Ni hao restaurant name

[Zeppa]

There is a takeaway Chinese restaurant near me called Ni Hao - written 麗豪, which I read as li hao.

 

Is that odd? I understand that it's traditional characters, but did they choose a different pinyin name because the English customers might be more familiar with it?

[Lu]

Many regions/dialects/accents mix up l- and n-, so li hao/ni hao is actually not that much of a stretch.

 

Also, sometimes the Chinese names of Chinese restaurants are not quite the same at the English/Dutch/[local language] name. Might have all kinds of reasons: perhaps the owner had a different restaurant before with the same name (in either language), or the restaurant stayed the same but the owner changed, or the owner felt a name-change was in order to turn their luck around, or another practical reason. In this particular case, perhaps the owner felt naming his restaurant 'Ni Hao' was one thing, but naming it 你好 was just stupid, and thus decided on a compromise.

[Demonic_Duck]

Is it a Cantonese restaurant? In Cantonese, 丽豪 would be lai6 hou4, and 你好 is normally pronounced lei5 hou2 (Cantonese ai/ei finals also sound more similar than ai/ei in Mandarin).

[skylee]

I am not sure why this should raise any eyebrows. There is no rule saying that a shop's or a brand's romanised name, if any, must be the hanyu pinyin corresponding to its name in Chinese characters, if any. Midea/美的 is another example.

[dwq]

To be pedantic, in Cantonese, 你好 is pronounced nei5 hou2 .

[889]

“There is no rule saying that a shop's or a brand's romanised name, if any, must be the hanyu pinyin corresponding to its name in Chinese characters."

 

Out on the streets, 国美 Gome is a constant reminder of this.

[陳德聰]

There is a hot pot place near my home that is called 開開豆撈坊 and the English name is "K. K. Dollar Hot Pot". I guess in places with smaller Chinese diaspora, this is not as common. But here it's pretty much every single restaurant with a name that is not easily translated or is simply weird, that you will get a frankly very clever English name. I think Ni Hao is not that clever per se, since it sounds way less fancy than 麗豪, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was deliberate. Nobody mentioned 美心 -> Maxim?

[imron]

There's a Chinese restaurant in Melbourne called 南波万 - English name "Number 1 Delicious".

 

(Note: for anyone in Melbourne CBD, looking for good northern style food, be sure to check them out)

[Zeppa]

Thanks to everyone. skylee, surely it may raise the eyebrows of the ignorant like myself!

[Demonic_Duck]

To be pedantic, in Cantonese, 你好 is pronounced nei5 hou2.

To be even more pedantic, you mean "prescriptive" rather than "pedantic". You'll note that I said "normally pronounced as...", thus framing the statement as a descriptive one.

I don't think this is equivalent to the example of 美的, because "Midea" isn't the romanization of an existing, but different, Chinese word. It'd be more like if they chose "Kongtiao" as their "English" name.

[lips]

Starbucks is a mixed bag: 星巴克