r/ChineseLanguage • u/AutoModerator • Aug 26 '26
Pinned Post 快问快答 Quick Help Thread: Translation Requests, Chinese name help, "how do you say X", or any quick Chinese questions! 2026-08-26
Click here to see the previous Quick Help Threads, including 翻译求助 Translation Requests threads.
This thread is used for:
- Translation requests
- Help with choosing a Chinese name
- "How do you say X?" questions
- or any quick question that can be answered by a single answer.
Alternatively, you can ask on our Discord server.
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Regarding translation requests
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此贴为以下目的专设：
- 翻译求助
- 取中文名
- 如何用中文表达某个概念或词汇
- 及任何可以用一个简短的答案解决的问题
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关于翻译求助
如果您需要中文翻译，请在此留言。
但是，如果您需要的是他人对自己所做的长篇翻译进行审查，或对某些语法及用词有些许疑问，您可以将其发表在一个新的，单独的贴子里。
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u/Important-Access8300 Aug 28 '26
Would anyone be able to translate the text on my pendant? Thank you!
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u/vertblau Aug 29 '26
鳴 - cry of a bird and some other animals 龍 - dragon
so "the call/cry of the dragon"
the characters are a bit weird though, the 鳴 is half-simplified.
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u/Important-Access8300 Aug 30 '26
Thank you so much! The pendant also has a dragon on it so this makes sense!
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u/Zagrycha Aug 30 '26
Its not weird, The merged line for the dots in these types of characters is normal handwriting, even in traditional areas. Its just less formal.
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u/Traditional_Pool_890 Aug 28 '26 edited Aug 28 '26
I've been struggling a little on picking a Chinese name. I have already settled on 雷 as a surname. I saw 雅各 as sort of a transliteration for some common western names, but wanted to make it my own a bit. Is 雷雅歌 too presumptuous or arrogant or weird sounding? I am really into music, and would love something tied to that, but don't want to sound ridiculous.
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u/11211toSEA Aug 28 '26
Could anyone please help me with the translation and meaning of this poem? I’m struggling with some of the characters. They are from the bottom of my husband’s great great grandfather’s ink stone.
水紋笛草源如洗
?碧紗?薄??無
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u/Bekqifyre Aug 29 '26
水紋笛簟涼如洗，雲碧紗幮薄欲無
It's from a poem.
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u/Zagrycha Aug 29 '26
Do you know which poem? I was trying to look it up to habe context to translate it better but couldn't find it.
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u/11211toSEA Aug 31 '26
Thanks so much for your help. A friend of mine helped me identifying the poem is by Lu Yao.
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u/Zagrycha Aug 28 '26
水紋笛簟涼如洗 雲碧紗幮薄玖無
The only character I am not positive on is the second to last one, there might be another stroke there or it might just be wear and tear. Normally I am comfortable translating classical chinese, but I am not 100% certain if the mood of this text is happy or sad and that changes a lot. I would recommend posting this to r/translator someone there is probably better at this specific type of funeral stuff.
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u/11211toSEA Aug 28 '26
Thank so much! Appreciate your help. He was a 狀元 who was well known for his calligraphy and this is on the bottom of his calligraphy ink stone.
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u/Zagrycha Aug 30 '26
Hey I don't know if you got the answer from the other subreddit yet but becky found the full poem and I feel comfortable telling you what its referencing now, and you will understand why I wasn't before:
The literal words on the stone are just a single line from the whole poem, they reference a luxury bamboo bedding that would have been good for being cool rather than being warm, as well as a luxury gauze bed canopy that was probably a pretty silk color. Very pretty imagery but really needs an overall mood or emotion to go with the scene.
I read through the poem series and the mood is basically just describing those times of leisure when you are stepped away from the hustle and bustle of life and duties.
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u/Zagrycha Aug 29 '26
That makes sense, this poem is not an easily look up able one, its also possible its an original work of him or someone he knows.
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u/National-Sign-51 Beginner Aug 27 '26
Potentially really stupid question - why do some Chinese names have a space in the middle? Is there some way that I would know that it should have a space? Is it just a decision the person/family makes when they write it for English readers?
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u/Zagrycha Aug 27 '26
Most likely the last one. Its impossible to say for sure without actually seeing the context you are referring to, But I can tell you that chinese frequently write foreign names like english ones with no spaces.
