Archive for the 'chinese' category

从前有个霍比特人，住在地洞里。

Aug 13 2010 Published by brian under books, chinese

As I’ve mentioned, I’m trying to get going again with my self-education in Chinese. Naturally, I’d like this to include learning to read the language–which, unlike languages that use alphabets, has a very clear distinction between learning to speak and learning to read.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I had the bright idea of helping myself learn to read Chinese by obtaining a Chinese translation of a book I knew really well. If I already knew what a passage meant, I could then focus on how they got there, right?

And so, after a bit of poking around on Amazon.cn, I found what I was looking for.

This is a Chinese edition of The Hobbit, probably the book I know better than any other. It arrived today, and already I can tell that it’s going to be a great deal of fun to work with. I can already recognize some passages just from the sentence structure, even if I can’t read the characters. (For example, the title of this post is the translation of the book’s famous first line, “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”)

And over and above the practical use, it’s rather an interesting item to look at. Should make for quite a conversation piece.

Now, I wonder how they dealt with the riddles. . . .

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By any other name

Jul 17 2010 Published by brian under china, chinese, personal

Back in March, when I was first starting to learn Chinese, I realized early on that I wanted to make use of Chinese websites and social networks to help me learn the language. But I had a dilemma. What name to use? I use my real name pretty much everywhere online–I’ve hated cutesy handles for quite a while now–but I wanted something more appropriate for Chinese sites.

Often, Western students of Chinese receive a name early in their class, usually by choosing it with the help of the instructor; in business contexts, a name might be given by a Chinese-speaking colleague. This is because many Chinese have trouble using and remembering Western names, and also because it makes a useful exercise. But I don’t have an instructor, and so, if I wanted a Chinese name, I had to do it myself. And I quickly discovered that this is harder than you might expect, for several reasons.

First, Chinese names are structured very differently. A standard Chinese personal name consists of three characters. (There are variations–for example, some family names have two characters instead of one–but this is rare.) The first character is the family name, which for Westerners is usually drawn from the most common family names. The second is a generational name, which for native Chinese is typically the same for all children in a family in the same generation; these are chosen in advance by the family. And the third character is the true given name.

In addition to this, there is meaning to consider. In the West, we typically assign names with little thought to what the words mean; probably most people have no idea what the etymology and original meaning of their name was. (I happen to know mine; “Brian” is Celtic and means “noble”.) Chinese doesn’t work the same way; most names are made up of common words that are in wide use. So it’s very important to consider the meaning of the words when choosing a name. This is complicated by the fact that Chinese has so many homonyms; one needs to know not just what the potential name means, but all its sound-alikes as well.

Plus, numerology is important. Characters are assigned to yin or yang, depending on whether the number of strokes in the character is even or odd, and there are particular patterns of yin and yang that are favored. And, finally, there are several cultural factors and taboos; certain qualities are particular to men or women, names are supposed to be well-balanced soundwise and require few strokes to write, and while originality is valued, the name should still be made up of common words.

So, what to do? I spent a good deal of time doing research and reading everything I could find online about Chinese names. After much thinking, playing, reading, and gnashing of teeth, I came up with a name.

I am:

安彬锐

Or “ān bīn ruì”, also written An Binrui.

So, why these characters? Well, “ān bīn ruì” (high tone for the first two syllables, falling tone for the third) bears a little resemblance to Brian, and that’s good. Moreover:

The family name 安 (ān) is one of the 100 most common Chinese family names; it means “peaceful”, “tranquil”, or “quiet”, and also has connotations of stability, security, and honesty.

The generational name 彬 (bīn), meaning “cultivated”, reflects a respect for tradition. Also, its most common homonym, 宾, means “guest” or “visitor”, which reflects my outsider status within the culture.

(Incidentally, fans of anime will be interested to know that in Japanese, 彬 is pronounced “akira”. It has the same meaning as in Chinese.)

The given name 锐 (ruì) means “sharp”, and reflects intellect and wisdom. Besides applying well to me (heh), these are traditionally masculine qualities and are therefore appropriate for a male name. It also has a common homonym, 瑞, meaning “auspicious” or “lucky”, which is nice.

These are all common words that require few strokes to write, and the complete name is well-balanced between vowels and consonants. Also, thankfully, the name appears to be unique. I was unable to find any hits for it on Google or on its Chinese competitor Baidu. Uniqueness is very good.

I haven’t had a chance to check with a native Chinese speaker to find out if I messed up, but from everything I’ve read, I think I did okay. And I’ve been using the name on Baidu Space for four months now without comment–although I do intend to write a version of this post there to find out for certain.

So. I already had my Western name–actually, I’ve had two, since I took my spouse’s surname last year–as well as a Tibetan name (Tenzin Galpo) from a Buddhist teacher some years ago. And now I have a Chinese name as well. I wonder if I’ll be getting any more?

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一些古老的东西，一些新的东西。

Feb 12 2010 Published by brian under chinese, personal

Ah. Yes. Chinese. Did I mention that I’ve started teaching myself Chinese?

I’m not sure how it started. I’d been thinking about it for quite some time, but I’d tentatively planned to relearn my German, then tackle Spanish (which I really need to learn, because it’s highly useful in California), then Japanese. I was going to save the hardest one, Chinese, for last.

But somehow, I ended up diving right into Chinese. I think part of it had to do with realizing how important China is going to be in the coming decades, for better or worse. And, of course, Chinese is also highly useful in California, though less so than Spanish.

Also, I haven’t tackled a major intellectual challenge in a while, and after finishing grad school, my brain was starting to stagnate. And, finally, there’s the small fact that Chinese is now the second most widely used language online, and given current trends, will soon be the first. That’s a hell of a lot of content that I don’t have access to, and this is annoying to me. Information sponge that I am. But, then, all of that content gives me lots to work with while learning the language.

And it’s fun! So, I’m going to continue. So far, my approach has been a bit haphazard, but I’m progressing. I’ve even started translating short passages already–though the title of this post came from Google Translate.

(Translating isn’t easy, by the way, since Chinese has no alphabet. There’s no simple order to the characters in dictionaries. There is an organizational scheme, of course, based on the number of strokes it takes to draw the character. But it’s not that simple either. One thing I’ve learned already is that nothing in Chinese is ever simple.)

Now, all I need to do is figure out how to fit this in with work, writing, and everything else. That’s the real challenge.

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