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Koramei posted:does anyone know somewhere with a list of a whole bunch of Chinese/Japanese/Indian Americans or whatever for a comparison, to see if there is actually a difference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_people_of_Chinese_descent_by_occupation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_people_of_Japanese_descent_by_occupation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_people_of_Indian_descent_by_occupation I'm too lazy to trawl through it though.
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Nov 14, 2014 07:44
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Koramei posted:and again anecdotal, but in my experience most of the Japanese people i know take English or shortened names too. which might not be the norm, but i'd like to actually see? does anyone know somewhere with a list of a whole bunch of Chinese/Japanese/Indian Americans or whatever for a comparison, to see if there is actually a difference I've never met a Japanese person who has taken an English name?
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Nov 14, 2014 14:50
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goldboilermark posted:I've never met a Japanese person who has taken an English name? well, I'm not sure. If anyone would know the answer to that question, it'd be you.
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Nov 14, 2014 15:46
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US lawmakers announce bill supporting Hong Kong ‘freedom and democracy’. I love America. Congress is the greatest troll.
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Nov 14, 2014 17:05
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goldboilermark posted:I've never met a Japanese person who has taken an English name? Are you being sarcastic? Where are you from?
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Nov 14, 2014 18:10
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Nor have I, really. Do you know a lot of Japanese people who take English names? In fact a lot of girls in Hong Kong will take Japanese names as their "English" name. I've met so many Yukis and Sukis and Yokos in Hong Kong. Aside from the "r" and some fuckery regarding pitch accent, gemination and vowel length, Japanese Hepburn Romanization is pretty intuitive for native English speakers and someone unfamiliar with the system isn't going to completely butcher a Japanese name to the point of incomprehensibility. I think that's the reason why Japanese rarely take English names, way more likely than any pontificating about social or cultural confidence or whatever FSAD was talking about. Japanese has a comparatively small phonemic inventory that overlaps pretty well with most standard English dialects. I don't think it's much more complicated than that. Here's a good video on the Chinese converse that I'm pretty sure has been posted in this thread before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOBYbo2LntU Deep State of Mind fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Nov 14, 2014 |
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Nov 14, 2014 18:43
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Snipee posted:Are you being sarcastic? Where are you from? Long story, that....
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Nov 14, 2014 19:41
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Kaorou Uno is was called Carl Uno for a while when he fought in the States, but it's hard to know whether that was his choice or just promoters being racists. fake edit: In fact, he's still known as Caol Uno to Americans, although that's at least somewhat justifiable as an alternate romanization.
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Nov 14, 2014 21:00
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goldboilermark posted:I've never met a Japanese person who has taken an English name? My grandmother kind of had an English name forced on her by an American primary school, but that was like 90 years ago, so that kind of thing probably isn't happening anywhere these days. At least I hope not.
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Nov 14, 2014 22:46
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Snipee posted:Are you being sarcastic? Where are you from? The USA? I've spent over two months in Japan in the past two years and have yet to meet a single person that has chosen an English name? Again it is anecdotal but that really surprised me. Living in China I get business cards that say Fancy Zhang or Robot Wang but I have never met a Japanese person that has chosen to go by an English name.
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Nov 15, 2014 01:49
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Supplanter posted:Chinese (all the dialects really) is also really hard to understand with all the tones and homophones, so while they're adopting Latin script maybe they should also replace the whole spoken language with English. The tones are more of a rouse to show an elite face, the real challenge with Chinese is the higher reliance on context. Written form explicitly sets the meaning so you lose the vernacular. I would like to see new attempts at a Latin script based vernacular Chinese that don't suffer the problems of existing romanization that have not grown with the language (hello Jyutping), although that is heavily influenced by the inflexible wrote-learning mentality predominant in many school teaching methodologies outside of the Occident. Anything new could equally be meaningless in another 50 years.
