Anyone know what these Chinese letters mean?

Paintbox

Chohole said:

Peter Wade said:

richardandtracy said:

It does work both ways. There was an amusing article a few years ago on the BBC about restaurants in China advertising food with 'Wikipedia Sauce' having mistaken the wrong characters for the translation. It all encourages a delightful dose of mutual incomprehension and adds to the mysteries of life.

Regards,

Richard.

 

Reminds me of a story I read some time ago. Road signs in Wales have to be in both English and Welsh. The person in a local council who did the translations was on holiday and his out of the office automatic email reply was in Welsh. Someone emailed a sign to be translated and they put up a sign with the Welsh part saying something like, I'm out of the ofiice, I'll be back on Monday. 

I don't know if this is true but it should be.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7702913.stm 

That's just ROFL material, thanks for the laughs :)

Totte

One of my favourites from Bejing Olympic Games...

 

joegerardi

CHWT said:

joegerardi said:

"Kanji" are Japanes-specific characters. "Hanzi" is the name for Chinese characters.

 

..Joe

IIRC Japanese do call both the Chinese characters they adapted and those Chinese-ish characters they invented as Kanji. Most Kanji are the same as Hanzi, Japanese even use Simplified Chinese as some of their Kanji's.

Yes, but they don't mean the same thing. The Hanzi for "si" (the number 4) exists in Japanese, but the same character in Kanji doesn't mean "4." (Can't remember what it does mean, though- old age thing.)

..Joe

i53570k

joegerardi said:

CHWT said:

joegerardi said:

"Kanji" are Japanes-specific characters. "Hanzi" is the name for Chinese characters.

 

..Joe

IIRC Japanese do call both the Chinese characters they adapted and those Chinese-ish characters they invented as Kanji. Most Kanji are the same as Hanzi, Japanese even use Simplified Chinese as some of their Kanji's.

Yes, but they don't mean the same thing. The Hanzi for "si" (the number 4) exists in Japanese, but the same character in Kanji doesn't mean "4." (Can't remember what it does mean, though- old age thing.)

..Joe

Kanji and hanzi are the same Chinese characters in Japanese but outside of Janapese scholars of China or Chinese language I doubt anyone in Japan would use the pronounciation of hanzi. Chinese characters used in Japanese are prounced kanji in the official Japanese language. Chinese characters outside offficial Japanese lexicon are technically hanzi and not kanji but since Japanese people are so used to having Chinese characters in their langauage almost all Japanese when encountered a Chinese character they don't recognized would still call it kanji.

I don't know what you mean by the Chinese character of "4" doesn't mean 4 in Japanese. The number "4" in Japanese though always written in Chinese character is never prounced "s'i" as in Mandarin Chinese. It's either shi or yon. Its origin is tricky. Japanese obvously already knew the concept of number 4 when they started importing Chinese culture and there is a native saying for it and it's "yon". The import of Chinese culutre besides the writing system also included stuff like matehmatics so in many usages the Chinese prounication was retained in "shi". However, because Japanese also imported the "death" character and they are both prounced "shi" so in many usages the native "yon" prounciation was preferred.

Leana

Totte said:

One of my favourites from Bejing Olympic Games...

 

Silent Winter

Totte said:

One of my favourites from Bejing Olympic Games...

 

LOL

(It actually says "Can-Ting" [Tsan-Ting] and means 'Restaurant')

joegerardi

i53570k said:

joegerardi said:

CHWT said:

joegerardi said:

"Kanji" are Japanes-specific characters. "Hanzi" is the name for Chinese characters.

 

..Joe

IIRC Japanese do call both the Chinese characters they adapted and those Chinese-ish characters they invented as Kanji. Most Kanji are the same as Hanzi, Japanese even use Simplified Chinese as some of their Kanji's.

Yes, but they don't mean the same thing. The Hanzi for "si" (the number 4) exists in Japanese, but the same character in Kanji doesn't mean "4." (Can't remember what it does mean, though- old age thing.)

..Joe

Kanji and hanzi are the same Chinese characters in Japanese but outside of Janapese scholars of China or Chinese language I doubt anyone in Japan would use the pronounciation of hanzi. Chinese characters used in Japanese are prounced kanji in the official Japanese language. Chinese characters outside offficial Japanese lexicon are technically hanzi and not kanji but since Japanese people are so used to having Chinese characters in their langauage almost all Japanese when encountered a Chinese character they don't recognized would still call it kanji.

I don't know what you mean by the Chinese character of "4" doesn't mean 4 in Japanese. The number "4" in Japanese though always written in Chinese character is never prounced "s'i" as in Mandarin Chinese. It's either shi or yon. Its origin is tricky. Japanese obvously already knew the concept of number 4 when they started importing Chinese culture and there is a native saying for it and it's "yon". The import of Chinese culutre besides the writing system also included stuff like matehmatics so in many usages the Chinese prounication was retained in "shi". However, because Japanese also imported the "death" character and they are both prounced "shi" so in many usages the native "yon" prounciation was preferred.

They are not always the same. For example: In Hanzi, the "人" means "person" or "people"; in Kanji it means "man."

 

Yes, the Japanese took the Chinese Characters, but the meanings are not always the same.

 

Of course "yon" is usually used for "4": BabyMetal did a whole song on it.

 

..Joe

the_assassin

richardandtracy said:

It does work both ways. There was an amusing article a few years ago on the BBC about restaurants in China advertising food with 'Wikipedia Sauce' having mistaken the wrong characters for the translation. It all encourages a delightful dose of mutual incomprehension and adds to the mysteries of life.

Regards,

Richard.

 

I was in Japan about 20 years ago, and saw loads of people wearing t-shirts with english slogans that made no sense (and/or were obscene).  A friend bought one emblazoned with the words "How do you like my shape? I am the beacon of the vegetable".

I was in Japan again more recently though, and they seem to have gone out of fashion. 

csaa

Thanks, guys, for chiming in on this interesting thread. It's ongoing discussions like these that take us out of our everyday cultural bubble.

Cheers!

 

zombiewhacker

zombiewhacker

Wonderland said:

I CHWT said:

Wonderland said:

CHWT said:

Most of them don't make any sense, with many individual characters inverted. Kind of embarrassing when you show them to people who understand Chinese and/or Japanese.. If you really want the direct meaning then here you go Top row from left Cat dog Wing gold joy Friend cat sky/empty Moon dream night Middle row: Flower bird rain night Bottom row Water-star (mercury) draw morning treasure

Thanks! That is weird that they don’t make sense. I thought it would at least be some kind of restaurant or other services, maybe even girls, girls, girls lol. 

Well, some of Ansiko's Sci-Fi Club's signages are restaurants... a few are love motels... and a few which are in fact kinda derogatory. The model itself is awesome though 

I have that one too. If it’s not too much ch trouble could you translate that one too?  

Which Ansiko set is this? 

xyer0

@zombiewhacker Sci-Fi Club

zombiewhacker

Thanks!

JUJU

You can try Google Lens for a quick translation.

murgatroyd314

They are not always the same. For example: In Hanzi, the "人" means "person" or "people"; in Kanji it means "man."

Uh, no. The Japanese kanji 人 means "person" or "people", just like in Chinese. It's not gender specific.