Pronunciation of @ and other symbols in Chinese

[skylee]

I am learning to use my new phone and am still very busy customising it. And I had to set my usual commands in the phonebook. Which made me wonder how other people read such commands in Chinese. For example, for **21*, I say 星星二一星. And for ##002#, I say 井井零零二井. Are they the same for you? And what do you call these symbols in Chinese - @, ^, &, ~, etc?

[tanklao]

@ is read as Hua'ei(花a).

& as 和

％ as 百分号

$ as 美元符号

！ as 感叹号

—— as 破折号

－ as 减号 or 连字符

～ as 代字号 or 代字符

＋ as 加号

＝ as 等于号

> as 大于号

< as 小于号

《》 as 书名号

“” as 双引号

/ 斜杠

反斜杠

、顿号

。句号

…… 省略号

. 点

：冒号

? question 问号

space 空格

｜竖号 or 分隔符

∞ infinity 无限大号

∝ varies as 与…成比例

( ) parentheses 圆括号

√ (square) root 平方根 or right 打钩

[ ] square brackets 方括号

∵ since; because 因为

∴ hence 所以

∷ equals, as (proportion) 等于，成比例

¨ tandem colon 双点号

∠ angle 角

∶ ditto 双点号

⌒ semicircle 半圆

‖ parallel 双线号

⊙ circle 圆

／ virgule 斜线号

○ circumference 圆周

～ swung dash 代字号

△ triangle 三角形

§ section; division 分节号

⊥ perpendicular to 垂直于

→ arrow 箭号；参见号

∪ union of 并，合集

∩ intersection of 交，通集

∫ the integral of …的积分

± plus or minus 正负号

∑ summation of 总和

× is multiplied by 乘号

° degree 度

÷ is divided by 除号

′ minute 分

″ second 秒

≠ is not equal to 不等于号

≡ is equivalent to 全等于号

℃ Celsius degree 摄氏度

≌ is equal to or approximately equal to 等于或约等于号

Edited February 13, 2009 at 12:50 PM by imron
no sofas here.

[skylee]

How about ^ ? And * and # ?

[imron]

# is also 井 (or 井号), likewise * is 星(or 星号) and sometimes 米 or 米号.

At least here in Beijing, people pronounce @ as 圈a. The others I'm not sure.

[Lu]

I always call @ 小老鼠, but maybe that's only in context of email addresses? Or is it something Taiwanese?

[trien27]

tanklao left out °F Fahrenheit degree 华氏度 / 華氏度, which is used in the USA.

@ is called "a with a tail" in Chinese in my house. The use of 小老鼠 or 老鼠號 for the @ symbol is only in Taiwan. 圈a is used in China, meaning "circled a", while 花a, is also used in China, meaning "lacy a"

Source: http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/At-sign

Most of the others listed by Tanklao are called the same by most Chinese speakers, either written the same, or have a different name, due to dialect speakers having a different term for it.

^ = caret = 脫字符號

△ = a mathematical symbol, named "delta", after the 4th Greek letter of the same name Δ / δ , but since it's in the shape of a triangle, it's called a triangle, or sanjiaoxing 三角形 in Chinese.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_alphabet#Letter_names

Edited February 14, 2009 at 07:01 PM by trien27
additional information

[imron]

Or is it something Taiwanese?

This is almost certain to be the case. When being told an email address in Chinese I've only ever heard 圈a.

[roddy]

I suspect I've heard a圈儿 more than 圈a for @, but I haven't been keeping records. You'll also hear 爱特 or something similar.

[imron]

Baidupedia corroborates 圈a

在我国，@的读音也出现了多个读法，比较流行的有两种：一是圈a，二是“花a”。

and so does google.

(Note: although not written here, 儿化 is always used for 圈 when I hear it)

Personally, I think it should be pronounced 在

[tanklao]

(Note: although not written here, 儿化 is always used for 圈 when I hear it)

Not really!

儿化 is absolutely not Chinese! People in middle and south China NEVER use 儿化 in daily life. 儿化 should be considered as a dialect used only in some places of north China, unfortunately including Beijing where the language rules are made.

儿化 is obviously not really Chinese, and should be crossed out of Putonghua in my opinion.

[imron]

Not really!

Here I was referring specifically to the 儿化 of the character 圈 in 圈a, not about all instances of 圈. You'll also note that I qualified it with "when I hear it".

[renzhe]

儿化 is absolutely not Chinese!

That's quite a bold statement.

[leeyah]

Originally Posted by tanklao:

儿化 is absolutely not Chinese!

Originally Posted by renzhe:

That's quite a bold statement.

Originally no. Not 汉族, anyway

It's Manchurian. Read:

满族人改造汉语北京话，其奉献还表现在其他一些方面

MANDARIM是清代开始外国学者对汉语北京话的一种习惯称法

PS: Even though our professors were all Beijingers, I still have a hard time understanding strong 儿化 speech.

Should spend some time in Beijing, I guess

[Lu]

That it is from Manchu doesn't necessarily mean it's not Chinese now. And since when are Chinese dialects not Chinese?

[leeyah]

since when are Chinese dialects not Chinese?

Among many ethnic minorities in China there are Chinese tribes/peoples (Miao, Hakka, etc) with their own variations of Chinese, and then there are non-Chinese tribes (Manchu, Mongolian, Uyghur, etc) with languages of their own.

Basically, languages live and grow, they change through history and unlike the West where a language of a dominant majority tends to impose on speakers of smaller ethnic groups, even at the price of their extinction, in China many smaller languages have lent parts of their vocabulary to the language of the majority. Which doesn't mean small languages in China aren't on the verge of extinction either, I wouldn't know, really. This is what the links I provided say on how Manchurian has influenced what until their period of political dominance has been and is still called the Chinese language, with its many dialects. I'd rather not go into details of Chinese ethnology here, as the discussion started around 儿化 and its origin

a minority language is not simply a dialect. Rather, it is a language with distinct grammatical and phonological differences from Chinese. Language families include Sino-Tibetan, Altaic, Indo-European, Austro-Asiatic, and Austronesian. Twenty-one ethnic minority groups have unique writing systems.

Dialects are regional variations of one and the same language and specifically in China they are unique for the fact that they can all be expressed in the Chinese script (take Cantonese, a genuine Chinese dialect, for example)

Or perhaps Mongolian is also a Chinese dialect?

Edited July 5, 2009 at 02:05 PM by leeyah
spelling of 'its' ... :)

[renzhe]

I don't think that Lu was saying that Manchurian is a dialect of Chinese, but that since erhua is a prevalent feature of today's northern Mandarin pronunciation, it can't be considered "not Chinese at all".

[imron]

but that since erhua is a prevalent feature of today's northern Mandarin pronunciation, it can't be considered "not Chinese at all".

It is also a very well defined part of the 普通话 standard. In standard 普通话 there are words than can carry 儿化 and words that can't. The 儿化 is also not just an accent thing, it is similar to the diminunitive forms found in many European languages and changes the meaning of the word.

Also for consideration: In English we have words like regard, commence, demand etc. Do we say these words are not English just because they initially came from French (and before that Latin)?

[rob07]

Among many ethnic minorities in China there are Chinese tribes/peoples (Miao, Hakka, etc) with their own variations of Chinese, and then there are non-Chinese tribes (Manchu, Mongolian, Uyghur, etc) with languages of their own.

And you could split this up even further since because the Hakka are 汉, my understanding is that they aren't technically an ethnic minority.

[anonymoose]

How do you say "press the # key"?

[Guoke]

I would say: "按井字符号键"