#china in other languages

[latestnews69]

China's otherworldly mountains that inspired Avatar

Zhangjiajie, China's first national park, also features glass-bottomed bridges, a mountain elevator and a food court complete with a McDonald's for those inclined to take it easy.

Shy was not an impatient person, but even she struggled to keep her cool when I whipped out my phone to take what must have been the 100th photo of the same view. Shy – short for Shen Hong Yan – was my guide through Zhangjiajie National Forest Park��in central China, and she knew there were better viewpoints up ahead. But I couldn't bring myself to move on just yet; the soaring sandstone quartz pillars of this forest were unlike anything I had seen anywhere else in the world.

Located in the north-western corner of Hunan province, Zhangjiajie is China's first national park, established in 1982. This forest is part of the larger Wulingyuan Scenic Area that was included in Unesco's list of World Heritage sites in 1992 and later given Global Geopark status in 2001. The name may be a tongue-twister, but there is an easier way to remember it – as the inspiration for the Hallelujah Mountains that featured in the blockbuster movie Avatar. In fact, before I visited Zhangjiajie, that was the only fact I knew about this place. Shy confirmed what I had suspected: that Zhangjiajie used to be an underexplored destination even among Chinese tourists before the movie catapulted it into their consciousness Read more

[ask2ps]

I love 2p japan

CHINA: 日本さえ恋がしたいということ、考えられないことではないねぇ。(It’s not unthinkable that even Japan would want love, right?)

JAPAN: 闭嘴。(Shut up.)

[dumber-alek]

I looooove it when Americans are saying that not knowing about what countries there are on other continents is the same as not knowing all the us states because the us is so big and diverse.

I just wanna go: name 5 Indian states. Or 5 provinces in China real quick for me

[ladyimaginarium]

from mikjikj-mnikuk/turtle island to inuit nunangat to kanata to kalaallit nunaat to anahuac to abya yala to alkebulan to the levant to moananuiākea to sápmi to éire to bhārata to zhōngguó to nihon to aynu mosir to siberia to niugini to nusantara to bandaiyan to aotearoa, from coast to coast to coast to coast, from sea to sea to sea to sea, none of us are free until all of us — men, women, enben, children, queer people, disabled & neurodivergent people, elders, animals and the land and the sea and the sky — are free!!!!

[codename-adler]

i was doing some spring cleaning (lie)(i watched the bear S2E4 - got sad - went on denmark’s insta - got emotional - opened pinterest for fic research - got teary again - checked under the sink for pads bc surely it’s coming - rummaged af - found it??) and remembered i was given this by a Chinese exchange student who lived in the same student building as me, after i’d help her out with a lost necklace.

it just occurred to me that i could google translate with a photo, so i could read what the writing was on the box, but i’m not very trustful of the accuracy and the literal translation rather than a native one. even with the google translation, i am not sure what it is meant to mean, if the specific design on the porcelain keychain has a specific meaning, etc.

any help and reblogs would be deeply appreciated!

and to you, friend, i don’t know where you are in the world right now, but know that everytime i pick up your gift (bc silly me keeps changing its place) i think of you very, very fondly, and even many times you randomly pop into my mind and it makes me feel a little better 💙 thank you for your gift, and for the thought, and for the reminder. i hope everything is going, and always will be well 💙

(yes, i am now crying over this porcelain piece of art and this friendly & sweet stranger)

[chicago-geniza]

Mila and Tain won't stop flirting outrageously and ostentatiously in public at a big Space Soviet People's Festival and Tolan is like "for fuck's sake I cannot take you two ANYWHERE" lmfao

[unforth]

I was today years old when I learned that the word for Mandarin in Mandarin is 普通话 and now I'm lmao because it is the most Chinese thing ever for the Middle Kingdom around which the world revolves to call their language "ordinary talk" in contrast to everyone else.

And to be clear I don't mean this disparagingly, I think it's fascinating as an example of how history and language frame word creation, how cultures see themselves, etc. I think it's so cool. I will never forget this word. It will be on my slowly fomenting next list of more of my favorite words in Chinese. It's absolutely intriguing and neat.

But I was also extremely "wut" at first because I know all the characters individually and didn't realize that TOGETHER they meant Mandarin so I just thought DuChinese was being weird about comparing Cantonese with other Chinese dialects (the reading was about dialects). 🤣🤣🤣

[mathmusicreading]

@yummysuika @ospreywhite I really appreciate your translation work; can you explain more about shichen timekeeping to me? Because I know a tiny bit of modern Mandarin Chinese, but I can't recognize the shichens as the zodiac animals:

Zi (I don't know "rat", so I actually can't make any argument here.)

Chou (I don't know "ox", but I reasonably could have expected "niu" for "cow".)

Yin (I know "tiger" as "hu".)

Mao (I don't know "rabbit", but to me "mao" is "cat".)

Chen (I know "dragon" as "long".)

