Peculiarities of Trilingual Names in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean

[@熊唯嘉]

As late as 19th century, Europeans were still modifying their names in different languages. Karl Marx was referred to as Carlos Marx in Spanish and as Charles Marx in French (and possibly in English).

[@jeffrey2326]

That reminds me of Marie Antoinette from Maria Antonia

[@mckendrick7672]

It's less common but people still do it today for ease of use.

[@sremagamers]

In English it's just Karl, potentially owing to the fact the identically pronounced Carl is a name in the language so it's fairly unconfusing.

[@TschikoDeutsch]

Karl Marx was the librarian in Oxford Library people called him just Karl Marx in the UK

[@Automatik234]

​@@sremagamersThere's enough historical figures, called Charles in English and Karl in German. Interestingly enough, that just seemed to stop with Monarchs since the twentieth century.

[@columbus8myhw]

There's a similar thing with the science fiction author Isaac Asimov, who was born in Russia and raised in the United States. His Russian name at birth was Исаак Азимов (Isaak Azimov), but of course in the US he called himself Isaac with the usual English-language pronunciation. When his books were translated into Russian, his name was written Айзек Азимов (Ayzek Azimov), reflecting the English pronunciation of his name.

[@columbus8myhw]

Similarly, he was born with the Yiddish/Hebrew name יצחק (Yitzchak), but I'm fairly certain in Israel they spell his name אייזק (Aizek).

[@suzbone]

So interesting, thank you!

[@会弹琴的牛]

阿西莫夫

[@djdjukic]

Interesting. In Serbian we call him Isak Asimov. We also call Weird Al Yankovic "Čudni Al Janković", since he has a Serbian family name.

[@dirtiestharry6551]

Cool trivia

[@billyli6138]

As a Chinese speaker it’s extremely hard for me to mention a Korean or Japanese name while talk to a westerner(about historical things usually)due to the reason mentioned in this excellent video..... I can only pronounce the names in Hanja read in Chinese most times so the Europeans were confused as they don’t know who I am referring to.

[@hentype]

Yeah the usual RoTK name dilemma. It's a literary classic so the names of people and places in it have Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese versions.

[@theowltheknowledge]

Also many characters in anime!

[@Jumpoable]

@@theowltheknowledge

[@Pooh0000]

其实韩国名字基本都可以对上汉字和读音，但是日本名字是可以对的上字对不上音。

[@Cuojin]

除了人名还有地名，什么大阪名古屋横滨，它们的英文读音与汉语的读法差别嗯很大。一旦说起日本的很多事情，我只想找支笔“手谈”😅。

[@lastnamefirstname5289]

Translating names happens a lot in Bible translations. For example, the Hebrew name Yohanan becomes John in English, Juan in Spanish, Jean in French, and Giovanni in Italian. This was a common thing in early Western society, even outside the Bible. For example, John Calvin's real name is Jehan Cauvin.

[@ADM1N1STRAT0R]

Omg now i finally know why John in Chinese is pronounced "Yue Han"......

[@aiocafea]

yeah, people would latinise their names in writing, delatinise them Decartes, would be known as Renatus Cartesius in my language, i call Columbus 'Cristofor Columb' in his home in Genoa (Genova in italian Zêna in Ligurian), he was known as Cristoforo Colombo, and to the spanish king he was known as Cristóbal Colón Columbus in english is taken from his latinised name, but in latin he wrote his first name as Christophorus there's tons of examples of people messing with their names and finding alternatives and tweaking them

[@sortingoutmyclothes8131]

It happens with royals too. Prince William is called Guillermo in Spanish.

[@frafraplanner9277]

Saints and popes too (Saint Francis San Francisco) (Saint Anthony San Antonio) (Saint Didacus San Diego) (Saint Hyacinth San Jacinto) (Saint Lawrence San Lorenzo)

[@MatBeka]

Junoh

[@saddasish]

Not only does Mandarin render Japanese and Korean names using the reading based on the Chinese character, but this is also the case for all of Chinese, no matter if it's Cantonese, Hakka, Wu, Hokkien, Teochew, etc. In fact, within Chinese itself, we would render the names of other Chinese people based on how the characters are read in the language that we speaking and not in whatever language these people are native in. It's weird to think about. It's as though when we are given a Chinese name, we are only given the characters for that name, but the pronunciation for the most part cannot be claimed.

