Reslari ([info]reslari) wrote in [info]fanficrants,
@ 2008-01-23 01:48:00
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Current mood: bitchy
Current music:Melodies of Life - FFIX OST

So, you're clever. You know Chinese.

... that is not an excuse to call Sakura Ying-Fa.

YES we know that's what her name would be if we translated it out to Chinese. YES we know in some awkward, skewed, and diluted way she's technically a descendant of Clow Reed and is therefore a distant relation to the Li family and is probably like 1/120th Chinese or something.

She's still very, very Japanese.

Japanese.

Kinomoto Sakura. Kinomoto from her dad's side. Which was also, conveniently, the side she's related to Clow Reed's bloodline through.

Shoot me if I'm being an idiot and missed some glaring canon reference but... Where the hell are people getting this stupid name for Kinomoto from?

Rant the second:

Who decided that Syaoran and Xiao Lang were two completely different names and decided that Sakura would be able to pronounce the difference between them? It's the same word! Just... pronounced slightly different because you can't pronounce Xiao Lang properly in Japanese.  Xiao Lang, Syao Lang, take off the g since there isn't one in Japanese, Syao R/Lan. Syaoran. It's not rocket science. Fail, fanbrat(s). Fail.

With a swift, painful beating with a foam banana,
- Reslari

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[info]ration
2008-01-23 08:59 am UTC (link)
Funnily enough, just reading Syaoran/Xiao Lang, they look so different, but just taking the whopping 5 seconds it takes to sound them out, they sound basically the same.

So what I'm trying to get at here is, this level of fail is epic to me.

(Reply to this)


[info]coinin
2008-01-23 09:53 am UTC (link)
Not only is she absolutely Japanese, but even if you go to another country, you're name remains in the same language it was given in.

If people did that with my name, they'd be calling me Pure Beauty all the damned time. Not only is that hella pretentious, but it's just a silly thing to do.

The only change comes in the accent. In Japan, they'd be calling me Kaerin (or something, My name's Caylin. Someone better at Engrish wanna help?) , which is funny because my mom's name is Karen ^__^

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]kohi_no_tora
2008-01-23 11:10 am UTC (link)
even if you go to another country, you're name remains in the same language it was given in

Slight technical nitpick but some names, especially those derived from biblical sources, have cognates in many, if not all other European languanges. In addition to the English form I can write my name in French and Spanish and I know there's an Italian version, I just can't remember the second half (hyphenated first name). Similarly I know the Irish and German forms for the first half, if not the second.

Basic point being is that some names do jump linguistic barriers and there's valid point for using the alternate version(s) in certain cases.

The CCS version admittedly is not one of them.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
(no subject) - [info]moodring54, 2008-01-23 11:48 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]razorzknight, 2008-01-23 12:01 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]oceanica, 2008-01-23 02:41 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]luriko_ysabeth, 2008-01-23 03:25 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]razorzknight, 2008-01-23 03:56 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]luriko_ysabeth, 2008-01-23 06:47 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]razorzknight, 2008-01-23 07:02 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]luriko_ysabeth, 2008-01-24 04:20 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]kayloulee, 2008-01-24 09:05 am UTC

(Deleted post)
(no subject) - [info]kayloulee, 2008-01-25 06:12 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]luriko_ysabeth, 2008-01-24 07:30 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]blackjackrocket, 2008-01-23 10:20 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]luriko_ysabeth, 2008-01-24 03:43 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]razorzknight, 2008-01-24 10:06 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]mer5, 2008-01-24 01:14 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]razorzknight, 2008-01-24 01:37 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]mer5, 2008-01-24 02:05 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]luriko_ysabeth, 2008-01-24 07:40 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]plaid_slytherin, 2008-01-23 11:45 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]laurus_nobilis, 2008-01-24 02:15 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]plaid_slytherin, 2008-01-24 02:21 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]luriko_ysabeth, 2008-01-24 08:03 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]laurus_nobilis, 2008-01-24 08:22 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]luriko_ysabeth, 2008-01-24 08:48 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]bwinter, 2008-01-23 06:46 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]moodring54, 2008-01-23 10:06 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]laurus_nobilis, 2008-01-23 04:11 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]kohi_no_tora, 2008-01-23 09:44 pm UTC

[info]razorzknight
2008-01-23 11:27 am UTC (link)
Keirin, actually. >.>

MMORPGs teach wonders on Engrish and Korglish, y'know...

