Same thing, different names

[mouse]

You say potato...

[Pegasus]

JYLIN: "Tomato :馬鈴薯，土豆"

 

馬鈴薯 and 土豆 mean potato. 

[JYLIN]

馬鈴薯 and 土豆 mean potato.

Sorry my fault, thanks.

[skylee]

SMS - 短訊。短信。簡訊。

[boctulus]

Printer 打印機。 印表機。 

Screen 銀幕。 屏幕。

[skylee]

The Monkey King - 孫悟空。孫行者。齊天大聖。美猴王。弼馬温。馬騮精。

[boctulus]

太阳。 太陽。  sun

太陰。 月亮。 嬋娟。  moon

 

Not sure the difference between 太陰。 月亮 。 and  嬋娟  but the last one is used in more romantic sense.

[mouse]

太阳 and 太陽 are the same word. 

 

The moon can also be called 月球 (more of a sciency word).

 

Moons in general are called 卫星 (satellites).

[mouse]

Interesting about 太陰 though. I don't think I'd ever heard of it before, but it makes perfect sense. My dictionary defines it as: 月球的旧名, so I guess the main difference would be usage.

[lips]

太阴 or 太阴星 is still used commonly in Chinese divination.

 

Apes:  猿, 猢狲

 

Proverb:  树倒猢狲散

[boctulus]

街, 街頭, 街道 street  

馬路 avenue, highway (always a wide-street)

 

街道 is street but in an architectural sense *

[skylee]

I learnt these on the internet today -

China - 西朝鮮 (country to the west of North Korea)。你國(opposite of 我國～showing disapproval)。趙國(this comes from the powerful 趙家 of the Story of Ah Q)。中共國。

These are of course internet slang.

[Pegasus]

Perhaps we can also think of "same thing, different names" as "same thing, different translations"? 

 

I was playing around with a U.S. iPhone, changing the language from English to 简体中文 and 繁體中文 and back to English because I wanted to see how the menus on the phone were translated from English into Chinese. I noticed some differences in the word choice of some menu items between 简体中文 and 繁體中文. I wonder if the differences were simply due to hiring different translators or if maybe different words were chosen because of differences in common or typical usage between mainland China and Taiwan or Hong Kong. I wonder if anyone could shed any light on these examples below:

 

When the iPhone was set to 简体中文, "Settings" was called 设置 (shèzhì). 

When the iPhone was set to 繁體中文, "Settings" was called 設定 (shèdìng).

 

One of the menu items under "Settings" is called "General" (to mean general settings I presume). 

When the iPhone was set to 简体中文, it was called 通用 (tōngyòng). 

When the iPhone was set to 繁體中文, it was called 一般 (yībān).

 

I asked my friend's wife (who happens to be from mainland China) about 通用 vs 一般 and I showed her the iPhone. She thought that 一般 was strange. 通用 sounded right to her, and she said that to her 一般 meant so-so. I'm curious what other native speakers think. Is 一般 a poor translation or was my friend's wife simply unfamiliar with this usage of 一般?

 

So,

What do you think of 通用 vs 一般? 

and

What do you think of 设置 vs 設定?

 

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

 

Cheers, 

Pegasus 

 

 

[Publius]

Computer age arrived long after Mainland and Taiwan parted their ways. So no surprise many terms are translated differently.

文件 vs 檔案

硬盘 vs 硬碟

打印 vs 列印

设置 vs 設定

字符 vs 字元

脱机 vs 離線

故障排除 vs 疑難排解

etc, etc.

Some people are familiar with both. Some not. Though I don't use the term, I have no trouble understanding 一般設定. I think of them as bonnet vs hood, boot vs trunk, potayto vs potahto.

[Demonic_Duck]

Guangdong Vs. The north

家俬 Vs. 家具

公仔面 Vs. 方便面/泡面

猪扒 Vs. 猪排

[Wurstmann]

Might have already been mentioned:

调羹 - 勺子

[Demonic_Duck]

外带 vs. 打包/带走