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Nov 15, 2014 02:18
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goldboilermark posted:The USA? I've spent over two months in Japan in the past two years and have yet to meet a single person that has chosen an English name? Again it is anecdotal but that really surprised me. Living in China I get business cards that say Fancy Zhang or Robot Wang but I have never met a Japanese person that has chosen to go by an English name. There's a guy in China who literally introduces himself to Westerners as Robot? That's awesome.
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Nov 15, 2014 02:29
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Chadderbox posted:There's a guy in China who literally introduces himself to Westerners as Robot? That's awesome. "The name's wang, robot wang"
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Nov 15, 2014 02:47
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Chadderbox posted:There's a guy in China who literally introduces himself to Westerners as Robot? That's awesome. My girlfriend had a roommate named Fish once. And then I have a friend named Rainbow but that's literally her Chinese name too. 
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Nov 15, 2014 02:48
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MrMoo posted:The tones are more of a rouse to show an elite face, the real challenge with Chinese is the higher reliance on context. Written form explicitly sets the meaning so you lose the vernacular. Does Zhuyin work with other dialects or just Mandarin?
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Nov 15, 2014 02:50
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Chadderbox posted:There's a guy in China who literally introduces himself to Westerners as Robot? That's awesome. There was an article about this a couple weeks ago: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-29688381
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Nov 15, 2014 03:21
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I just met a guy who manufactures missile guidance systems named Friendy because "It give people friendly feeling"
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Nov 15, 2014 03:35
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ESL kids have the best English names. I've had a Dolphin, a Laser, and a Watermelon. My favorite, though, was a little boy who went by "Flower." His mother said it wasn't, but I was convinced he had to be named for the skunk from Bambi; because he was basically exactly like that character.
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Nov 15, 2014 03:39
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There is 4000 years of history here guys, and they got the naming thing right. Look, when you have tons of kids, and there are tons of you to be begin with, it's hard to remember proper names. Wait a few years and name him after his temperament, so you can remember who everybody is. You are essentially named your nickname.
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Nov 15, 2014 03:50
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:My grandmother kind of had an English name forced on her by an American primary school, but that was like 90 years ago, so that kind of thing probably isn't happening anywhere these days. At least I hope not. I've seen plenty of Asian people get given computer parts posted:My girlfriend had a roommate named Fish once. And then I have a friend named Rainbow but that's literally her Chinese name too. My friend's married to a Rainbow! I know an Apple, a Cash and a Coffee but Laser and Robot have to be the best names.
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Nov 15, 2014 04:50
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Femur posted:There is 4000 years of history here guys, and they got the naming thing right. Look, when you have tons of kids, and there are tons of you to be begin with, it's hard to remember proper names. Wait a few years and name him after his temperament, so you can remember who everybody is. Eh. 70% of my family, going back to the year 1000, are named William. Nobody's quite sure why. Given that quite often there were more than four male babies that survived, often there were two or three Williams at a time. The Irish, ladies and gentlemen!
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Nov 15, 2014 05:05
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Kegslayer posted:
In fairness to my Rainbow her dad just thought that the literal translation of her Chinese name would be a good name, she didn't pick it out herself. Warcabbit posted:Eh. 70% of my family, going back to the year 1000, are named William. Nobody's quite sure why. Given that quite often there were more than four male babies that survived, often there were two or three Williams at a time. "There must've been two dozen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwJaSXb_PoI
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Nov 15, 2014 05:09
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computer parts posted:In fairness to my Rainbow her dad just thought that the literal translation of her Chinese name would be a good name, she didn't pick it out herself. The first girl I kind of dated over told me her English name was "Hazzy", and I told her that wasn't really a name or even a word for that matter. She said because her Chinese name (艳霞) was translated to 'beautiful morning clouds' or something like that she wanted a name that meant the feeling you get in the morning with beautiful clouds, like 'hazy', and she had been misspelling it for her entire life. I told her Dawn might have been a better choice, as that was an actual name and usually means a beautiful time of the morning where the clouds look like she described. She now lives in the United States and calls herself Hazzy all the time in the third person, so my suggestion was obviously ignored. Now that I think about it, Hazzy is probably a perfect name for her.