[@vulpes_channel]

I mean if you read Benedict Anderson's Immagined Communities, he basically talks about how commonly shared characters and words spoken by people with different dialect connect people over different places and forms the concept of national identity

[@joshuamason2227]

that sums it up pretty much perfectly. Chinese characters were invented thousands of years ago as a way to unite people who spoke different languages. As the chinese dynasties exapanded and solidified their power, the only thing remaining of the other languages spoken in china is their different pronounciations

[@Demopans5990]

​@@joshuamason2227 And the other various dialects and languages can be quite interesting

[@momo-cchi5978]

It's the same for Arabic. If MSA wasn't necessary for learning the Quran and other things like that, the various Arabic dialects woulda been considered their own languages by now.

[@cheungch1990]

For Westerners who find it hard to understand: imagine you live in the UK and your English name is pronuonced in 50 different heavy accents with people form different part of the UK. You wouldn't mind your name being pronounced with an accent would you? Now amplify the accents like 100x so that now they sound completely different languages, but still because you guy write in the same way, somehow you guys still regard those 50 different languages as one language, just different ways to speak it, and that is how the Chinese languages work. The weird thing about the Chinese people is that we tend to think of the written word as the timeless original whereas our spoken speech as the copy, as mere representation of something more authentic and universal. That's because the Chinese still regard ourselves as one people with one shared history despite our language has diversified so much over the past 3000 years, and it is our written words instead of our spoken speech that is closer to the root of our heritage. Just 150 years ago the educated Chinese and the educated Japanese can actually communicate very well as long as they have a pen and a piece of paper every though they wouldn't understand the other person's speech. And the same thing applies to inter-province communication in China for thousands of years before mandarin is popularised via modern education. It was because of how the Chinese character could have a life independent of the spoken language, China could be held together by a centralised government for such a huge country for so many centuries.

[@jlzmirvisethak]

Attempting to read Chinese/Japanese names in their native pronunciation and not the Koreanized version of these Chinese characters is a relatively recent development, it seems. For example, almost all Koreans write Xi Jinping as 시진핑 (Shi Jin-ping). But when it comes to older Chinese people such as Mao Zedong, while a majority of Koreans transcribe his name as 마오쩌둥 (Mao Jjeodung), a lot of people (especially older people) read his name out as 모택동 (Mo Taek-dong), which is how Koreans would read the Chinese characters that make up Mao's name. And for basically every Chinese person that was born before the 1800s such as Confucius (Gonja instead of Kongjeu) or Liu Bei (Yubi instead of Riu Bei) or any of their emperors, Korea almost exclusively uses the Koreanized version of the Chinese characters for their names. This goes for place names as well, such as calling Beijing both 북경 (Buk-gyeong) and 베이징 (Be-i-jing). While the latter is more common these days, the former is still used, and even more commonly when talking about pre-modern Beijing specifically. Koreans also use both 대만 (Dae-man) and 타이완 (Taiwan) to refer to Taiwan. This seems to be true for how Koreans used to treat Japenese words as well. While it is much more common to use the Japanese pronunciation to transcribe Japanese names with Chinese origin, people sometimes still use Koreanized version of Japanese names in certain specific instances. For example, people will use both 대마도 (Daemado) and 쓰시마 (Sseushima) when talking about Tsushima (I actually used to think they were two different islands when I was a kid). Hokkaido is both referred to as 홋까이도 (Hotkkaido) and 북해도 (Buk-hae-do). Using 도쿄 (Dokyo) for Tokyo instead of 동경 (Dong-gyeong) is much more common these days, although when talking about Tokyo University specifically people still overwhelmingly call it Dong-gyeong Uni, possibly because the university existed during the Japanese colonial era and as such a lot of Koreans wanted to attend (and did attend) Tokyo University. That's basically it for Koreanized Japanese names though, as unlike what they do for old Chinese names Koreans have almost completely switched to using Japanized pronunciations for Japanese names, even for the old ones. The only remnants of Koreanized Japanese names remain in old novels written in the early 1900s, where one time I saw a character talking about a Japanese man named 'Gil-cheon' and was confused until I later realized the name, written as 吉川 in traditional Chinese, is pronounced Yoshikawa for the Japanese.