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]razorzknight
2008-01-23 10:11 am UTC (link)
Ying-Fa?

...

Even if it does mean what it's supposed to mean, WRRRYYY?

I'm gonna start calling her Cereza in my CCS fics (whenever I write another one,) because, you know, that's her name in my native language, and it's like, cool, you know!!!!!111112

As for Syaoran... I've called him Xiao Lan (without the g, I know) since I first saw the Spanish dub (the girl dubbing Sakura's voice seemed to call him that rather than Syaoran, when she wasn't calling him Li.) And I've been bitched at for it, like "dude, that's not his name, his name's Syaoran!"

Sure, just like the Street Fighter main female lead is called Shunri. Sometimes I don't know if some fandoms are fandoms or faildoms.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]reslari
2008-01-23 11:21 am UTC (link)
XD I know. Technically, they can't get high and mighty on your ass for spelling it differently, since heck, you could spell his name Zhao Lang and it's still phoenetically right.

But it's stupid - I saw it first on something I read on Aff - some fic where Sakura and Syao ran away to Hong Kong for some reason. He said he'd call her Ying Fa for some reason (okay! That's ALMOST understandable), and then told her to call him Xiao Lang rather than Syaoran - and she did. I was hitting my head on my desk for SO LONG. That is NOT how Japanese pronunciation works - and she wouldn't MAGICALLY be able to pronounce things in Chinese just coz they're in Hong Kong.

Anyway, I was just browsing through that section of the pit, and I was discovering a disturbing amount of times Sakura was being called Ying Fa, most of those times they were referring to her as some sort of celestial being.

XD Am I missing something or did someone's fanfic have a few too many fanatics?

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
(no subject) - [info]razorzknight, 2008-01-23 12:02 pm UTC

[info]luriko_ysabeth
2008-01-24 04:07 am UTC (link)
Well, Japanese has, as I said below, tended to do this to Chinese names -- even if the characters from Journey to the West get the same exemption that historical figures and saints get in English, they kept on doing it... speaking of saints, in a rather popular anime called Saint Seiya, one of the major characters had a Chinese girlfriend-or-whatever called, according to the Japanese pronunciation, Shunrei.

As best I can tell, her name in Chinese would be Chun-li.

And don't even get me started on the cast of Fushigi Yuugi (at least half of which are named in Japanese sound-readings, some of which do get Mandarin names, and three of which appear, after repeated poking of an online dictionary, to be named in HAKKA. Also wherever Hikitsu and Tomite's given names come from).

When the canon does this to you, the fandom should get something of a pass...

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]cognitiveleague
2008-01-23 01:14 pm UTC (link)
That makes me a sad puppy.

Honestly, if Fujitaka had Chinese relatives close enough to be thought of or mentioned ever, I would expect it to be another stress point between him and Nadeshiko's family. Japan can get somewhat...ah, xenophobic. And there are days I think I have it easier as a white girl, because that puts me outside of the 'other, lesser Asian races' slot in people's minds. Generally, by typing me as a chaotic hooligan whose favorite food is "this animal I just shot, extra-rare", but...well. One tries to look on the bright side, right?

Although, in CLAMP's Japan, racism seems to be less prevalent, so maybe not.

Either way, calling Sakura Ying-Fa just because you can is pretty epic fail. And thinking Shaoran has two completely different names, not just a name that gets Japanized when Japanese people say it. (That would mean I have three! My actual name, the katakana-fied name, and the in between where people drop the u sound at the end but still pronounce the l like an r...)

...I want to learn Chinese. Maybe I'll take Bai-sensei's entry level class in spring. =D

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]youjik33
2008-01-23 07:56 pm UTC (link)
I always found being a Caucasian in Japan to be kind of fun. If I did something obnoxious or committed an accidental faux pas, it didn't matter because everyone already expected it of me XD

Shaoran's name is a giant pain just because it can be written so many different ways. I use "Shaoran" because I like how it looks, haha.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
(no subject) - [info]cognitiveleague, 2008-01-23 11:24 pm UTC

[info]luriko_ysabeth
2008-01-23 03:20 pm UTC (link)
...actually, Sakura's school is being polite about Shaolan's name, or possibly modern; standard practice for years was for people who wrote their names in Chinese ideoglyphs to have them pronounced according to the custom of the country they were in (Ri Kouran, anyone?) which would have made his Japanese callname "Ri Shourou."