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Nov 15, 2014 05:23
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Warcabbit posted:Eh. 70% of my family, going back to the year 1000, are named William. Nobody's quite sure why. Given that quite often there were more than four male babies that survived, often there were two or three Williams at a time. Huh. My family basically took every derivation of John and applied it once a generation. So you had Sean, Shaun, Shawn, Ivan, Ian, Yohan, Ewan...
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Nov 15, 2014 06:05
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I went to China with my wife and her family a few years ago, down to Guangzhou, and I met a guy who's name I can only approximate as "Chuh Wai." Nice guy, owns a leather goods business. One night, I jokingly called him "Chuck White" and he didn't care for it at all, but it was all good because we got drunk on Guiness at some dim sum joint and all was forgiven. But yeah, he didn't like having his Chinese name appropriated. As an aside, my wife and her sister were born in the U.S. to immigrants from Guangzhou and Macau. Their parents named them Anna and Manna, but they tell me their Chinese names "ain-a" and "mei-na" mean "safe" and "beautiful" respectively, or something to that effect, at least. I know the word for America, "meiguo" is supposed to mean "beautiful nation," so I guess it makes sense. Then again, one of her young family friends we met in Guangzhou goes by "Dixie," so yeah, I dunno. Plastic Megaphone fucked around with this message at 08:16 on Nov 15, 2014 |
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Nov 15, 2014 07:53
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I girl I work with calls herself Morrie in English, and apparently her Chinese given name is "Xinuye". I have no idea how to pronounce it so I've no idea what it means.
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Nov 15, 2014 08:01
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AYC posted:I girl I work with calls herself Morrie in English, and apparently her Chinese given name is "Xinuye". I have no idea how to pronounce it so I've no idea what it means. Is that supposed to be XinYUE?
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Nov 15, 2014 08:30
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It's quite common in English classes in China for kids to pick themselves an English name. I will now litter you with the best collections of names that 11 year old kids can come up with in a foreign language. I think it's a general tendency to find English names among Chinese people you meet as an English speaker because most of the people you're interacting with have learned and are speaking English. A lot of them also do it simply because it's easier for them than hearing English speakers mangle the tones of their Chinese name. Anyway, stories. I got to meet one lady and her son, whose name was Dragon. One class I taught had a boy who'd named himself after his favourite thing. I still giggle every time I think about asking Basketball what the answer was. I know one Chinese girl who picked the name an English teacher she like once jokingly called her. When she found out what Kinky meant post university she changed it pretty quickly. The absolute best I can't vouch for, heard it second hand from someone that worked in a law recruitment business in Hong Kong. They had one mainland client that was, apparently a pretty awesome contract lawyer but the guy working with could not get him jobs ever outside the Mainland. Anytime he rang up everyone else had to leave the room lest the guy working with him break down into a fit of giggles while dealing with Optimus Prime. I'm sure this says something about the national character of China but I'm not sure what besides being awesome.
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Nov 15, 2014 09:25
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Student leaders denied boarding at Hong Kong airport. Their Home Return Permits are now cancelled/void. It's more of a PR Stunt and expected that the students will be turned away. Yep, no more China trips for them for a long long time. I'm too insignificant as border guards don't really care about my yellow ribbon with an umbrella logo tied to my bag
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Nov 15, 2014 10:44
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I was at the Foreign Studies High School for a year and a half and had kids named George Washington, Mrs. Kobe Bryant (the smallest 7th grade girl in the school), a fat girl named Lucifer, a fat girl named Pablo, a boy named Katherine, Ziker, Dyke (he changed it to Froggen after I asked him to pick a different name), Witty and confusingly enough we had a boy named What, which always delved into Who's on First like humor every class.
