Monday, December 8, 2008

How to translate your NAME

Often as you might had seen before.. You get to see various type of shop names.. However, in a multi-racial country.. One problem is.. You may have to own three name for your shops or company.. English, Chinese, and Malay..

It sounded easy to translate heh?!

Let's say we have a shop named "Magic".. When we translate it to Malay Language, it'll become "Magik".. and we translate it to Chinese as "魔术" (Mo Shu which means Magic in Mandarin)..

But what if your shop name is your name?! How you going to translate it?!

Before knowing how, let us analyze this shop name..

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I believe this shop owner started off with a chinese name called "森美" (Sen Mei in pinyin).. No particular meaning, therefore, we can't translate it to an English name or a Malay name.. So, judging from the name, perhaps, that fellow has an English name called "Sammy".. Well, Sammy is quite a normal name regardless how we look at it..

Now, the funny thing is when we starting to translate it to a Malay name.. From Sammy, we translate it to "Sami" in Malay language.. "Sami" in Malay language literally means "Monk" in English.. From a name became a monk.. How funny a name can be translated..

But couldn't blame the shop owner.. Perhaps, that's how they translate name long long time ago (judging from the shop la..)..

I can't imagine translating a name like "阿国" (Ah Guo in chinese pinyin) to an English name which became "Ah Cock".. and translate it again to a Malay name.. "Ah Ayam".. Fulamak!! If that happens, I will laugh till I pengsan la..

Anyway, sometimes, I think just straight away use back same name can liao la.. What's the point of translating when it became a fucking funny name..

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

haha.. that is why we have to be very careful in choosing the names for our kids.

for example a girl's name:

Yip Lai Kuan in hokkien is masuk tidur... HAHAH.

YL said...

LOL. laugh until pengsan =.="

Harry Kho aka Krawx said...

renaye:
yeah.. very very true.. hahaz.. funny name but it happens.. lolz..

Yi Ling:
lolz.. need CPR?