(I still don't see where the "fa" part of "Ying-fa" comes from. Other than that, I might buy that the Li women would call her that among themselves, even though in the movie they use her own name to her face.)

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]control_paradox
2008-01-24 12:09 am UTC (link)
I still don't see where the "fa" part of "Ying-fa" comes from.

Yeah, that confused me for a sec before I realized it's probably supposed to be "hua." I think they made the same Hua/Fa mistake in Disney's Mulan too. XD I don't see why people get them confused...

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]control_paradox
2008-01-24 12:11 am UTC (link)
Right, never mind. Saw comment below, and "fa" is the Cantonese pronounciation of "hua." Damn my meager Chinese skills. ._.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]irrisia
2008-01-23 04:30 pm UTC (link)
Well, that's useful. So, when I (theoretically) go to Japan and people (theoretically) call me "Gaijin", they're just translating my name for me?

For serious, my name means "alien", in an "outsider" kind of way. Like the "alien" in "illegal alien", rather than ET.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]ketita
2008-01-24 10:55 am UTC (link)
That's neat. I'm dying to know what your name is / what language it's in, if you're cool with telling...
My name means "God Is My Father". I've joked upon occasion that people should just call me Jesus

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
(no subject) - [info]irrisia, 2008-01-24 08:31 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]ketita, 2008-01-24 09:59 pm UTC
Eleanor: meaning - [info]luriko_ysabeth, 2008-03-05 02:13 am UTC

[info]sharibet
2008-01-23 05:52 pm UTC (link)
...or maybe the person you're ranting about has only seen the pirated Chinese versions of the series, hence the odd transliterations?

I remember seeing a Taiwanese-pirated disc of Inuyasha which had English subtitles that were, to say the least, eccentric in their grammar and translations. The translator had obviously gotten hold of an English thesaurus, and was using it fearlessly, if not accurately. More to the point, nearly all of the characters' names had been rendered into the Chinese readings of the kanji, rather than the Japanese...

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]turkish_delight
2008-01-23 07:56 pm UTC (link)
oh man, i had some of those... they were effin hilarious! made no sense, but entertaining at least. good practice, if nothing else; i learned that i didn't need subtitles as much as i thought i did. o_O

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
(no subject) - [info]sharibet, 2008-01-23 08:45 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]turkish_delight, 2008-01-23 10:51 pm UTC

[info]minoriko
2008-01-23 10:03 pm UTC (link)
Who decided that Syaoran and Xiao Lang were two completely different names and decided that Sakura would be able to pronounce the difference between them? It's the same word! Just... pronounced slightly different because you can't pronounce Xiao Lang properly in Japanese. Xiao Lang, Syao Lang, take off the g since there isn't one in Japanese, Syao R/Lan. Syaoran. It's not rocket science. Fail, fanbrat(s). Fail.

Huh, 24 comments in and not one Chinese speaker to correct this? Strange.

Chinese has 4 tones. Japanese has 2. Xiao Lang will not be intonated the same way as the Japanese pronounce Syaoran. I can't remember if Sakura understood Chinese (or wasn't Xiao Lang from China or something? Whatever), but if she did understand the language, she would figure out the difference.

Anyway, to answer a bunch of other questions in the comments:

Technically, if you were to directly translate Sakura's kanji name, it would literally mean 'cherry blossom'. In Chinese, Sakura's name is pronounced 'Ying' and you have to stick 'hua' (flower) at the end for it to make some grammatical sense. I'm guessing this person took the Cantonese dialect for flower (hence 'fa') instead.

I'm not well versed in the Sakura fandom, but I did buy a couple of CCS mangas translated into Chinese back then. The kanji names are directly spoken the way they are in Chinese. Sakura, in that sense, is called 'Ying' in Chinese, grammatically incorrect it may be. I'm guessing this person just Babelfished 'Sakura' and the Chinese translator popped 'Ying hua/fa' as the answer, since it makes more sense.