[@artugert]

Thanks, that is an interesting addition to the information in the video.

[@taoliu3949]

It coincides with Korea abandoning Hanja. The loss of Hanja means people no longer read the Hanja and Korean Orthography becomes purely phonetic. The older names still use Hanja readings because thats how Koreans came to know those places before abandoning Hanja. Newer names becomes completely phonetic because "translating" Hanja names is no longer a thing. Vietnamese has a similar development. Japanese and Chinese dont have this issue because Hanzi/Kanji is still in use and their logographic concepts is still retained.

[@artugert]

@@taoliu3949 That's an excellent point, and so obvious I don't know why it didn't occur to me.

[@_Just_Another_Guy]

​@@taoliu3949 When did Korea abandon Hanja? I've seen elementary and highschool students still taking classic literature classes in Korea that still uses Hanja.

[@taoliu3949]

@@_Just_Another_Guy It's still taught in school, but its use has essentially died out in everyday Korean. Mixed Script has not been a thing for decades.

[@gnochhuos645]

As for Vietnamese people, we pronounce Chinese names using the Hán Việt pronounciation of Chinese characters, like Xi Jinping is Tập Cận Bình. For Japanese and Korean names, we mostly use the transliteration like how English people call them. There are notable exceptions though, like old leaders such as Kim Nhật Thành instead of Kim Il-sung and Minh Trị instead of Meiji

[@georgedavis7741]

I believe Kim Chinh Nhat is Kim Jung-il and not his father tho

[@gnochhuos645]

@@georgedavis7741 Thank you I mixed it up. Edited it

[@tideghost]

Japanese names are a bit complicated bc they don’t follow the Sinoxenic model for names. It’s not one-character surname + plus two-character given name. Rather, most Japanese surnames are native (using kun-yomi/native pronunciation) and not Chinese-derived, thus don’t fall under same umbrella as Kim, Wang, or Nguyen. Not to mention, Japanese surnames (which are native) commonly have two characters and of course, read in native Japanese bc they’re descriptive names for where people/families are from (Takahashi, “high bridge”). For men, they tend to have Sino-Japanese given names (Ichirō), and women the native (Haruka).

[@peatta]

​@@tideghosta lot of these names we just do what the commenter metioned so yeah!

[@chianchen776]

For Taiwanese people it’s very cool that Han Viet is very familiar to us!

[@umi3017]

Fun fact: Chinese translate the common English name "John" as "约翰", pronounced as "YueHan", similar to it's Hebrew origin "Yôḥānān", rather than it's English reading

[@lzh4950]

Mandarin also translated Sweden as 瑞典 (Ruì Diân) perhaps because its following Hokkien transliteration instead, where 瑞 is pronounced as 'Swèe' instead of Ruì

[@YJSP893]

also for Greece, chinese calls it XiLa which is closer to its actual name.

[@derek7762]

Consequence of Christian missionaries being the first translators

[@IR-xy3ij]

There are also examples of the opposite, for example Jupiter is translated with the English reading rather than how it was said in Latin

[@amuis5409]

​@@YJSP893it comes from its actual name Hellas, but transcribed with the Cantonese pronunciation Heilap. Then the same characters were pronounced in Mandarin as Xila.

[@hachiko9]

Watching figure skating events and competitions while living in Japan, I noticed that NHK usually calls Chinese skaters with the Japanese pronunciation of their name characters, while the other channels write their names in katakana and call them with their Chinese pronunciation (which is totally confusing, I never know who they're talking about 😂)

[@lzh4950]

IIRC _kanji_ is a subset of Chinese's characters, so if the skater's name uses characters present in Chinese but absent in _kanji_ , then I guess you have to use _katakana_

[@hachiko9]

@@lzh4950 yes, some Chinese Kanji are not used in Japanese, but in this case, all the skaters, regardless of whether their name characters are used in Japanese or not, are called one way on the NHK and the other on the other channels. For example, 闫涵 is written 閻 涵 and called En Kan (with the Japanese pronunciation) on the NHK, and written ヤンハン pronounced Yan Han (in katakana) on the other channels. Same for 金 博洋 Kin Hakuyo on the NHK, Jin Boyang on the other channels.

