Today's bit of linguistic fun

[oloriel]

Non-Tolkienists probably won't want to know.

So, completely by coincidence and through channels that shall remain unnamed (*cough* dA *cough), today I learned how the Chinese translators of the Silmarillion rendered Maedhros in Chinese, namely, 梅斯罗斯 (mei(2)si(1)luo(2)si(1)Of course, that translates to nothing sensible, just being a rough

Comments

[sermanya]

Hihihi cool :) You know/learn chinese?

[oloriel]

I took a year of Chinese back in grade 12 - enough to know how to handle a dictionary. Also enough to know that it's not a language my brain can process well. >_>

[sermanya]

:)
My company said they'd pay for every language course I desire to take. They'd prefer me to learn korean, russian, turkish, spanish, portuguese or chinese because these are the languages of our current main custumers (but I'm not limited to this choice). And I said to myself (in a completely phd-jumbled mood): Why not chinese? (At least that's a country where women are treated more equally to men than nearly everywhere else)

But maybe it would be easier to start with spanish or french ;) I don't know.

[oloriel]

Did you have Latin in school? That would definitely make Spanish, Portuguese or French (reasonably) easy to learn, thanks to a lot of related vocabulary and grammar. Even without a Latin background, you'd probably find them reasonably familiar.

Chinese is simple as far as the grammar is concerned, but the characters are murder (~ 5000 for "normal", everyday use; ~90,000 if you want to know them all), and the fact that there's a relatively small pool of syllables but each can have multiple meanings depending on stress/tone makes it a hell of a language to speak or listen to as a beginner. People have managed, apparently, but it's very hard. (I'll go and see if I find the Chinese lion story I copied for LJ some years ago: Basically, every word is pronounced "shi" in various tones, and it makes a ludicrous but understandable complete story. ETA: Ha! gefunden!) If you like a challenge, you can try it, but don't be fooled by all those "Chinese is a simple language!" things. Yes, it is - if you only think in terms of grammar

[cowboy_r]

I'm sure you've seen the thing about vendors in China, before the official transliteration occurred, using characters which read "Bite the wax tadpole."

(http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/tadpole.asp) just in case you haven't.

[oloriel]

Ahahahah! I had heard the "Bite the wax tadpole" phrase before, but I wasn't aware it had been an attempt to translate Coca-Cola. So thanks for the link!

[sermanya]

Some years ago, my father had some fun with his business partners in China. They laughed their ass off because of a truck company called MAN. Which apparently means "slow" in chinese.

After some days of stupid jokes he couldn't hold back and told them what their company name - Weichei - means in German ;)

[oloriel]

GOLD. XD

[gwailome]

Well, I've never heard the Chinese version, but some 2-3 years ago I was charmed, though couldn't hold back a small laugh, on hearing the Japanese version - Maezurosu)

But really the Chinese version sounds too soft for such a character