Si (I don't know "snake", but now I find it interesting that it sounds like death, like snakes could be seen as evil in Chinese culture similar to how they are seen in the Christian world.)

Wu (I know "horse" as "ma".)

Wei (I know "sheep/goat" as "yang".)

Shen (I don't know "monkey", but I would have expected "Sun" or "Wu" or "Kong" because of "Monkey King".)

You (I know "rooster/chicken" as " ji".)

Xu (I know "dog" as "gou".)

Hai (I don't know "pig/boar" unless "pork" and "pig" are the same "siu".)

I tried asking my parents, but they just starting talking about how the Chinese zodiac is actually a 60-year cycle with the 12 animals and the 5 elements. So are these shichen names the "Pre-Han dynasty semi-descriptive terms"? Is it kind of like the difference between "midday" and "noon" in English? The former is a "descriptor", the latter is a "name", but they "mean" the same thing?

(I tried checking the etymology for "noon" on dictionary.com, so to be fair "ninth hour" is a descriptor, but in Modern English it's not really recognizable as such and so for the sake of my shichen question, I'm calling "noon" a "name".)

Or is this another language/dialect or due to the evolution of language (changing words and pronunciations)?

I was also looking up the Dragon Boat Festival being on the unluckiest day of the year, and it says, "The Chinese name of the festival is pronounced differently in different Chinese languages. Duanwu (端午) literally means 'starting horse'—i.e., the first "horse day" of the month according to the Chinese zodiac." so I was able to get the exact character for "wu". I think it's interesting that Wikipedia says "literally ... horse" but putting 午 into Google Translate yields "midday, noonday, seventh earthly branch, 11 a.m.-1 p.m." It's unfortunate that Wikipedia only says "different Chinese languages" for "Duanwu" instead of specifying them or time periods, but I appreciate it listing different romanizations by country for Cantonese.

Would you say there's any pattern to Chinese writers or English translators using the above terms vs. using "hour/time/head/body/tail of the (insert zodiac animal here)"? Like if one sounds better for a historical fantasy setting, or choosing to use the pinyin in English instead of translating to not be translating literally? ETA: I should have gotten onto a computer sooner. I asked my parents and then you guys because searching "shichen" in Wikipedia just resulted in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_units_of_measurement. But further digging took me to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_timekeeping. I'll probably get answers there (Maybe I'll even be able to explain to my dad why he was thinking of ten stems and not matching mathematically with "60 is from 12 times 5, not 10 times 6" when he was trying to lecture on the 60-year cycle for the Chinese zodiac, lol.), so my apologies for bothering you. I'd still appreciate your thoughts on what was formerly the last paragraph about writing and translation choices!

[999-roses]

while we're talking about north korean defector industry being part of the [western - including south korean] media agenda to smear, vilify, and discredit the DPRK,, (particularly how specific defectors seriously make serious bank from selling these lies through books and media appearances, although, this is quite the exception and not the norm)

consider Operation Yellowbird. a short background:

Operation Yellowbird was a collaborative effort between British HK, MI6, CIA and other actors to smuggle persons wanted for their dissident actions during the 1989 protests in Beijing.

known CIA regime change agents were spotted (and reported by western media sources!) in the area during the protests in Beijing, on and near Tiananmen Square in summer of 1989.

for those of you who still believe in the "Tiananmen Massacre" narrative, and are skeptical about official Chinese accounts, here is a reading list, including accounts and news articles from western journalists who were there on the ground, about what actually happened. available here (hint there was no mass killing of civilians)

These evacuated "dissidents" were quickly admitted to Ivy league and other high-prestige academic institutions in the west, some even awarded honorary degrees. Some of the most prominent people relocated by Operation Yellowbird are now business and tech execs, venture capitalists/financial managers, NGO founders living comfortable lives in the west.

Their exaggerated (and inconsistent) recollections of the protests that ended with June 4th, recounted to western media years later while living in the west, has built up the myth of a massacre of civilians by an "authoritarian and totalitarian" Chinese government. They're still making documentaries and media appearances and testifying to US Congress. The mischaracterization of the events in summer 1989 that feeds into sinophobic narratives about Chinese people and the Chinese government are built on hyperbolic recollections and outright lies, and ritualistic recounting every year by these people keeps this narrative afloat in the minds of westerners. Concern for "human rights violations," especially when exaggerated or even built on towers of lies, are a common sympathy-garnering tactic for manufacturing thirst and support for "intervention" (read: war) by portraying “enemies” as monsters, and also works to muddy the waters about actual human rights violations regularly committed by the United States, both foreign and domestic.

Yeah we should absolutely dunk on the Yeonmi Parks. But we should also very much also dunk on "What we are looking anticipating is bloodshed, and only when the square is filled with rivers of blood will Chinese unite, but how could I tell my followers that I need them to sacrifice their lives [for "our" cause]?... But I cannot continue on in square, I'm different from them, I'm on a blacklist, I don't want to die." Chai Ling

[echidnana]

maybe this is just us but. as a system of color. we don't think it's inherently appropriative to use names from different cultures. obviously there ARE ppl who do it disrespectfully or disregard the importance of names in cultures and stuff but it's always felt weird to see white systems especially say u can't use any names from different cultures ever

[villain-in-love]

Taking into account that chinese and russian are considered to be the most difficult languages to learn, it would be fun to see Liang and Zero trying to learn each other's languages.

