Curious about my Chinese name, plus a few other questions..

[henny63]

I am aware of the difficulties of translating an English name into a Chinese one, but I am curious anyway; my name is Henry Armstrong (though my close family often call me my nickname - Harry). What characters could my name take in Chinese? And what are the meanings? Thanks ;)

 

Other questions;

1. Should I speak Erhua? E.g., 在哪里或在哪儿？ Will my Hong Kong friends understand the latter?

2. Is there a rule for the tone of a final character? E.g., is 下午好 spoken with the last character as a third tone or does it become 4th?

3. What constitutes beautiful character writing? My friend told me that my characters are almost as beautiful as his.

 

Thanks a lot

[skylee]

Consider 安恆力 (an1 heng2 li4). 安 represents the first syllable of the family name, 恆力 represents Henry. As to the meanings, take a look at the link below -

http://cdict.net/?q=%E5%AE%89%E6%81%86%E5%8A%9B

I think the usual translation for Henry (亨利) is also ok. The meaning is good. But it lacks character.

Another name that popped up in my mind is 弘曆 (hong2 li4). But it is an emperor's name and almost everyone knows it. So it does not seem very appropriate for ordinary people.

PS - But then, of course, Henry is also a name for kings. Haha.

[Lu]

1. You can use erhua or not, in most cases either is correct. 那里 is just as right as 那儿. If you speak mostly to Southerners, it makes sense to drop most of the erhua, to sound similar to them. But if you want to talk to Hongkongnese, a bigger issue is whether they speak Mandarin. The main language spoken in Hong Kong is Cantonese, and the two are not usually mutually intelligable.

2. All words have a tone, and that tone goes with that word, no matter where in the sentence the word is. So 好 is 3rd tone, in both 'Xiàwǔ hǎo.' and 'Nǐ hǎo ma?'

3. What constitutes good calligraphy cannot really be explained easily. Look at a lot of handwriting and callipgrahy, ask your friends what they think of it, and you'll get an idea of what is considered beautiful, and what you find beautiful (it won't always be the same).

[Vivi MENG]

Your name can be most officially translated as 亨利（Henry)，阿姆斯特朗(Armstrong). And your nickname can be called 哈利，as Harry Poter 哈利波特's Harry. There's no speakable meaning of your name I'm afraid. But don't be upset about this, my Chinese name doesn't have special meaning either. It just sounds good.

 

As for the answers to your questions, I agree with 楼上（Chinese online language. It means "the guy replied you before me")

[Demonic_Duck]

What Vivi MENG means is that your name would most commonly be transliterated as 亨利·阿姆斯特朗, e.g. if you were written about in a Chinese newspaper. To be honest, words and names from distant languages often transliterate horribly into Chinese - the pinyin for that surname, for instance, is Āmǔsītèlǎng. To take another example, the French revolutionary anthem "L'Internationale" was translated into Chinese, with the name "Internationale" left untranslated, but transliterated into "英特纳雄耐尔" (Yīngtènàxióngnài'ěr). It frankly sounds hilarious when it's drawn out into individual syllables (Ying te---- na xiong nai---- er----), especially when you consider what the word's supposed to sound like in French.

 

If you want something for Chinese people to call you by that they'll find familiar and easy to pronounce, 亨利 should be fine. If you want a more authentic-sounding Chinese name, I rather like Skylee's suggestion of 安恒力 myself.

[Vivi MENG]

      Ignore this plz.   

      (不太清楚回复键在哪里，只好跟帖了。Demonic_Duck说的更详细了。我对他的某些观点赞同，不过我觉得大多数国家对于外来语言的名字基本都是随乡入俗的按音节翻译，并不存在names from distant languages often transliterate horribly into Chinese的问题。中国名字在英语报纸上也是没有意义的拼音。

      至于 "英特纳雄耐尔" ，乍一看确实有些笑话。但是反观亚洲其他国家有更多这样的外来词汇。特殊的词总是存在于特殊的历史时期，希望以后这样的错误越来越少，更方便不同背景的人交流沟通。

      以上是本人一点拙见，不吐不快，还请Duck兄多多包涵。)

[roddy]

Vivi, welcome to the site. Native speakers can be very useful here, as we have so many Chinese learners. But because we have so many Chinese learners - please do post in English.

[Vivi MENG]

Really sorry about that. I thought Duck was a native speaker as well because of his knowledge and location. Please accept my apologies, guys.

[roddy]

Apology accepted. And Mr Duck could certainly understand your post, but that doesn't mean Henny or other people could, and they're interested too. Hope you're enjoying the London sun...

[Demonic_Duck]

Roddy, you evidently have an unrealistically high opinion of my Chinese level, hehe. I'll make an effort to reply though, as I think the points Vivi raised were interesting.

 

不太清楚回复键在哪里，只好跟帖了。

 

There's no quote button next to posts, if you want to quote someone you need to use the button in the post box at the bottom, or alternatively use this code:

[quote name="name of poster"]quoted text[/quote]

我觉得大多数国家对于外来语言的名字基本都是随乡入俗的按音节翻译，并不存在names from distant languages often transliterate horribly into Chinese的问题。中国名字在英语报纸上也是没有意义的拼音。

 

I do think that Chinese suffers from this problem more than most languages, in that it normally "naturalises" foreign names by giving every consonant sound its own syllable, hence turning reasonably short words into gigantic 6 or 7 syllable monstrosities. However, loanwords which are truly naturalised to Chinese often lose some of these consonant sounds, for instance "酷" ("cool") is kù, not kù'ěr.

 

As for Chinese names in English newspapers, they are normally given an accurate pinyin transcription. The main thing missing is the tones. Of course, a native English speaker may well see "Xi Jinping" and think it's pronounced /ksi: dʒɪnpɪŋ/, but a reporter on the news won't make that mistake and will pronounce it as /ʃi: dʒɪnpɪŋ/. Still not perfect, but decently close.

 

至于 "英特纳雄耐尔" ，乍一看确实有些笑话。但是反观亚洲其他国家有更多这样的外来词汇。特殊的词总是存在于特殊的历史时期，希望以后这样的错误越来越少，更方便不同背景的人交流沟通。

 

Of course I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't use loanwords or transliterations (how could we avoid them with names)? I just find the way Chinese does it to be amusing. I find Chinese in general to be a very beautiful language, so maybe I'm more sensitive than other people as to things in Chinese that are "ugly", hehe.

[Vivi MENG]

Wow, Demonic_Duck you are good!! If you can reply me in Chinese, you will be amazing!

[tysond]

Another name that popped up in my mind is 弘曆 (hong2 li4). But it is an emperor's name and almost everyone knows it. So it does not seem very appropriate for ordinary people. 

 

 

I have found very few problems with picking a Chinese name that is a bit... outrageous (财神).  

I was a bit worried at first, but most people have a bit of fun with it but are happy to use it.

 

Some Chinese people also choose very creative English names these days.

I have recently seen a Zorro, Twinkle and Cinema.  They are kind of funny at first but I have no problem using the name.  

[OneEye]

Just wait until you meet Polar Bear. You'll think differently.

[imron]

I have found very few problems with picking a Chinese name that is a bit... outrageous (财神).

Haha, that's great, and when asked you can truthfully say it's a transliteration of your English name