Words and phrases related magic(like in fantasy movies&MMO games)

[DolphinYuena]

I searched through dictionaries to understand magic related words and phrases, like in MMORPG games or Fantasy books/movies. But I'm so confused how to construct a sentence and I really want to learn. I also couldn't make proper sentences the words that I looked for like 咒语, 念咒, 咒文, 魔咒, 施法, 法術... I don't know which verb should I use with them to correspond verbs "to cast", "to do", "to put"...

I'm looking for the exact words to correspond magic, charm, spell and curse. And the phrases like "to cast a spell" and "to put a spell on someone"

Also I'm trying to make sentence with the phrases;

 

• "To cast fire spell"/"Casting Light Spell"/"The witch casted a dark spell"(I want to see the usage of it with adjectives)
• "She put a curse him"
• "He cursed him with a spell"
• "She put a spell on me"
• "She did lightning magic" etc.

 

I really need this community's help on this. Thanks in advance.

[Shelley]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

You don't say what level Chinese you have, if any. Its not as simple as just substituting Chinese words for English words. You need to learn grammar, sentence order and many other things before you can construct sentences.

You might find these sentences as a whole but without understanding them it would be difficult to use them correctly.

Let us know more about your chinese knowledge and what you hope to achieve with these words/sentences.

[DolphinYuena]

Wow, I didn't expect to leave my resumé about Chinese, but okay...

 

I started learning Mandarin in 2013 Fall, via My College's Foreign Languages courses.It lasted till 2016 Summer.

Get a A2, then B1 then B2 certificate, so I guess it's pre-intermediate, but I feel I lack so much thing that I feel like I don't know anything.

I've been in top 10 of the 16th Chinese Bridge Competition of my country. Chinese government invited the Top 10 to China for a 1 week tour vacation. I was able to describe my needs there, had a lot of fun.

 

I love playing games, especially Online Fantasy Game and fantasy movies like Harry Potter, LOTR in additon the series like The Magicians. I usually play mage/wizard characters, and I'm planning to play in non-region-locked CN server to get myself adapt to the language. 
 

Clearly I don't have constructing a sentence but my problem which I discuss with my teacher from Beijing is that I couldn't find the exact right word to describe something. My friends often tell me to check Pleco's examples, but I'm a weird one that what word I look I cannot find an example of the word or an example fitting in my expactations like "Yes that what I was talking about", I was going to ask my teacher but she is so busy, so I, instead asking her, give it a shot to ask the internet.

There you go, Shelly.

[Shelley]

I only wanted to know if you were nothing or beginner, intermediate or advanced. just to be able to judge the level of responses.

I will go and have a think and if I come up with anything I will be sure to post.

[艾墨本]

You sound like you're at the perfect level and with the right aspirations to pick up Harry Potter in Chinese. I have several friends who have read the series and joke about knowing all the phrases you listed above. Unfortunately, I have not read it and don't have good translations for the words you list beyond what Pleco can provide.

 

Additionally, considering browsing the thread on "the Grand Gaming Project" which aspires to learn Chinese through video games.

 

Also, not sure about your long-term Chinese aspirations but, interestingly, a lot of terms like the ones listed above have their roots in powers the Daoist and Buddhist deities used. You might have fun researching some of the source texts that describe these deities, though they are written in classical Chinese. I attached a fun classical Chinese text along with its translation just in case it inspires you. There is another sub-forum here devoted to classical Chinese, too.

God+of+Thunder.pdf

[Shelley]

That is a very good suggestion, I hadn't of going at it from that direction. Harry Potter is full of that sort of thing, You might find a vocabulary list somewhere.

P.S Don't know why its posting in bold, I see it as normal.

 

 

[DolphinYuena]

艾墨本, 感谢您。

The suggestions you made are amazing. I feel embarassed 'cause of not coming across with a gaming thread. I'm definitely checking it all day.

 

In Harry Potter, the spells' names are usually Latin or straight-up English like "Lumos"(Illumination Spell) or "Stupify"(Stupifying Spell), but these are just the name of the spells, The action of performing a spell is referred to as casting. 