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Nov 15, 2014 10:51
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icantfindaname posted:Does Zhuyin work with other dialects or just Mandarin? It's a phonetic system so yes, it just encodes the sounds of characters as they are spoken in Mandarin. Much the same way that simplifying English spelling in any significant way would require favouring one particular dialect over another (for example unifying the spelling of 'walk' and 'wok', which are pronounced the same in many American accents, would make no sense to an English person, and unifying the spelling of 'pass' and 'parse', which sound identical in my accent, would completely baffle an American person), any phonetic rendering of Chinese would work only for [standard] Mandarin or for a single dialect. The problem is exacerbated in China by the fact that different 'dialects' are mutually unintelligible and arguably constitute languages in themselves, and the writing system being unified across what are essentially different languages greatly helps communication, especially online. Mostly though the problem I have with the idea of romanisation (or English spelling reform) is that it discards invaluable history and culture, as well as destroying the etymology preserved in the words themselves. Yes it might have practical benefits but they're not worth abandoning a priceless connection with the past. And the best self-chosen western name I've ever encountered was 'Nintendo' from a mainland Chinese person. Mainspring fucked around with this message at 11:35 on Nov 15, 2014 |
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Nov 15, 2014 11:31
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Mainspring posted:And the best self-chosen western name I've ever encountered was 'Nintendo' from a mainland Chinese person. Well, that one's not exactly a 'western' name, is it?
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Nov 15, 2014 12:09
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Chantilly Say posted:Well, that one's not exactly a 'western' name, is it? Yeah, should have put that in quotes. I think that supports the theory that a large part of the reason Chinese people often choose western names whereas Japanese people do not is due to [the perception of] easier pronunciation for westerners. The Japanese 'Nintendo' is easy for them to pronounce and remember compared to a Chinese name.
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Nov 15, 2014 12:59
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All of my Chinese coworkers who go by their Chinese names also have a Starbucks Name. They'll give the mouth breather behind the counter a generic English name because the hassle of trying to get them to pronounce the Chinese name correctly was simply not worth it.
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Nov 15, 2014 13:11
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I'm not sure where all the comments about Japanese not picking English names are coming from. It's quite common for Japanese living in the West to pick English names for their kids that have a equivalent in Japanese (Ken = Ken, Ray = Rei etc.)
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Nov 15, 2014 14:16
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Mainspring posted:Mostly though the problem I have with the idea of romanisation (or English spelling reform) is that it discards invaluable history and culture How, exactly? The old books won't vanish. People can still read Beowulf or Lao Zi now even though they're essentially incomprehensible from the standpoint of the modern language.
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Nov 15, 2014 14:32
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shrike82 posted:I'm not sure where all the comments about Japanese not picking English names are coming from. It's quite common for Japanese living in the West to pick English names for their kids that have a equivalent in Japanese (Ken = Ken, Ray = Rei etc.) We aren't talking about people living in the west. We are talking about people living in China. Who actually choose English names when interacting with foreigners. I see it all the time in China and I've never seen it in Japan.
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Nov 15, 2014 14:48
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Daduzi posted:How, exactly? The old books won't vanish. People can still read Beowulf or Lao Zi now even though they're essentially incomprehensible from the standpoint of the modern language. Of course but it makes the original text [more] inaccessible to the average Chinese person. Actually though it's not only the books written with Hanzi but the Hanzi themselves which represent invaluable culture. Their aesthetic value, the practice of calligraphy, their continuous historical development, etc., are all worth preserving in popular culture. Even the way they are used to evade censorship, or the use of auspicious characters in names (e.g. Mao being named 'Zedong' because his father was told he needed water in his name, i.e. 氵) are unique cultural facets. I can't enumerate the ways in which they're entwined with Chinese culture as a whole; it's not like abandoning them would have no effect other than making ancient texts even less comprehensible.
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Nov 15, 2014 15:45
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caberham posted:Student leaders denied boarding at Hong Kong airport. Their Home Return Permits are now cancelled/void. It's more of a PR Stunt and expected that the students will be turned away. You have to actually go to Beijing or make a wichat post stating you are going to Beijing.
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Nov 15, 2014 15:56
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Look at you scrubs not having the best names. I had a kid named iphone after his dad panicked when the chinese teacher asked his English name, and my wife's sister tried to change hers to gloop.
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Nov 15, 2014 16:05
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