User Comments - changye
changye
Posted on: Mexico City
February 5, 2009 at 1:48 PMHere are readings of 墨西哥 (mo4xi1ge1) in some southern dialects.
上海话 mek xi gu
广东话 mak sai go
闽南话 bak sai ko
Posted on: Sign Here, Please
February 5, 2009 at 12:03 PMHi wchan and zhenlijiang
Wchan is right. 杉菜 is the name of the heroine of the Taiwanese remake drama "流星花园", but her name in the Japanese comic "花より男子" is "つくし" (tsu-ku-shi), and it's written with hiragana in the original story.
"つくし" means "a horsetail" and can also be written with Kanji, like "土筆" (tsu-ku-shi). Unfortunately, this kanji word is not so attractive. In short, it's uncool (太土！). So they used other name "杉菜" in the Taiwan version of the drama.
For the record, a horsetail is 笔头菜 in Chinese. 杉菜 (su-gi-na) is also used as a name in Japan, but it's uncommon. I've never seen it before either.
Posted on: Mexico City
February 5, 2009 at 5:41 AMHi mikenotinjubei,
There is a computer-based dog-to-human language translation device called "Bow-lingual", developed by a Japanese toy company. It was awarded the Ig Nobel prize in 2002, and was honored as a "Best invention of 2002" by Time magazine. I have no intention to buy it for my chubby dog, cause it must be very annoying to me, haha!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BowLingual
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&ei=GnyKSZeNN5ye6gOs9JmBDw&resnum=1&q=bow-lingual&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
Posted on: Sign Here, Please
February 5, 2009 at 3:54 AMHi matt_c
Looks like it's not so easy for foreign people to select their "perfect" Chinese names! As you pointed out, 马 is a relatively major family name in China. Additionally, you can even find 穆 in 百家姓, where the name is 98th in rank. Not so bad.
Japanese people don't have this kind of "trouble" (and pleasure), although some Japanese family names sound rather funny to Chinese people, such as 御手洗、我孫子、鬼頭、我妻、牛尾 and so on.
Some Japanese girls even have a given name 香菜, which means coriander in China. A popular given name 文香 has the same Chinese sounds as that of 蚊香 (mosquito repellent), haha.
Posted on: A Day at the Races
February 4, 2009 at 1:38 PM在内地开设的赌场越多对中国发展越好。中国尽管已成为一个经济大国，许多中国公民在境外赌城挥金如土还是很不合适。中国贪官在国外赌场赔的公款迄今为止到底一共有多少钱？
这些不正当行为就可以算是一种慈善活动或者是新形式的ODA，但很可惜，没有人感谢中国。天要下雨人要赌钱，反正无法禁止赌博。既然那样，只好尽可能把赌徒在自己的国土上花钱！
Posted on: A Day at the Races
February 4, 2009 at 9:55 AMA guy in Japan made BIG money on horse racing today. His betting ticket, 100 yen, has changed into 19,110,000 yen, which is a new record in the history of horse race in Japan....... wow!
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/sports/news/20090204-OYT1T00715.htm
Posted on: Sign Here, Please
February 4, 2009 at 9:29 AMHi robertoelrojo
Thanks a lot for the table! Looks like you also love astronomy (天文学), just like me.
Posted on: Sign Here, Please
February 4, 2009 at 6:09 AMHi maureen
As far as I can see on the Internet, 穆琳 (mu4 lin2) seems to be the most common Chinese transliteration of Maureen, and both characters have positive meanings, "solemn" and "beautiful jade" respectively. 我觉得很好听 (It sounds beautiful)。
On the other hand, 穆 is a bit unique character in modern Chinese, since it's often used for words related to Islam. In 现代汉语词典, there are only three words listed under the index character "穆", which are 穆罕默德 (Mohammed), 穆民 (Muslim people) and 穆斯林 (Muslim).
I don't know whether or not the single character 穆 is also closely associated with Islam for Chinese people, but I'm afraid that you might not like it in the case you believe other religions..... hehe.
So, I also think that 马琳 is a good selection for you. If you don't like 马 （ma3, a horse）, I would recommend you use 玛 (ma3, agate) instead of 马. FYI, Marilyn Monroe is transliterated as 玛丽莲 (ma3 li4 lian2) 梦露 (Meng4 lu4) in Chinese.
P/S. 珠穆朗玛峰 (zhu1 mu4 lang3 ma3 feng1) indicates Mt. Everest in China.
Good luck.
Posted on: Sign Here, Please
February 4, 2009 at 3:45 AMHi bababardwan
Maybe zhenlijiang's explanation about "dawn" would be more helpful for you. Dawn denotes "the beginning of a new day", and it also implies "next".You can see both rising sun and setting full moon (only) at dawn, anyway. I guess that at first 明 was perhaps used in the sense of "tomorrow", and later "the next month" or "the next year". Of course, its very original meaning is "bright".
Posted on: 中国崛起
February 6, 2009 at 3:50 AMThe PRC leaders must be very proud of seeing tons of Chinese people fiercely demonstrating their patriotism even in overseas countries. I always envy those Chinese patriots for being able to enjoy such a productive entertainment.