i__forget Posted June 14, 2017 at 08:06 AM Report Share Posted June 14, 2017 at 08:06 AM The title above is google-translated as <<United States: Trump was prosecuted unconstitutional White House accused of "politically motivated">> Now the Wikipedia article for Donald Trump writes his name as 唐納·川普, "Tang na Chuan pu". So... where exactly in 美国：特朗普被起诉违宪 白宫指责“有政治动机” are the characters for Trump? Many thanks! Sorry if this is not the right forum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imron Posted June 14, 2017 at 08:31 AM Report Share Posted June 14, 2017 at 08:31 AM 24 minutes ago, i__forget said: So... where exactly in 美国：特朗普被起诉违宪 白宫指责“有政治动机” are the characters for Trump? I've highlighted them in red. There are many ways to transliterate an English name in to Chinese. 特朗普 is the official transliteration, but many people prefer to use 川普 in casual usage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i__forget Posted June 14, 2017 at 08:34 AM Author Report Share Posted June 14, 2017 at 08:34 AM Thanks a lot for the answer. Is there some reason why Trump becomes "Chuan pu" when we apply the Chinese filter to it? Isn't there a closer sounding chinese sound to represent "Trump"? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ori_A Posted June 14, 2017 at 08:44 AM Report Share Posted June 14, 2017 at 08:44 AM The Chinese language doesn't have long syllables such as "Trump", which is a one syllable word in English. It's made up of shorter syllables, each represented by a character. That's why the name sounds longer in Chinese, because it's actually made up of three syllables instead of one (特朗普). I assume that 川普 is used simply to make it shorter, even though the pronunciation is a bit less accurate. And I personally can't think of a name in Chinese which sounds more like Trump than 特朗普. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imron Posted June 14, 2017 at 08:49 AM Report Share Posted June 14, 2017 at 08:49 AM Personally I think 川普 sounds better and is easier to say. I also think it's more accurate than 特朗普. 特朗普 is an attempt to get more accurate with the first sound, but it does that at the expense of the accuracy of the rest of the name. Using 'Te' at the start means it has to add an extra syllable in the middle that makes it sound more awkward. Not to mention a 'te' sound followed by an 'r' sound is awkward to pronounce (maybe similar to 'a elephant' vs 'an elephant') and so an 'l' sound is used to make it more comfortable to pronounce but that takes it further away from the English sound. I don't really think you'll be able to get a closer sound than these 2. Anything you choose will have differences, mostly because Chinese doesn't have any syllables that end in 'm', and syllables that have a 't' or an 'r' sound only have that sound at the beginning of the syllable and then vowels and other consonants in between. This means you can't have a clear 'Tr' sound (you will always have a vowel between them) and you can have a clear 'mp' sound (likewise always a vowel sound between them). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Publius Posted June 14, 2017 at 10:13 AM Report Share Posted June 14, 2017 at 10:13 AM I also think 川普 is more accurate. But 川普 already has a meaning: 四川人講的普通話 or Mandarin with a heavy Sichuanese accent. I think that's part of the reason why the official transliteration is 特朗普. You don't want giggles when the host is introducing a foreign head of state. And yes these two are probably the closest you can get. Chinese syllable structure is simpler than English. In English you can have up to three consonants at the beginning (str-, spl-) and another three at the end (-nx, -mps). But Modern Standard Mandarin doesn't allow consonant clusters, and -n and -ng are the only consonants allowed at the end of a syllable. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
889 Posted June 14, 2017 at 10:28 AM Report Share Posted June 14, 2017 at 10:28 AM To nobody's suprise I'm sure, Xinhua has a whole office devoted to name translation: http://www.epochtimes.com/b5/16/11/26/n8530986.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwq Posted June 15, 2017 at 01:42 PM Report Share Posted June 15, 2017 at 01:42 PM On 6/14/2017 at 4:06 PM, i__forget said: Now the Wikipedia article for Donald Trump writes his name as 唐納·川普, "Tang na Chuan pu". Not if you select 大陆简体 . If you look carefully the Wikipedia article is marked as manually converted (traditional / simplified), so someone has gone through the article adjusting translations manually according to the 'official' translation of proper names of each region. You should learn to look for this marking and prepare to select your preferred region, it is on a lot of articles on Chinese Wikipedia, as it is quite common for Taiwan and Mainland to have wildly different translations of the same name. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i__forget Posted June 15, 2017 at 03:16 PM Author Report Share Posted June 15, 2017 at 03:16 PM 1 hour ago, dwq said: Not if you select 大陆简体 . If you look carefully the Wikipedia article is marked as manually converted (traditional / simplified), so someone has gone through the article adjusting translations manually according to the 'official' translation of proper names of each region. You should learn to look for this marking and prepare to select your preferred region, it is on a lot of articles on Chinese Wikipedia, as it is quite common for Taiwan and Mainland to have wildly different translations of the same name. Could you help me locate this? I notice https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/唐納·川普 uses traditional characters while I'm more interested in the simplified of China. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edelweis Posted June 15, 2017 at 03:34 PM Report Share Posted June 15, 2017 at 03:34 PM I'm also interested in how to find the simplified characters wikipedia article. In the meantime here's a baike article which may be interesting: http://baike.baidu.com/item/唐纳德·特朗普 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Publius Posted June 15, 2017 at 03:44 PM Report Share Posted June 15, 2017 at 03:44 PM 26 minutes ago, i__forget said: Could you help me locate this? I notice https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/唐納·川普 uses traditional characters while I'm more interested in the simplified of China. Here, choose 大陆简体 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i__forget Posted June 15, 2017 at 04:33 PM Author Report Share Posted June 15, 2017 at 04:33 PM 谢谢你 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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