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u/National-Sign-51 Beginner Aug 28 '26
Sorry - rereading my question I realize it's not super clear. I work in an English speaking workplace, and I have a coworker named Li Ying. I was wondering if I end up seeing the characters of her name if there was some way I should know it was Li Ying instead of Liying for example. Or if that's just up to the person?
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u/Zagrycha Aug 29 '26 edited Aug 29 '26
The characters will not tell you anything, because chinese never has spaces, period. They don't exist.
The number of characters will tell you where the space goes, because the space usually goes in between family name and given name. Below are the most common layouts, in order of common:
1+2 layout, 1 character long family name plus two character long given name.
1+1 layout, 1 character family plus 1 character given.
2+2 layout, 2 character family plus 2 character given.
Literally anything else: very rare, even natives will mess it up, probably not han chinese.
For Li Ying vs Liying the difference would just be if thats their whole name or just their given name etc. Of course, if its their given name and they want to write it Li Ying or even LiYing they totally can. Thats not the convention but its their name. Same as someone in english with the name Joanne could also be Jo Anne or JoAnne if they so choose.
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u/zsethereal Aug 29 '26
The convention of writing names in pinyin is to have a space between the family name and the given name. For Li Ying, I'm assuming Li is her family name. For three-character names, the given name would be written together with no space (ex. Deng Xiaoping, where Xiaoping is the given name)
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u/National-Sign-51 Beginner Aug 29 '26
Sorry - she also has a family name, I was just trying not to dox her lol. Li Ying is her "first" name.
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u/zsethereal Aug 29 '26
Probably a personal choice then. Either way it's not really that important since a name written in pinyin is only ever used in non-Chinese settings. You can't tell the exact characters used with pinyin alone.
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u/MinVrstppn 吴语 Aug 27 '26
It depends
Some Chinese names have a space middle because they are not Han Chinese. e.g. Neghmet Rakhman 尼格买提·热合曼, CCTV host.
Other Chinese names have spaces (when transliterated in English perhaps?) simply because they need to differentiate the 姓 and the 名. So Yes, it's just a decision the person/family makes when they write it for English readers.
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u/Cetty_cet Aug 26 '26
I have to choose a Chinese name for my university course in Chinese, and "莫谷锋" has grown on me for various reasons. Is this a name that works well? if not, why?
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u/qinglan_reads Aug 28 '26
莫谷锋 reads fine as a real name: 莫 is a genuine, well-known surname (the writer 莫言, for example), so there's no need to swap it out. 锋 comes across as a bit literary and slightly masculine — "valley" plus "peak/edge" — but it's a normal two-character given name and nothing about it sounds odd or foreign. If you want it softer, 谷 pairs easily with quieter characters, but as it stands it works.
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u/No_Comparison6582 Native 🇨🇳 Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26
Seems great. But if you want your Chinese name is more like Chinese people, you can try to replace "莫" to "墨". They have the same pronunciation, and "墨" is a more common Chinese surname. (but, it might be a bit difficult to write.)
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u/Zagrycha Aug 27 '26
is 莫 considered rare? Its definitely no 王or陳 but I never realized it was considered uncommon. I wonder if its a regional name, I know it from cantonese areas.
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u/No_Comparison6582 Native 🇨🇳 Aug 27 '26
Not so rare. In fact, "墨" is more rare than "莫". But "墨" is more dispersed in China. It's usually in Tianjin, Ganzhou, Sichuan, Beijing, etc. And you might also have heard of "墨子". This is merely my personal opinion. Both surnames are quite good. It all depends on which one you prefer.
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u/Zagrycha Aug 27 '26
That makes sense. I have definitely seen 墨 as a surname and even for book characters haha ((including books with actual 墨家 in the plot)) , I was just suprised to see it recommended over 莫 based on rarity, it made me question things and think 墨 was much more common than I thought or vice versa. Thanks for the reply =)
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u/National-Sign-51 Beginner Aug 26 '26
I have a family member who is a pharmacist. Pleco gives like 8 different words, and I'm not sure what the differences in meaning are?
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u/Zagrycha Aug 26 '26
司藥 is very old fashioned, it does mean pharmacist but the word alchemist might fit better for actual history. Literally "drug department ((supervisor etc implied))"
藥劑師 one of the most common words to use for pharmacist. Literally drug preparation master. ((master in the master apprenticeship sense)).
藥師 same as the last one but abbreviated, also common.
藥劑士 is like a pharmacist who hasn't actually mastered the trade yet, but is more than just an apprentice. It doesn't really exist in modern day, because you have to fully master the trade with testing and certificates before you can be a pharmacist. Back in the day when people learned on the job through trial and error it might have been more common.
