贝克汉姆 (Beckham) as in 'bend it like ..'

bodawei
October 22, 2009, 07:46 PM posted in General Discussion

I would like to know how you say 'Bend It Like Beckham' in Chinese.  My unsuccessful attempts at the DVD shop tonight came out like ‘do you have an English film which is called ‘Kick the soccer ball like David Beckham’?'  贝克汉姆 bei ke han mu (Beckham), so 像贝克汉姆一样弯曲它 xiàng bèi kè hàn mǔ yī yàng wānqū tā (Bend it Like Beckham).  Seems like gibberish even to me.  Any help would be gratefully received. My wife would like to show the film to her students.    

Profile picture
silktown
October 22, 2009, 08:36 PM

我愛碧咸 Here's the Product Decription for the VCD, on sale at YesAsia.com:

Product Title: Bend It Like Beckham 我愛碧咸 我爱碧咸 Bend It Like Beckham Bend It Like Beckham 
 Artist Name(s): Parminder Nagra | Jonathan Rhys Meyers | Keira Knightley 柏美達娜拉 | 莊尼芬賴斯邁亞斯 | 姬華麗妮 柏美达娜拉 | 庄尼芬赖斯迈亚斯 | 姬华丽妮  | ジョナサン・リース・マイヤーズ | キーラ・ナイトレイ Parminder Nagra | Jonathan Rhys Meyers | Keira Knightley 

The film seems to be called "I love blue salty" in Chinese. Beyond me. There's an image of the box if you want to print it and show it in the shop.

 

Ah - maybe it means "I love the All Blues"?

Profile picture
bodawei
October 24, 2009, 04:23 AM

Thanks Changye, Zhenlijiang & Franky

Changye - you are a fount of wisdom, but that really goes without saying.  And thanks for the information about 'lost stop consonants' - I feel that I am learning something about linguistics!  You are explaining what I have long observed without really any proper understanding the linguistic process.

Zhenlijiang - you are right of course about the blurbs.    It is just kind of .. interesting.. when  the blurbs are so different.  Reflecting the differences in culture.  Usually, I have to say, the 'English' blurbs on DVDs here are just very poor (machine?) translations of the Chinese.  Often so bad that they are funny.  Not culturally appropriate at all!  

Franky - i said that to the DVD 老板 and it did not make an impression.  I think I needed the actual title - 我爱贝克汉姆, as Changye says.  Perhaps 我爱碧咸.  

Anyway, I will have another go at finding it.    

Profile picture
bababardwan
October 23, 2009, 12:39 AM

Profile picture
bodawei
October 23, 2009, 04:36 AM

@barbs,dogupatree

Thanks, both of you.  I can see why my more literal translation got me nowhere.  And I went to the films website; it had no reference to a Chinese version (there are dozens of other languages. )

So, thank you again.  

Not sure how you get the All Blues from 碧咸 - I assume this translation is on the image?  - have to investigate further.  (I can't see barb's image - maybe the site is blocked.)  

Profile picture
bababardwan
October 23, 2009, 04:50 AM

mòmíngqímiào !! The photo was there for a while and now its vanished.dàngrán.

Profile picture
miantiao
October 23, 2009, 06:03 AM

Coming soon – David Beckham condoms!

Image: Getty
Bend it with Beckham
Image: Getty

Want to have sex with Becks? Now anyone can!

 

Condoms decorated with the soccer star's gorgeous mug will soon be available for sale in a Madrid museum. Hmm, because unsafe sex after hooking up at museums is totally on the rise?

 

Actually, the condoms are part of an art exhibition at the museum called Tears of Eros.

 

Baroness Thyssen, the wife of the museum founder, says she totally supports the unusual project. "I don't see why anyone should be scandalised. It is a way of bringing art and responsibility," she says.

 

It's also a way of making a ton of money. Wonder if Becks is getting a cut? 

Profile picture
bodawei
October 23, 2009, 06:11 AM

I'm wondering if 碧咸 is a reference to David Beckham

I haven't translated it all (I'm afraid unsimplified characters slows me down & I've never used the translation software some people use) 

愛靚衫;更愛碧咸!- love the beautiful shirt - love XX even more - is this a reference to Beckham?  It goes on to talk about 'bending the ball' and 'clever curved balls'.  I can't find the ChinesePod transliteration of Beckham 贝克汉姆 anywhere on this site for the DVD.  

