Help needed to convert hand written characters to digital form

[Chr1s]

Hi everybody,

 

I'm not sure if this is the correct place to ask, but I need help converting some hand written Chinese characters into digital form, so that I can use them in a Word document.

I do not read or speak Mandarin, so it is hard for me to find the correct characters. I have tried using an online conversion tool from Pinyin to Mandarin, but without much success.

The characters I am looking for are of a name. I only have this name in hand written form, along with a romanizition (which I think may be in Wade-Giles form). I have attached a scan of the name to this post. The name is Taiwanese, so expect that traditional Chinese characters are used.

If anyone could help me out and type out the correct characters in a reply, that would be a great help!

 

Kind regards,

Chris

[Tiana]

Where is the attachment, Chris?

[Chr1s]

Strange, apparently something went wrong when uploading the attachment.

You can view the image HERE.

[OneEye]

陳習光

 

Chén Xíguāng in pinyin.

[Chr1s]

Thanks a lot for the quick reply!

[lingo-ling]

I notice whoever wrote that showed the bad habit of writing a comma in the name.

 

My guess, based on the use of traditional characters and Wade-Giles to spell the name is that the writer is from Taiwan. Someone is teaching Taiwanese students, wrongly, that names should include commas. Grrrrr

[Kamille]

It's a hyphen. But anyways. Matter of style. Nothing criminally "wrong" here.

[Demonic_Duck]

It contains both a hyphen and a comma.

 

I'm neutral on the use of hyphens in Wade-Giles (though I'd consider it incorrect if it were pinyin). I think commas, on the other hand, are a good compromise solution between leaving the name as it is ("Fan Bingbing") which risks unfamiliar English-speaking readers not knowing which name is the surname, and reversing the names to conform to the English standard ("Bingbing Fan"), which is just plain wrong (and horrible).

[imron]

Commas for indicating surnames are problematic when used in common text e.g.

 

While promoting her latest film, Chinese actress Fan, Bingbing commented to reporters that...

 

For lists, capitalisation of the surname is also much more common FAN Bingbing.

[Demonic_Duck]

Commas for indicating surnames are problematic when used in common text

True, though I've never seen anyone try to use them like that.

[Lu]

Commas are used when you put the surname first (for alphabetisation purposes, for example) while it should come last. People with Chinese names who live in Chinese-speaking countries and go by their Chinese name should not put a comma in their name, because it comes first anyway. Inserting a comma is simply wrong, because it appears to indicate that this is Hsi-kuang Chen, while it actually is Chen Hsi-kuang.

If Fan Bingbing makes a movie abroad, she can opt to either leave her name as it is, adopt an 'English' name with Western order, or flip her name into western order. What she should not do is insert a comma. The only scenario when Fan Bingbing gets a comma is if she decides to call herself Bingbing Fan and then her name gets on a surname-first list.

Worse is that too many Chinese and Taiwanese people picked up this comma thing at some point but not the logic behind it, and just start throwing it into their names at random. I have somewhere a namecard of a Taiwanese politician with the name written like 'Jack, Chen'.

I also disagree with Demonic Duck that the comma can be used to indicate the surname. That's not what a comma is for. Sure, non-Chinese-knowing readers may not understand that the surname comes first, but they can learn it. It's not that complicated.

And to my knowledge, hyphens like the one used here are obligatory in Wade-Giles.

I care way too much about proper romanisation.

[Demonic_Duck]

Put it this way: if it was being used in a context where the format was "surname, forename", it would absolutely be correct to do it that way. Otherwise you'd either have to mess up the format or write it as "Bingbing, Fan", which would definitely be wrong.

 

But it's true, such situations aren't all that common (mainly name lists and form fields). I wasn't aware it was overused in Taiwan.

[Kamille]

It contains both a hyphen and a comma.

 

My bad. I looked at it too quickly. 

[dwq]

One can say "I don't like this kind of romanization", but to call it a "bad habit" is passing judgement on something that has no right or wrong. It is just a convention.

[Lu]

Put it this way: if it was being used in a context where the format was "surname, forename", it would absolutely be correct to do it that way. Otherwise you'd either have to mess up the format or write it as "Bingbing, Fan", which would definitely be wrong.

If the format is surname-forename, then you can just fill in 'Fan Bingbing' because that name conveniently fits that format already. If the format dictates the surname must come first and must in all cases be followed by a comma, no matter the origin of the name, then the format is bad. (This can happen, of course, and in that case I agree that it would be Fan, Bingbing. But it would still be wrong.)

One can say "I don't like this kind of romanization", but to call it a "bad habit" is passing judgement on something that has no right or wrong. It is just a convention.

Sorry, no, it is wrong. There are rules to romanisation, and there are rules to how names are written, and if people do it differently, they're usually doing it wrong. Most of the time because they don't know what the rules are and what they mean. If you think there is no right or wrong, try writing the Chinese president's name as Chin-pping Shi.

It's a different case if someone understands what they're doing and there is some thought behind their deviation from existing rules. If, for example, someone has made up their own romanisation and think this new system is better than any of the existing ones, it's not necessarily wrong, although I still think it's a bad idea.

[dwq]

Just because people use a different convention does not mean they are ignorant ("don't know what the rules are"). It just means they are using a different convention.

[Shelley]

At post #5 this should have been a new topic - commas and their use.  Might have been more productive.

[Chr1s]

Well, this has turned into quite a discussion...

I personally think that the person who wrote down the name, knowing that I neither read nor speak Mandarin, may have inserted both the comma and the hyphen to help me understand which parts of the name are the last and first name.

 

Anyways, thank you all for your help and explanations. I've learned a lot!

[Kamille]

Sure, non-Chinese-knowing readers may not understand that the surname comes first, but they can learn it. It's not that complicated.

 

Problem is: Chinese-speakers think it is and if they sometimes put the family name first, it's for the sake of Westerners (ironic, isn't it?)

 

If at least there was a rule, like the surname always comes first, after you've learned it (and no, it's not hard), it's for life! But no, instead sometimes the surname comes first and sometimes not.

 

Before discussing the uses of commas, I think that we should discuss about a rule that would forbid people to write their first name first. This is the true problem of the 21st century! (  )

 

It's not that big a problem for me in Chinese because I know they have a limited number of surnames and they're mostly written in one syllable, but it's harder in Japanese. I mean, you don't know Japanese at all, you don't know if the writer chose to put the surname first or last and you read "Ieyasu Tokugawa", which one is his surname? Worse is that you'll also find it written Tokugawa Ieyasu  

[Lu]

Just because people use a different convention does not mean they are ignorant ("don't know what the rules are"). It just means they are using a different convention.

Some people use a different convention. Most people think they use one convention, but don't know how that convention works.

Problem is: Chinese-speakers think it is and if they sometimes put the family name first, it's for the sake of Westerners (ironic, isn't it?)

Yeah, that makes it more difficult, and people should really stop doing that. Perhaps the UN can make a rule :-p If you ask me, the Japanese shouldn't have opted to turn their names around either, but at least they're consistent about it. When you encouter a Japanese name in a Western language, it's virtually always written with the given name first.

(I know all this is a minor part of an unimportant issue, I just can't help caring about it.)