藥學家 is more like the science and research side. I guess they would still be pharmacist, but only in the sense that a doctor who researches diseases is a doctor. There is no regular patient or client care going on. It is literally the word drug researcher.
配藥員 this person works in a pharmacy but they are not a pharmacist. I assume its labelled pharmacist in the dictionary cause a lot of people call everyone in the pharmacy a pharmacist, same way people call everyone who isn't a doctor in a hospital nurse. The word dispenser in the dictionary is more accurate, but I assume they do more than just count pills and dispense, they probably do inventory and other daily administrative stuff too. This is usually the person actually getting the medicine for you when you go to pick up your medicine from the pharmacy.
The last one already says its patent medicine in the screen shot, but 成藥 refers to medicine thats premade and sold under an official patent.... which is basically all modern medicine, cause again stuff needs to be tested and certified before it is sold these days. In historical times it made more sense for this to be its own category. If you did have a doctor or pharmacist custom make or perscribe a medicine for you, this word wouldn't apply. So it is a pharmacy related word but not really pharmacist related... well except when the pharmacist gets asked questions about the random otc stuff I guess haha, that happens too.
I assume you are learning chinese so I wrote it in detail, hope it helps =)
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u/National-Sign-51 Beginner Aug 26 '26
Yes I am, and I expect this to be something where I will need more specialized language to discuss so I really appreciate all the detail!
For 配藥員 - Okay, I'm thinking this would be in the US like a pharmacy technician. Like you say, they assist the pharmacist, count, inventory, etc.
For 藥劑士 - there are pharmacy interns, people who are still in pharmacy school and have not yet graduated, so they are not pharmacists (but they are sort of above pharmacy technicians in hierarchy...sort of). Could this refer to them? There are also graduate interns, people who have graduated from pharmacy school but have not yet taken their licensing exams? It's also possible, like you say, that this just doesn't have a good modern version.
Agreed, 成藥 sounds like most of the current medications. There are some medications that are "compounded" patient specific, so this wouldn't be those medications. I may look into what that is.
Thank you so much, this was extremely helpful!
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u/Zagrycha Aug 26 '26
Pharmacy technician seems about right. I actually am not super knowledgable on pharmacy inner workings first hand so didn't want to give the wrong word. Whichever title would apply to the people who have a major duty of counting and dispensing medicine would be the correct comparison. I forgot the literal meaning for this one the first time, 配藥員 is "compound-distribute-ratio drug staff".
Modern day intern is 實習 literally meaning real life practice, so pharmacist intern would be 藥劑師實習
You are right that 成藥 doesn't apply to custom compounded or formulated medicines, but it also doesn't apply to custom dosed medicines either. Thats why its usually not used for prescribed drugs at all, but just simple premade medicine like ibuprophen or antacids, the things that can be gotten over the counter with no unique customization.
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u/National-Sign-51 Beginner Aug 26 '26
Perfect, thank you!!
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u/Zagrycha Aug 27 '26
I just realized I didn't answer your last question: 複方 is compound medicine, it would include the pharmacist custom formula and other compound stuff. literally complex recipe
配製 is the verb compound medicine, you might notice the first character is familiar from the pharmacy technician word, the second character is manufacture in literal meaning. This would apply to stuff like medicine but also to other stuff.
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u/BlackRaptor62 Aug 26 '26
`藥劑師` & `藥師` are good options
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u/cjk-lookup Aug 26 '26
藥劑師 / 药剂师
Language Pronunciation Mandarin (Pinyin) yàojìshī Mandarin (Wade-Giles) yao4 chi4 shih1 Mandarin (Yale) yau4 ji4 shr1 Mandarin (Zhuyin) ㄧㄠˋ ㄐㄧˋ ㄕ Cantonese joek6 zai1 si1 Southern Min io̍h-tsè-su Meanings:
- pharmacist
Information from MDBG • CC-Canto • Yellowbridge • Youdao • ZDIC
藥師 / 药师
Language Pronunciation Mandarin (Pinyin) yàoshī Mandarin (Wade-Giles) yao4 shih1 Mandarin (Yale) yau4 shr1 Mandarin (Zhuyin) ㄧㄠˋ ㄕ Southern Min io̍h-su Meanings:
- pharmacist
Information from MDBG • Yellowbridge • Youdao • ZDIC
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u/AnnualCriticism2428 Aug 29 '26
Is it right to say that "相当于" equals "等于"?