[@-haclong2366]

​@@lzh4950 There are no characters absent in Japanese, the difference is that both countries have different simplification systems, the Japanese only adopted old style simplifications that have been used for centuries and they only adopted a handful of new simplifications, the Mainland Chinese adopted a lot of newly created simplifications, but the underlying traditional characters are the same.

[@luckyblockyoshi]

@@-haclong2366 he’s probably referring to kanji that aren’t used outside of being loan characters for Chinese words, like 闫 that the other reply mentioned.

[@ketchup901]

​@@lzh4950Kanji is just the Japanese word for Chinese characters. There are a few that are used in China that don't have any equivalent in Japan, but it would still be kanji. Maybe "seiji" (正字) is the word you want.

[@ayumis5452]

I’m a native Japanese speaker. It’s sometimes frustrating when someone from western country mentioned someone from other kanji-based country with different pronunciation with western accent. 蒋介石(Jiǎng Jièshí) is pronounced Sho Kaiseki in Japan. When my western teacher mentioned him ‘Chiang Kai-shek’ and I couldn’t recognise, she was disappointed at me for ‘lack of knowledge.’ It has never happened with other fellow Asian countries because we know we have different reading systems for same kanji, so when either of us couldn’t recognise the person mentioned, we can guess that he/she is called differently.

[@star24ize]

it's a different form of romanization based on cantonese

[@helloworld0911]

Most Chinese leaders in The People's War Against Japanese Aggression were transliterated from Cantonese. Apart from Wang Jingwei and Mao Zedong who were traitors to the Chinese race.

[@heian17]

It does happen with Vietnam, since we Vietnamese call Chiang Kai-shek as Tưởng Giới Thạch (トゥオン・ゾイ・タイク). Until now, Vietnamese media still mention Chinese figures in Vietnamese pronunciation, such as Xi Jinping as Tập Cận Bình (タップ・カン・ビン), Li Keqiang as Lý Khắc Cường (リー・カク・クオン), Hua Chunying as Hoa Xuân Oánh (ホア・スアン・オアイン)

[@lzh4950]

I was also imagining how Japanese might pronounce names from other languages: Gangnam 江南 -> Oeminami? Qingdao 青岛 -> Aoshima/Aojima? Guangxi 广/廣西 -> Hironishi? Insein (also written as 水盛 in Chinese) -> Mizumori? Hekou 河口 -> Kawaguchi? Surabaya (also written as 泗水 in Chinese) -> Shimizu?

[@heian17]

@@lzh4950 Some are pronounced in Mandarin or Hanja'eo 한자어 pronunciation, like Gangnam is "Kannamu", Qingdao is "Chintao". Some are pronounce in onyomi, like Guangxi is "Kousei", Hekou is "Kakou",...

[@i_lily]

I've always found it very natural to translate names when possible instead of transcribing them. I'm part of a ethnoreligious group called Russian Mennonites and they have a long history of moving from country to country due to various circumstances. Because of this, they have taken up the practice of translating their names to the language of the country they are in instead of pronouncing them in a way that is awkward or difficult for the natives. So, Nathan becomes Natán, Paul becomes Pablo, Albert becomes Alberto, Elizabeth becomes Elisa, etc. As I grew up I had to learn that some people find it offensive if you change their name or pronounce it in the way that is most comfortable according to the language you are speaking. Nowadays, I can understand both sides of the argument and try to accomodate to a person's personal preference.

[@davidbouvier8895]

My name is David. In my lifetime, I have been addressed as Dafydd (Welsh), Davide (Italian) Da'ud (Arabic) etc. Each time, I took it as a friendly compliment.