 

There are sentences like "He did the cloaking spell to make himself invisibile" or "He did the illumination magic to lighten up the entire cave". In also Online Games, we often say "Use your spell" or "Use your magic skill", "I am using my poison magic to kill the devils", but the most used verb is "to cast", for example: "I am casting my attraction spell on the monster" or "Casting such a massive spell would cause nothing but devastation".  I don't know how in Chinese cartoons they refer to those.

 

I think you got me at this point. I'm also kind of person who watches tons of anime(with superpower, magic, supernatural genres), even I found few anime in Chinese, which was really cool.  I sometimes watch the shows I like in Chinese Dub.

I've been watching Chinese Movies with magical theme in like the movie <<The Four>> I've had played Chinese Themed MMORPGs where culture is ancient chinese (e.g. Yulgang 2, Metin 2) with lots of magic and chinese style lore like the you posted God Of Thunder. (According to my field of joy, Western style games with Medieval Knights, Merlin-like Wizards are not as fun as Chinese style Warriors, Magicians, Archers or Japanese style Samurais and Ninjas.) Since, chinese players community is so massive and they're known to be the best players around the world, I slowly want to be in that community and get benefit from the games' and the ones who are interested in the same stuff. 

 

But Thank you so much again, I'm so happy by the responses.

 

By the way, I think in my initial post, I sounded like I didn't know how to construct a regular sentence, however I meant I couldn't construct a sentence with "magical words and phrases" 

[Shelley]

52 minutes ago, DolphinYuena said:

By the way, I think in my initial post, I sounded like I didn't know how to construct a regular sentence, however I meant I couldn't construct a sentence with "magical words and phrases" 

That's why I wondered what your level was.

Hope it goes well.

[陳德聰]

I believe the verb you're looking for is 施(展).

 

We 施 things like 魔法，咒語 etc. In the vocabulary you provided in your first post, you gave 念咒 and the 施法, both of which are verb-object pairs.

[DolphinYuena]

Thank you 陳德聰,

That was totally what I've looked for. 

I  asked the very same question some where else, and I get the answer as.

 

Quote

There's the fantasy novel of expressing them, then there's the gaming way of saying them. However you need to remember we don't have the same verbs when it comes to magic or describing magic, due to the cultural context. Fantasy Magic (the kind you're probably thinking) probably didn't become a concept until 20th century.

Spells and curses share the same word (咒). perhaps you could use 魔咒 or 魔法 or 法术 for spells and magic, as they're not malicious, instead of 诅咒, but they still practically mean the same thing in Chinese.

The 'novel' way:

to cast a fire spell/light spell - 施火咒/施光咒

she put a curse on him - 她诅咒他/她诅了咒在他身上 (诅咒 = curse). 诅 itself means to ask a higher power for malicious acts onto other people.

he cursed him with a spell - 他用咒文诅咒他

she put a spell on me - 她施了魔咒在我身上.

she did lightning magic - Context? "She did a lighting magic yesterday" would sound like 她昨天用了闪电魔法. 'Did' would equate to 'used' in this context. If you meant something else let me know. You used 'magic' so the translation would be 魔法

For some immediate answers -- just use 用 or 施 in general for attaching a verb on magic.

In games it's a bit more heavily based on context, so if you have anything specific in mind, let me know. Most of the novel way of saying them would sound very odd in conversation about gaming. I'm thinking like an MMO raid, or a League of Legends discussion, or voice chat to coordinate with your teammates. They're more likely going to be more practical, and say things like 'Use xxx on her', or directly have a word for the spell/effect.

 

from the user GrayySea from Reddit

 

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Chinese/comments/693eat/words_and_phrases_related_magiclike_in_fantasy/dh786du/?context=3

[laurenth]

You could consider that the Wikipedia or the Baidu articles about 《万智牌游戏》 are your textbook and start from there.

 

[Edit] Also, the 盗墓笔记 and 鬼吹灯 series are fun to read and contain quite a lot of zombies, traditional Chinese monsters and other surrealistic elements.