Profile picture
silktown
October 22, 2009, 09:47 PM

I tried to post an image of the box, but that's beyond me, too.

Here's the URL of the page:

http://www.yesasia.com/us/bend-it-like-beckham/1002194946-0-0-0-en/info.html

Profile picture
silktown
October 23, 2009, 11:48 AM

Hi, Bodawei. Yes, looks like 碧咸 "blue salty" is a name for Beckham. (I thought of "All Blues" because 咸 can mean "all" as well as "salty", according to my roll-over dictionary.) Could it be a poetic word for "the sea"? Those product details I gave were for an English language version with Traditional Chinese subtitles. They don't seem to have a Chinese version or one with Simplified subtitles. There are synopses in Trad. Chinese and English. (They don't say the same thing.) I've worked out fragments of the Chinese. One part seems to say: 碧咸的魅力確實都不可擋,他的招牌「香蕉射球」 "Blue Salty's charm is not [resistable?] ... his signature is a banana shot." (BTW I've been trying to think of a situation where two people with any respect for themselves/each other would use a David Beckham condom: "David Beckham's waiting in my room. He can't wait to meet you..." "Really? David's waiting in your bedsit? For me? Let's go!" Later: "Oh, you witty man! What a clever ploy. Let's not use a condom, I want to have your babies now!")

Profile picture
bodawei
October 23, 2009, 11:59 AM

@dogupatree

哈哈。 Anyway thanks very much for all your help with this - I had in the meantime spread my urgent request around on another board (Learning From each Other) and got confirmation from a native speaker that he's called 碧咸 in HK.  Like you I got a bit of the blurb translated and no, it does not match the English!  I don't think that the writers actually communicated at all.  I like that bit about his 'killer ability' with the ball.  And best of all we have a phrase for 'bending the ball' - 香蕉射球 xiāngjiāoshèqiú - a bonus!   

Now I just gotta go and see if I can buy the DVD here.. 

Profile picture
zhenlijiang
October 23, 2009, 01:41 PM

Blurbs for markets in different parts of the world will be written differently, right? They would have to be. What sort of cultural background needs to be given, what information won't make sense to leave in etc., all depends on who you're selling to. "Banana kick" we call it, is a football (we say soccer) term in Japanese; is it not used much in English? Looked at the responses on Baidu people gave to the question, why in HK is Beckham called 碧咸--it's the first result that comes up when you search on '碧咸' but they haven't enlightened much, all pretty much just say "Bihan" is the 粤语 transliteration.

Profile picture
zhenlijiang
October 23, 2009, 01:51 PM

* Sorry Bodawei, my last post sounds a little more flip than I like but the comment-writing box for this thread for some reason has not been letting me edit, and won't show the paragraph breaks I made either.

Profile picture
changye
October 23, 2009, 02:59 PM

As you guys already know, 碧咸 is a Cantonese transliteration of "Beckham". The title of the movie in HK is 我爱碧咸, and 我爱贝克汉姆 in mainland China.

...................................碧咸
Modern Mandarin.....bi-xian
Middle Chinese........biok-ham
Modern Cantonese...bik-ham
Modern Korean........biok-ham

Owing to a liaison, the Cantonese "bik-ham" virtually sounds just like "bikkam", which is very similar to "Beck-ham" in English.

As I said in other thread, modern Mandarin lost stop consonants, "p", "t", "k", about one thousand years ago, but they are still preserved in some languages such as Cantonese and Korean.

The sound of 碧咸 in modern Mandarin (bi-xian) is rather different from that in Middle Chinese (biok-ham). On the other hand, Cantonese "bik-ham" is very similar to Middle Chinese "biok-ham".

The (approximate) historical transition of the sound is as follows,

biok-ham > bioi-hiam > bi-xian

Profile picture
franky11
October 23, 2009, 03:19 PM

in chanese we say "像贝克汉姆一样踢球 "

Profile picture
bodawei
October 23, 2009, 06:20 AM

@miantiao

Your condom contribution is of course incredibly useful as usual.  But I can't get the image - is it an image of a condom?  If so, is the condom er, inflated, so to speak?  Just wondering, it's not important.  Just that pictures of deflated condoms are kind of .. sad. And his face would look kind of wizzened, not a good look. 

Seriously - any thoughts on 碧咸?  I'm puzzled by the DVD site - I can't see the title posted by dogupatree either .