FSI and spelling of western names

[Normunds]

currently I'm doing FSI course and to make it more spicy I spell out target sentences and vocabulary in characters and add to a word memorization program (I'm using Mnemosyne).

It kinda slows downs the process, but I feel that adding of the writing adds to the value of the course. And using a wordlist memorization program helps to retain words once learned.

Mostly it goes fine apart from very few cases I do not manage to reconcile pinyin+meaning with any characters I find, so I might end up disregarding for example tone marks.

Still one confusing area is names - both Chinese and westernized names present in dialogues. Any good pointers, sites/name lists/dictionaries? I've found some, but usually with rather few names.

Currently I've returned to the very first lesson (I did not do the first sections in this manner) and I do not manage to find the name of Wang Danien (Daniel King). I've found a spelling of 丹尼尔 or 丹尼耳 that both would be "Dānníěr", while FSI spells it "Dànián". Anybody has an idea what characters they could have meant with this?

I'd possibly rather use somebody else's transcripts, but 1) cannot find any and 2) doing it myself, I get a lot of additional practice on the same ol' material :-)

Any ideas? thanks for reading this...

[Lu]

I don't know anything about the program you are using, but perhaps I can help out with the name. Dani'er is more or less the standard transcription for the name Daniel; but it looks like this particular Daniel got himself a Chinese name, namely Wang Danian. Danian is not a transcription of Daniel, but it can be a Chinese name.

I hope this helps!

[Shadowdh]

Further to Lu's response... I also think that it should be split like Da Nian... or perhaps they are saying Dan Nian...

[Lu]

If his Chinese surname is Wang, I don't think Danian should be split (it should, however, be Danian not Danien). The most obvious characters for this name would be 大年, although that's not a name I'd recommend taking, it looks a bit odd.

[Normunds]

Thanks guys. I also looked at 大年 and for me it also did not have a feel of a good name. And their transcription is rather good and consistent with the audio, so if they write "Dànián" that's it...

FSI course is Foreign Service Institute course:

http://www.fsi-language-courses.com/Chinese.aspx

Most of FSI are old rather good public domain (free) courses. At least those on this site are.

So they provide enormous amount of recording with varied and mostly fairly rapid speach, lots of comments, exercises as well as pinyin transcription.

Edited:understood that the remark about "unknown program" was not regarding FSI, but Menmosyne. Open source free SRS soft: http://www.mnemosyne-proj.org/

So basically you are saying is that instead of transcription of Daniel, I should look for a Chinese name that could be given somebody with his name?

So as far as I understand the options for spelling the name in Chinese are:

1) you get a "Chinese name" such as Wang Danian for Daniel King. As far as Danian also is not a usual Chinese name, one might have trouble figuring it out by just hearing it

2) his name could be transcribed and then it becomes Dānníěr, that has a "standard" spelling 丹尼尔

3) finally his surname can also be translated so to becomes Wang, transcribed so it becomes 金 , or abridged to one letter K so it becomes...

hm.. I'm not sure about this last point - is there an "official" list of characters that are used for this kind of abbreviation. In the same FSI course I've come across Mr. Hollins transcribed "hé" and Mrs Franklin pronunced "fu2". I assume this is a fairly standard use.

Edited March 20, 2009 at 12:58 PM by Normunds