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Same thing, different names


skylee

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

I learnt these on the internet today -

China - 西朝鮮 (country to the west of North Korea)。你國(opposite of 我國~showing disapproval)。趙國(this comes from the powerful 趙家 of the Story of Ah Q)。中共國。

These are of course internet slang.

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  • 2 months later...

Perhaps we can also think of "same thing, different names" as "same thing, different translations"? 

 

I was playing around with a U.S. iPhone, changing the language from English to 简体中文 and 繁體中文 and back to English because I wanted to see how the menus on the phone were translated from English into Chinese. I noticed some differences in the word choice of some menu items between 简体中文 and 繁體中文. I wonder if the differences were simply due to hiring different translators or if maybe different words were chosen because of differences in common or typical usage between mainland China and Taiwan or Hong Kong. I wonder if anyone could shed any light on these examples below:

 

When the iPhone was set to 简体中文, "Settings" was called 设置 (shèzhì). 

When the iPhone was set to 繁體中文, "Settings" was called 設定 (shèdìng).

 

One of the menu items under "Settings" is called "General" (to mean general settings I presume). 

When the iPhone was set to 简体中文, it was called 通用 (tōngyòng). 

When the iPhone was set to 繁體中文, it was called 一般 (yībān).

 

I asked my friend's wife (who happens to be from mainland China) about 通用 vs 一般 and I showed her the iPhone. She thought that 一般 was strange. 通用 sounded right to her, and she said that to her 一般 meant so-so. I'm curious what other native speakers think. Is 一般 a poor translation or was my friend's wife simply unfamiliar with this usage of 一般?

 

So,

What do you think of 通用 vs 一般? 

and

What do you think of 设置 vs 設定?

 

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

 

Cheers, 

Pegasus 

 

 

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Computer age arrived long after Mainland and Taiwan parted their ways. So no surprise many terms are translated differently.

文件 vs 檔案

硬盘 vs 硬碟

打印 vs 列印

设置 vs 設定

字符 vs 字元

脱机 vs 離線

故障排除 vs 疑難排解

etc, etc.

Some people are familiar with both. Some not. Though I don't use the term, I have no trouble understanding 一般設定. I think of them as bonnet vs hood, boot vs trunk, potayto vs potahto.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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