translation questions

[ccjamp]

I figure I might as well kill two birds with one stone.

First, I wanted to know how you go about choosing a Chinese name. Is there any guide to this? If anyone can help, that would be appreciated.

Also, I was sent an audio message and I can't make it out very well (I'm very new to Chinese). Can someone translate the audio in this file for me? I think it should have something to do with studying.

Thank you in advance!

[renzhe]

1) There are several methods:

- Transcribe your original name using random Chinese characters so it sounds roughly like the original. This is often used to trancribe the names of foreign actors, football players, etc.

- Pick a meaning based on your name and then use Chinese characters which convey this meaning. The resulting name will be a proper Chinese name, will have the meaning you want, but will not necessarily sound like your original name.

- Try to combine the previous two approaches and come up with a proper Chinese name which sounds a bit like your original name, but still has a nice meaning. For example, pick one character for family name which sounds like the beginning of your family name, and two characters for given name, which roughly approximate your given name. This is considered by many people the best solution (at least by myself).

For example, if your family name is Lewis, you could pick the family name Liu (柳), and for a given name Anne, you could pick An (安). Both are very common in real Chinese names and your name will sound completely Chinese, but still have some phonetic semblance of your original name.

2) You haven't attached anything.

[cherrytea]

renzhe's suggestion is very good~

But sometimes choosing a name is hard thing even to a Chinese, coz pick a name is easy, but pick a name sounds good is hard, and pick a name sounds good with a good meaning is very very hard...i think

[renzhe]

Indeed.

I still haven't decided on a Chinese name for myself, 7 years after starting to learn......