need help translating birthday party invitation to Chinese

[trisha2766]

I'm making invitations for my daughter's birthday party and I'd like to make them (partly) bi-lingual. How do you say the following 2 things, one for the front of the card, the other for the inside?

1) How would you say 'You're invited to a party' for a child's birthday party?

would '你邀请聚会!' make any sense?

2) And ' [child name] is having a birthday party!'

' [child name] 过生日聚会' - I doubt this is even close, but I couldn't find any sample sentences to use to figure it out.

I'm going to make the details in the invitation just in English, I'm not quite that ambitious!

Thanks for any help!

[skylee]

If you put the whole message on the invitation here (and tell us which part(s) you want translated) we/I could help. It is better to let the translators know the whole message/story.

[trisha2766]

The first is the only text on the front of the card. The second one is most of the text on the inside. The only other information on the inside will be the location, time and details that will be in smaller print.

[skylee]

First - Consider 誠邀你參加派對 or 來參加派對 (Come join a party).

Second - Consider [name] 會舉行生日派對 or 是[name]的生日派對(It's [name]'s birthday party).

[trisha2766]

Thanks! So what is the difference between 派對 and 聚会? One of the harder parts of learning a language seems to be when to use one synonym or another. Is there a slight difference in tone or mood between the two?

[skylee]

派對 (simplified form is 派对) is a transliteration of "party". 聚会 means gathering.

PS - I write in traditional Chinese.

[trisha2766]

I noticed the traditional characters - I was in a hurry and didn't reply using 派对, although I had looked it up and meant to.

So then, its a transliteration. Chinese uses a lot of those. Not sure how I feel about them. Makes Chinese more confusing sometimes I think.

[OneEye]

Why would you feel one way or the other about them? You're not going to change the language . You have to learn it on its own terms, not the way you would prefer it to be.

I don't know about China, but in Taiwan people throw English words into their sentences all the time. Not transliterations, but whole words. I think it's a lot of fun:

小林的表現那麼差，他們應該把他fire掉。

那個阿兜仔的發音怎麼這麼local？ (阿兜仔 is Taiwanese slang for non-asian foreigners)

小case啦。(meaning "no big deal")

As you can see in that last one, they don't always use the words the way we do. And they treat the words with Chinese grammar, as you can see in the first example (fire掉, which made me laugh the first time I heard it).

[trisha2766]

Not trying to change anything - don't take it too seriously - just thinking out loud.