general thoughts about future of chinabikes

[euphonius]

straight of the top of my head, ching kwee - tsong shen - jzing way - sjee aling

Each of these links has a "listen" button where you can hear the words pronounced in standard Mandarin.

Qingqi = cheeng chee. the Q is called a sibilant and to do it right the tip of your tongue is behind your bottom front teeth so it's highly aspirated. It's aways followed by a high vowel.

Zongshen = dzung shunn. the Z is is not unlike the Z sound in english but it has a hard start -- an affricate as opposed to a fricative.

Xingyue = Hseeng yooeh. Like the Q, the X is sibilant, tip of tongue behind lower front teeth.

Jialing = jyah ling. Truth be told, J is also a sibilant.

Pinyin is not hard to learn, but there are several letter and combinations that are conventions for sounds that do not exist in English/western languages. So you have to learn them, rather than just speak them as if they were English.

The beauty of Q and X are that they have no innate sound in English, so they can be conveniently assigned to sounds in Chinese that don't exist in English/Western language. The danger is that folks see Q and X and relate them to western/English words in which they appear, like queen or xylophone. Unfortunately, those both fail!

Class dismissed.

[moilami]

Words do have actual real meanings, the use of Latin is often nothing more then a bridge based on phonetics translations. I used examples of actual Chinese characters and then converted them and any use of them inevitably gets translated, other wise outside of china they would be the brand with an unpronounceable symbol.

But I get it I’d personally be fine with a Chinese characters on my bike…it just would not work well on the forms at the BMV, the clerks are already challenged. The insurance companies would also struggle with a quote on a 星系.

Hey keep in mind I am a big fan of Heiwa and that translates to (Peace) 平和,

Which do you think would be a better brand name in Finland for a line of motorcycles?

Rauha
Peace
Heiwa
平和

I’d be fine with only 平和 on the bike and they can use any of the above on the paper work. But for advertising they have to choose one and in that the symbol could be lost?

So my point is if it translates across linguistic then it eliminate bad juju IMO.

Be careful asking were you can buy a (if in china) Dongfang…..or asking; were can I can get a part for one or service one, or worse... say you own one, it could freak them out, if not piss people off. It could also be problematic asking about Dongfang motorcycles since it is asking for oriental motorcycles and pretty much covers all of them.

Bad juju is bad.

I did not know Dongfang has some meaning. I just wrote it on the fly. Surprised though it can mean oriental motorcycles so I think I must have read it from somewhere with translation but just can't remember it at all.

Does the word "oriental" have some negative loads in China?

Heiwa would be the best in Finland. It is not bad word for trademark in Finland. It doesn't have those Z characters.

[moilami]

The brand Sony was manufactured so that it would be easy to say in any language. Smart folks there. Honda is not a great example, since it's written 本田 in both Japanese and Chinese and pronounced bunn tyan in Mandarin -- a far cry from "honda"! And the two characters in 本田 do have meanings (root and field), though no one thinks of those two ideas when hearing or reading the word 本田.

I'm curious how you folks far away from China pronounce Qingqi! Dongfang is probably mispronounced in America (dahng fayng rather than doeng fahng). Zongshen, anyone? Or Xingyue? (By the way, why isn't the Xingyue XY400GY-2 available in China?

Jialing is a lovely brand. It's easy to pronounce by most anyone (though some languages have trouble with L/R). It sounds authentic and recognizable to Chinese ears when spoken by non-Chinese speakers. And it's named after one of the two rivers that flow together in Chongqing, the other being the Yangtze, which is known to Chinese as the Changjiang.

ChinaV is right -- we need to get out riding.......

They do that a lot with car types. For example Toyota Corolla. They need to research it doesn't have any bad associations in any countries they sell it.

[td_ref]

Each of these links has a "listen" button where you can hear the words pronounced in standard Mandarin.

Qingqi = cheeng chee. the Q is called a sibilant and to do it right the tip of your tongue is behind your bottom front teeth so it's highly aspirated. It's aways followed by a high vowel.

Zongshen = dzung shunn. the Z is is not unlike the Z sound in english but it has a hard start -- an affricate as opposed to a fricative.

Xingyue = Hseeng yooeh. Like the Q, the X is sibilant, tip of tongue behind lower front teeth.

Jialing = jyah ling. Truth be told, J is also a sibilant.

Pinyin is not hard to learn, but there are several letter and combinations that are conventions for sounds that do not exist in English/western languages. So you have to learn them, rather than just speak them as if they were English.

The beauty of Q and X are that they have no innate sound in English, so they can be conveniently assigned to sounds in Chinese that don't exist in English/Western language. The danger is that folks see Q and X and relate them to western/English words in which they appear, like queen or xylophone. Unfortunately, those both fail!

Class dismissed.

That's so cool. I'm sure I'm not the only one who are so impressed.
ps I guess i wouldn't surprise anyone for speaking English, but i feel incredible for a foreigner fluent in Mandarin.

[euphonius]

That's so cool. I'm sure I'm not the only one who are so impressed.
ps I guess i wouldn't surprise anyone for speaking English, but i feel incredible for a foreigner fluent in Mandarin.

TD, if you knew how long I've been speaking Chinese you'd be less impressed. Considering that I've been speaking longer than you have, my Chinese is pretty mediocre!

[MJH]

The brand Sony was manufactured so that it would be easy to say in any language. Smart folks there. Honda is not a great example, since it's written 本田 in both Japanese and Chinese and pronounced bunn tyan in Mandarin -- a far cry from "honda"! And the two characters in 本田 do have meanings (root and field), though no one thinks of those two ideas when hearing or reading the word 本田.

I'm curious how you folks far away from China pronounce Qingqi! Dongfang is probably mispronounced in America (dahng fayng rather than doeng fahng). Zongshen, anyone? Or Xingyue? (By the way, why isn't the Xingyue XY400GY-2 available in China?

Jialing is a lovely brand. It's easy to pronounce by most anyone (though some languages have trouble with L/R). It sounds authentic and recognizable to Chinese ears when spoken by non-Chinese speakers. And it's named after one of the two rivers that flow together in Chongqing, the other being the Yangtze, which is known to Chinese as the Changjiang.

ChinaV is right -- we need to get out riding.......

Its a surname or a brand name, HONDA... pronouced Bentian

Smith is pronouced how Shimsi, broken out its history close sri lanka or 史密斯

The root symbols separately are not related to the formed word. Each word has a symbol or set of symbols for new words....lol learning Chinese never ends even for the Chinese.

[MJH]

The point is that a Big Mac in china is a Big Mac not a Jù wú bà…the actual symbols for a Big Mac stand for Huge No Hegemony ….silly and made up? makes me wonder...who the heck makes up the words they use?

[MJH]

The attempts to bridge with Latin does not work the creation of new words often result in nonsense. The Chinese will take over….that’s humorous and when will that occur? When they all speak English?

[MJH]

Actually the phonetic translation are not reliable and done overtime primarily is in the 1950’s…think about it…but do not strain yourselves. The symbols that represent single words are at about 7,000 then venture into combo symbols, that also represent single words and an average Chinese comprehends about 20,000 to be literate?

The translation is not always easy and in some cases simply does not exist.

Its an ancient language and to be honest not very practical, you can be sure that the recent progress in Chinese society is directly correlated with English comprehension.

[moilami]

Chinese "alphabet" and stuff appears to be more like art. It makes no sense if you need to study "alphabets" four years before you can begin to study grammar.