Expert: Sir William - 3/16/2011

Question
QUESTION: I'm trying to look up a few words, and there are many of the same one. How will an American find the exact name for something. For example there are several words for woman, point, poison, and needle.

http://www.mandarintools.com/cgi-bin/wordlook.pl

If say, "Poison Woman", "Poison Point", "Red Poison" "Red woman" what is the way to figure out how to combine these terms?

I know in English, we have a word with 2 meanings as well, for example  "fly" is a bug, and "fly" can be an action. "He will fly a plane."

I apprecite the help. Thank you!

Please let me know. Thank you.

ANSWER: Dear H,

I hope you are not working with MI6. Last time, they sent M and Q but didn't manage to squeeze too much information out of me neither....

Enough for joking.

I believe there is no crash course in mastering any language proficiently; I have no rule of the thumb that can help anyone differentiate, say, verbs and nouns in Chinese, because there are hundreds and thousands of combinations in the language.  Moreover, the same word may have different meanings in Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese, Cantonese and Shanghainese, depends on context.

Anyway, if you need to figure out grammatically any particular sets of Chinese words, I will be happy to assist.

H, thank you for bringing up a very inspiring question.

Best regards,

Sir William




---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: No, would be cool though. I have always loved James Bond and video games, but no, (fear of heights would me a I fail right away). I just want to ask privatly this. See, I am researchig words for a name for one of my characters. This is not a homework question. I'm out of college. I just want to name a charater correctly.

If say, "Poison Woman", "Poison Point", "Red Poison" "Red woman" what is the way to figure out how to combine these terms?

I have a Chinese red haired woman who speaks mandarian, but is named after the lionfish. I can't find a direct translation anywhere in pinyin only chinese text and I can't read Chinese to save my life. I have a think with being original in naming and want to avoid copyin any existing names out there. I fiddled with words like wushu (military) (skill, arts)-martial arts and zhen jiu (accupuncture). "needle"-zhen. However, it's a challenge to find a good name for a villian.
Some of the names belive it or not, came up with were almost Power Ranger names, so need to think harder, I guess.

And 'lionfish' or stingfish' alot of them would not come up in the dictionary I tried. Not only that, a cool name might sound diffrent than it is, like 'cao' is -cow-. So yeah, even that's a challenge.

ANSWER: Good morning, H,

So, you want to combine the terms "Poison Woman", "Poison Point", "Red Poison" "Red woman" to name a character - in Chinese - correctly.  Right? Let's work together on that.

Firstly, let's translate each term individually.

"Poison Woman" = 毒女人
"Poison Point" = 毒點
"Red Poison" = 紅毒
"Red Woman" = 紅女人
"Poison" = 毒 (noun)
"Woman" = 女人 (noun)
"Point" = 點 (noun)
"Red" = 紅 or 赤 (noun)

If we called somebody a "Poison Woman" (毒女人), she would know what we're talking about.  However, we are missing the adjective, red (紅). Having said so, no body would understand what a "Red Poison Woman" (紅毒女人) is.

My suggestion for that "Chinese red haired woman" would be:

蠍精(Traditional Chinese); 蝎精(Simplified Chinese)
Pinyin for this term is: xiē jing

Meaning: 蠍(Scorpion, many Chinese use this word on vicious female) 精 (Evil spirit, usually female).

(Somebody told me that scorpions are most poisonous when they turn red.)

The term 蠍精(蝎精)appeared in some old Chinese (Tang/Han dynasties) supernatural stories.

Well, I hope you'll find the above interesting and helpful for naming your character.  I do not accept any liabilities howsoever caused....lol....

Have a nice day,

Sir William    














---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: I aplogize for the repost, however For Chinese, it woudl greatly help to see it in pinyin.  My computer only shows blocks of squared 000 and I saw nothing in Chinese letters.

"Good morning, H,

So, you want to combine the terms "Poison Woman", "Poison Point", "Red Poison" "Red woman" to name a character - in Chinese - correctly.  Right? Let's work together on that.

Firstly, let's translate each term individually.

"Poison Woman" = 毒女人
"Poison Point" = 毒點
"Red Poison" = 紅毒
"Red Woman" = 紅女人
"Poison" = 毒 (noun)
"Woman" = 女人 (noun)
"Point" = 點 (noun)
"Red" = 紅 or 赤 (noun)

If we called somebody a "Poison Woman" (毒女人), she would know what we're talking about.  However, we are missing the adjective, red (紅). Having said so, no body would understand what a "Red Poison Woman" (紅毒女人) is.

My suggestion for that "Chinese red haired woman" would be:

蠍精(Traditional Chinese); 蝎精(Simplified Chinese)
Pinyin for this term is: xiē jing

Meaning: 蠍(Scorpion, many Chinese use this word on vicious female) 精 (Evil spirit, usually female).

(Somebody told me that scorpions are most poisonous when they turn red.)

The term 蠍精(蝎精)appeared in some old Chinese (Tang/Han dynasties) supernatural stories.

"

Poison Point, (like the tip of needle) is cool, or Red sting. I know that sometimes names are very symbolic. Thank you very much for the information about scorpions. I know lionfish have poisoned quills to sting and are tan and red striped. I was trying to find that or marine 'sting', as in marine fish.

It's easy for Americans to combine a lion and tiger to make a 'ligar' not the same for other langauges. :) I did notice they had mytical woman, and mythical man for some reason. "ni" I think. Was there an Adam and Eve for their legends? This is another thing that is confusing to me.

Answer
Hello, H,

I am sorry for the time it takes to respond to your repost.  You and I are in different Time Zones.

The pinyin for the suggested naming are:  蝎(xie1) 精(jing1)

If you still have problems reading this posting, please send your email address to me at sirwilliamk@gmail.com, I'll be delighted to give you my postings for you in PDF format.

With best regards,

Sir William