can someone please tell me what this exacly says in Mandarin

[Bruce_Lee]

Thanks

[roddy]

You'll need to take it back, it looks absolutely nothing like Bruce Lee.

[Weronika]

艾 ai4 (surname); Artemisia vulgaris; Chinese mugwort

比 bi3 to compare; to contrast; to gesture (with hands); ratio

?

紐 niu3 to turn; to wrench; button

比 bi3 to compare; to contrast; to gesture (with hands); ratio

?

?

[dotcom]

Bruce Lee 布鲁斯 李

[Bruce_Lee]

Edit

[Bruce_Lee]

Also my first name is left and surname is right

[imron]

This is supposed to be my name but I want to know if they got my first and last name right, otherwise I will go back and ask them to change it

The problem is that there is probably going to be no such thing as a direct translation of your name into Chinese characters unless your name is Japanese, Korean or some other language that uses/has used Chinese characters as part of its writing system.

The closest you can come is a transliteration, whereby the person writing your name will choose several characters that sort of almost sound like what your name does in your native language. Unfortunately from a "meaning" perspective, those characters will most likely make little to no sense when put together, and those characters will almost certainly not be seen as a proper Chinese name as most Chinese names only have 2-3 characters in them.

So, reading from left to right the pronunciation of these characters is Àibǐmànniǔ Bǐbùruì. When put together like this, the characters have no meaning and are just gibberish.

[imron]

P.S. Bruce Lee is 李小龙

[Bruce_Lee]

so what you are saying, is that is the nearest pronounction to my name and that is all gibberish ?

[imron]

Yup, pretty much. The pronunciation is probably about as close as you'll get in Chinese but the characters make no sense together. Of course each of the individual characters have meaning, it's when put together that they really don't make much sense. It's as if someone just chose a bunch of English words to put together: "mugwort compare long button compare announce auspicious"

Each of those words have a meaning, but it wouldn't seem right if that was someone's name.

[imron]

Just for your reference, here is an adsotated version of the Chinese characters.

[pop=Ai/ài]艾[/pop][pop=compares/bǐ]比[/pop][pop=long/màn]曼[/pop][pop=button/niǔ]纽[/pop]·[pop=more than/bǐ]比[/pop][pop=cloth/bù]布[/pop][pop=lucky/ruì]瑞[/pop]

[Bruce_Lee]

sorry what do you mean by adsotated ?

[imron]

http://www.adsotrans.com/

[HashiriKata]

I hope you won't take it back to the shop, as you may not get a better version. As someone who knows a bit about Chinese, I think the shop has done their best and if that doesn't give your name a coherent sense, then it's just the way it is. You could in theory get someone or company to come up with something that sounds like your name and also has some positive meaning, but be prepared to pay in millions of $. Just ask the Colar company how much they paid for transcribing their name into Chinese and you'll understand what I'm saying

[Xiao Kui]

You need a Chinese friend to help you pick out a good Chinese name or at least a 3 character name to represent your own name that has meaning. The 3 character names look a lot better when you sign, get a souvenir chop made, get calligraphy done, etc, and authentic Chinese names usually consist of 2,3, or 4 character names starting with your family name. Most Chinese names are 3 characters (total). So you want the 1st character to sound a little like your family name - it's cool if there's a CHinese family name that sounds a little like yours, because then your name will look more Chinese, and it will harder to guess just from your business card you're a foreigner.

The second two characters can sound phonetically like your first or given name. For this part it's really good to have a Chinese friend's advice so you don't pick characters with negative connotations or for the wrong gender, etc. Since I'm not Chinese, I won't venture to give you a chinese name. Sorry!

[imron]

I hope you won't take it back to the shop, as you may not get a better version. As someone who knows a bit about Chinese, I think the shop has done their best and if that doesn't give your name a coherent sense, then it's just the way it is.

I second this. The shop did their best to give you what you wanted - Chinese characters that sound approximately like your non-Chinese name. Unfortunately choosing a Chinese name is not such a simple process as just picking characters.

Suppose there are the following characteristics you can have when choosing a Chinese name:

1)Sounds like a Chinese name

2)Sounds the same as your real name.

3)Has similar meaning to your real name/has meaning related you.

For most non-Chinese, it's almost impossible to get all 3 of these things when converting your name into Chinese - especially if you plan on using your first and your last name because Chinese names are typically not very long (2-3 characters).

In fact even getting 2 of these 3 things is not so easy :-)

So, you need to think what does your name mean for you, and then which of these characteristics are important to preserve when choosing a name in Chinese.

[Bruce_Lee]

ok thanks

[skunkpuppy]

gosh... poor bruce lee must be really confused now. and to think all he wanted was his name in chinese...