Tuesday, January 10, 2006
English names
Why do some countries or cultures feel like they have to have English names and why do some don't? It seems like everyone in Taiwan has an English name, regardless of whether they speak English or not. This may be sort of true in Mainland China, but I'm guessing that it's not as widespread as here. I'm not quite sure why this is. Surely not because Chinese names are too difficult, since Japan and Korean names are just as difficult, not to mention Indian names.
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2 comments:
Well, I've also heard that a lot of people in other countries learn English in school and it's sort of a "commons" language anyway, so if they plan on going to school in the US, it's probably a good idea to adopt an English name. (My $0.02)
Remember the digby quote? I found another one:
http://www.wonkette.com/politics/samuel-alito/
poll-dancing-with-alito-147662.php.
The link's too long to fit on the comments board, so you'll have to cut and paste separately :(
Look at the picture, look at the headline, wash your eyes ^ o ^
actually, correct me if i am wrong, but i think japanese is phonetically easier to translate into english. maybe they share more consonant-sounds.
chinese has too many inflections. every word has an inflection, and there is no way to translate that. and you know that if you change the inflection of a character the whole meaning of the character changes. which gives rise to very big issues when people are translating. my name would mean "pheonix" normally. but an english speaker might pronounce it as "crazy person" while not meaning to.
i would think korean is equally difficult to translate into english, but Koreans tend to do it anyway.
-Michelle
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