So... not fail.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]laurus_nobilis
2008-01-24 02:22 am UTC (link)
But even if it's correct, would they really change her name? I was under the impression that the rant was about fics where the Chinese characters call her Ying-Fa, not about Ying-Fa being incorrect. Would they do that? It's as if a foreigner came to Argentina and we started saying his/her name in Spanish, which... is really weird, IMHO. John stays John, not Juan, even if Juan is the correct translation.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
(no subject) - [info]minoriko, 2008-01-24 02:44 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]laurus_nobilis, 2008-01-24 12:40 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]minoriko, 2008-01-24 01:01 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]laurus_nobilis, 2008-01-24 01:09 pm UTC

[info]luriko_ysabeth
2008-01-24 03:58 am UTC (link)
//Xiao Lang will not be intonated the same way as the Japanese pronounce Syaoran. I can't remember if Sakura understood Chinese (or wasn't Xiao Lang from China or something? Whatever), but if she did understand the language, she would figure out the difference.//

I think once when I was ficcing, I switched in and out of Wade-Giles and romanization-of-CLAMP-transliteration, depending on whose point of view it was at the time.

//Technically, if you were to directly translate Sakura's kanji name, it would literally mean 'cherry blossom'. In Chinese, Sakura's name is pronounced 'Ying' and you have to stick 'hua' (flower) at the end for it to make some grammatical sense. I'm guessing this person took the Cantonese dialect for flower (hence 'fa') instead.//

...I had the vague impression that a Cantonese speaker would be more likely to call her "Ah Ying" than to stick another character on the end there, even if it would be sort of weird as a name and not quite convey the full meaning (in Chinese, does the character by itself mean a cherry tree, a cherry fruit, what? The Japanese means either the flower or the tree, depending on context).

But it's not as if I actually speak Cantonese, so I am obviously not an authority.

...I don't suppose I could ask you a question on the appropriate Mandarin pronunciation of a name, could I?

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
(no subject) - [info]minoriko, 2008-01-24 04:30 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]luriko_ysabeth, 2008-01-24 05:30 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]minoriko, 2008-01-24 01:08 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]luriko_ysabeth, 2008-01-24 07:47 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]minoriko, 2008-01-24 08:20 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]luriko_ysabeth, 2008-01-24 08:31 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]minoriko, 2008-01-24 08:49 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]luriko_ysabeth, 2008-01-25 03:28 am UTC

[info]plaid_slytherin
2008-01-23 11:47 pm UTC (link)
That's very odd. Was the narration calling her Ying Fa or just dialogue? I can almost understand it if people (who hadn't known her before she traveled to China) called her that, but it's not like she would change how she perceived herself...

(Reply to this)


[info]orangenoslide
2008-01-24 12:45 am UTC (link)
Sounds like it's this person from [info]fandomsecrets, lol.

(Reply to this)


[info]chriseh
2008-01-24 01:08 am UTC (link)
ah! Aah the wonderful joys of languages + fanbrats. I think they should lay off the online translators and ask real people for translations. You think they would learn but no, not yet...

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]luriko_ysabeth
2008-01-24 04:08 am UTC (link)
I am very fond of online translators because, when I forget the gender of a given word whose meaning I know, I can plug in "the ___" and quickly get it.

This is about as far as one should trust an online translator.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
(no subject) - [info]chriseh, 2008-01-24 06:29 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]luriko_ysabeth, 2008-01-24 07:42 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]chriseh, 2008-01-25 04:50 pm UTC

[info]kurafufu
2008-01-24 10:28 am UTC (link)
TOTALLY AGREE. It's even worse when they start saying woaini all over the place. ==; Sakura doesn't speak Chinese. Please not to have her using Chinese all over the place even if you think it's SUPER DUPER AMAZINGLY CUTE.








ESPECIALLY IF YOU USE THE CHINESE WRONG. YOU SOUND REALLY STUPID TO CHINESE READERS. AND THERE'S MORE OF US THAN YOU THINK.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]reslari
2008-01-24 08:32 pm UTC (link)
XD Well, I can kinda see it happening if something happens like... Meilin teaches her (which I can totally see her doing just so she can watch Syaoran's mind break when his girlfriend starts speaking his native language at him XD) or Sakura asks one of them to teach her stuff. That I can see, especially since she'd stumble over half the words with her accent. But THAT scenario I can understand.

But that would be Good Writing, and heaven forbid someone actually do THAT.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Chinese - [info]arromdee, 2008-01-24 09:24 pm UTC

[info]alphamone
2008-01-24 01:05 pm UTC (link)
A possibly simmilar thing, use the correct reading of the characters, just becuase 西表 could technically be read as "nishihyu" under certian readings, it is most likely going to be "iromote".

An internet cookie to the first person who recognises what show that mistake was made in, and what character made it.

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