dai3yuen Posted December 12, 2009 at 06:21 PM Report Share Posted December 12, 2009 at 06:21 PM Hi there. I need to send a letter but I need the street name portion of the address translated: 宝元薪愿二区B栋505 If anyone could help me with this, it would be greatly appreciated! Cheers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taylor04 Posted December 12, 2009 at 11:56 PM Report Share Posted December 12, 2009 at 11:56 PM You need to SEND the letter? Just print the address off, tape it onto the letter and put China at the bottom if you live outside of China. Other than that, it doesn't look like it has a street name but rather the name of a living compound. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your reason for wanting to translate the address... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbradfor Posted December 14, 2009 at 02:09 AM Report Share Posted December 14, 2009 at 02:09 AM (edited) It won't help the OP, but I'm curious. What does 栋 mean here? The translation I have is "ridge-beam of a roof". Is it used as a synecdoche to mean a house in general, i.e. a street address? Edited December 14, 2009 at 01:45 PM by jbradfor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrix Posted December 14, 2009 at 02:10 AM Report Share Posted December 14, 2009 at 02:10 AM it's a measure word for buildings, so in a group of buildings you can differentiate them like that: Building A, B, C etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taylor04 Posted December 14, 2009 at 02:55 AM Report Share Posted December 14, 2009 at 02:55 AM yep, 幢 is also another mw for buildings, I don't think there is any problem interchanging them but not sure Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrix Posted December 14, 2009 at 03:02 AM Report Share Posted December 14, 2009 at 03:02 AM I'm only familiar with 棟 used for naming/enumerating buldings, but the Google seems to suggest that 幢 works as well... There might be others.. I thought 廈 too, but this is more like suffixoid (e.g. in the form of XX大廈) rather than like A棟/B幢 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taylor04 Posted December 14, 2009 at 03:16 AM Report Share Posted December 14, 2009 at 03:16 AM My old complex used 幢 for the building. Although I really don't know the differences in between these, ie 幢 for a certain type of building and 棟 for a different type. Hopefully a native speaker can chime in and say if there is any difference or if they are interchangeable Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HashiriKata Posted December 14, 2009 at 10:05 AM Report Share Posted December 14, 2009 at 10:05 AM I'm not a native speaker but I know that both 幢 and 栋 are measure-words and can be used interchangeably. 大廈 on the other hand is a noun, so you can say 那幢大廈, 那栋大廈, just as you can say 那幢房子, 那栋房子, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dai3yuen Posted December 14, 2009 at 06:06 PM Author Report Share Posted December 14, 2009 at 06:06 PM I need to 'courier' the letter over there, not just pop it in the mail. Sorry, I should have been a bit more specific. Anyways, the courier company needs an English translation of the address....and the recipient does not speak English...I phoned the courier company today (Purolator) and they state that they use 'english speaking couriers' so they must have an english translation of the address...i dunno, but this is kind of screwed up...as that doesn't make much sense to me...I guess I could just put a google translation of the address in English and hope that the courier either phones the recipient or uses the chinese address (which I would be puting on the envelope!) Anyways, any help that you guys can give me is appreciated. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbradfor Posted December 14, 2009 at 06:32 PM Report Share Posted December 14, 2009 at 06:32 PM My attempt 宝元薪愿 Baoyuan Xinyuan [a pinyin transliteration, rather than a translation] 二区 District 2 B栋 Building B 505 [assume the house number? I would think usually there would be a 号 or something] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taylor04 Posted December 14, 2009 at 07:00 PM Report Share Posted December 14, 2009 at 07:00 PM Looks good, and yea the standard is the house number are put on the end. While you can put the Chinese pinyin on it, slap the Chinese characters on it as well. I've never heard of a courier company using only foreigners to deliver packages. Even if this is the case, if they can't find it, they have the Chinese address to get directions Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrix Posted December 14, 2009 at 07:03 PM Report Share Posted December 14, 2009 at 07:03 PM I seem to remember that for mainland addresses you should put everything in pinyin rather than translating it into characters (in Taiwan you would translated things, and flip the order around). So in that case it would be 宝元薪愿 Baoyuan Xinyuan 二区 Er qu B栋 B dong 505 (hao?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and select your username and password later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.