I wonder which one of them would be better at teaching the other...

No, I think they both would be awful.

Liang is impatient and, well, simply not the most understanding person. I bet he would get annoyed if Zero doesn't immediately get something that he considers to be “easy”. Meanwhile Zero just doesn't have enough fucks to give. Also she won't be able to clearly explain the rules of her language as she herself learned it purely intuitively. It is most likely that she will just confuse Liang even further. (Wait, it's obvious that Zero never went to school, but what about Liang? I got the impression that he haven't either...)

Luckily, they are not so bad at studying. If Liang would be willing to apply at least half of the diligence and determination he displays in sports to his language studies, that is. Anyways, I think that's not going to be a problem as long as he acknowledges this skill as useful. As for Zero, she has always been a quick learner and a great imitator. So they will basically learn it all by themselves, maybe sometimes just asking each other for clarifications.

But trying to decipher cursive handwriting would be a whole other challenge.

Liang, giving Zero a note handwritten in russian cursive, after staring at it for five minutes: Hey, can you tell me what is written here?

Zero, after staring at the note for ten minutes: ...I have zero fucking clue.

[mynameis-a]

i hate how sometimes i’ll just think to myself “it would be so cool to learn another language. but what one to choose..”

because every time i ask myself that i always land on something like german. or japanese. or mandarin.

…

i am spanish.

i do not speak spanish.

if theres any language i should be learning, its spanish.

[labyrynth]

/salt

trying to interact w genshin fandom is just constantly playing russian roulette and losing

like is this random user normal about kaeya and diluc or are they convinced that kaeya’s name is ragnvindr? are they normal about kaeya and diluc or do they ignore everything diluc has to say?

are they normal about kaeya and diluc or do they ignore the original text in favor of a mistranslated snippet that has a meaning opposite what they think?

are they normal about kaeya and diluc or do they call everyone that prefers canon over their headcanon a freak?

go on, give it a spin. i promise some of the chambers are empty.

[solradguy]

I can speak any of the Romance languages just fine but for some god forsaken reason I CANNOT speak French like what the fuck is a bourgeoisie and why can’t I say it correctly for the life of me.

Yeah, French is pretty tricky... Figuring out what letters to pronounce is difficult and I can do the sounds for it in my head when I think I've figured it out (sort of) but my mouth lacks the flexibility to do them out loud haha

A long while ago I read Les Fleurs du Mal, and my copy is dual-language with the original French on the left page and an English translation on the right, and it drove me nuts that I didn't know how to read the sounds for the French so I read a crash course guide for it. It helped a lot once I realized that a good portion of the letters that aren't pronounced in a French word function similarly to an accented character in that it's there only to modify the sounds of the letters near it than to contribute in a major way to the overall sound of the word itself. My native Germanic language (English) brain really wants all of those letters to be doing something up-front instead rofl

Though, English also has its special words with sneaky little helper letters that aren't pronounced... ("sovereign...")

[mjjune]

for the oc name ask game: danny!

Ah, yes, the ever-elusive 5000 year old vampire from somewhere ambiguous in Asia. How did that guy get named Danny?

Well, long story, so I'll put it under the cut~

So when I first invented Danny, in 2019, I actually shopped him around a bit and did some roleplaying with him—this was back when I was still actively doing forum rps, which I haven't done since then—and originally, he was from a specific dynasty in China. So, I began looking up ancient Chinese-based names. Even if I never used it in the rp itself, I thought I would have it for my own backstory of him.

I don't remember the specifics, but I came across an old surname Lu and I was going through Chinese characters for his given name that had to do with sun/dawn meanings (because a vampire with a sun name is fun) and one of those characters, if pronounced in today's version of Mandarin using Pinyin, was spelled "Dan."

This of course would be pronounced with a long "a" sound like "don", but regardless, he was called Dan for a while. Over time, I found that his closest companions called him Danny.

Even though he changed a LOT between the rp and actually writing avof, the name Danny stuck and I couldn't wrap my head around changing it. That's just... who he is. Regardless of his thousands of other identities he's taken on, Danny is the one he considers the closest to him and only people who really know him use it.

PLEASE NOTE—Danny is not Chinese in AVOF. This original form of Danny was very different, he wasn't genderqueer, he was a hell of a lot younger, the vampire lore as different, he was from a specific Chinese historical time period, and he was actually quite bitter in an Old and Tired™ kinda way. Other than basic physical features and some sarcasm, there is nothing similar between them, but this is where the name Danny came from.

[lanotteviene]

tell me why did I trust how much of these hills is gold even after knowing it had blown up on TikTok....