[@MarcHarder]

Also a Mennonite, & I never really noticed this, but you're right. My name & most of my siblings' names are the same in English & Plautdietsch, but some of my cousins have different names depending on language, like Peter when being referred to in English vs. Peeter (/pɔjta/ poy-taa) when being referred to in Plautdietsch

[@SomeoneFromBeijing]

A little anecdote about Russian names here. Katherine the Great’s name in Russian is Екатерина (Yekaterina). In Mandarin, we call her 叶卡捷琳娜 (ye ka jie lin na), which is based on her Russian name instead of the English version of that name. After moving to the West, I became very confused why people called her “Catherine”.

[@pluieuwu]

@@davidbouvier8895for me, my name's Leah and i normally pronounce it myself like lee-ah, but after hearing enough germans pronouncing it like leh-ah (Lea) i'm like, sure, you can even spell it that way if you want to 😂

[@walterishere5864]

A possible western parallel could be something like the Pope's name in different European languages. Eg. Pope Francis becomes Latin: Franciscus; Italian: Francesco; Spanish: Francisco, French: François, etc..

[@heian17]

Vietnamese : Phanxicô

[@-haclong2366]

That's how European names have been used for over a thousand years, it's only during the late 19th century that we started to translate names less.

[@Kriae]

City names are a more obvious example to me

[@JF-wp2rz]

​@@KriaeNow that you mention cities it makes sense to me (as a Finn) because in Finland some people speak Swedish, many cities have two names: a Finnish and a Swedish one like: 🇫🇮 Helsinki 🇸🇪 Helsingfors 🇫🇮 Turku 🇸🇪 Åbo 🇫🇮 Lappeenranta 🇸🇪 Villmanstrand and maaaaaany many more

[@partylikeits1066]

I'm an Australian by the name of Frank, short for Francis. Named after my Irish grandfather. I've had a couple of Italian coworkers who've called me cheech, a nickname for Francesco. Because most "Franks" they know have been Italians called Francesco hahaha

[@knpark2025]

For Korean native speakers reading Chinese people's names is divided roughly across the Chinese Republican Revolution in 1911. The revolution itself is written and pronounced in Koreanized Han Characters: "신해(辛亥)" or Shinhae. People before 1911 are referred to with their Koreanized pronounciation, example being Liu Bei(유비, sounds like Yuu bee) or Zhuge Liang(제갈량, sounds like Jegal Ryang) from 3rd century China. People after mid to late 1900s are mostly called in their modern Chinese pronounciation: example being Xi Jinping. The year 1911 is a rule of thumb but there is a fuzzy interval of transition that spans decades around the year. People like Mao Zedong, Chiang Kai-shek, or Sun Yat-sen are fifty-fifty between aforementioned modern Chinese pronounciations and their Koreanized "Mo Taekdong", "Jang Gaeseok", and "Son Mun". For this wide transition period and even beyond, *the choice is usually decided on a level of individual Korean speakers and their familarity to Han Characters.* This is well shown in a recent Korean movie Noryang. you can see Joseon era Koreans pronounce Konishi Yukinaga as "Soseo Haengjang" (a Koreanized pronounciation of four Han Characters 小西行長). Moreover, admiral Yi is shown having a direct conversation with generals from Ming China without a translator, by writing sentences in Han Characters on a paper. This practice is known as conversing with a pen. This word is pildam in Korean but for Chinese and Japanese they have their own way of saying the same word 筆談 in their languages. They won't understand me if I asked them "pildam ganeung?", but they will nod their heads and take out their pens if I wrote letters "筆談可能?" on a piece of paper or a smartphone screen.

[@boringpunk1816]

how to pronounce 加藤清正

[@sichaoxian]

To me Chinese pronunciation of the Japanese name is more poetic and beautiful. The actual English/Japanese pronunciation if directly pronounced in Chinese is too long and confusing.

[@79419_QuantumComputer]

in chinese, 筆談可能 is pronounced "bitan keneng"

[@윤병훈-s8c]

@@boringpunk1816 That can be pronounced 가토 기요마사(Gato Giyomasa) generally. However, older generation pronounced 가등청정(Gadeung Cheongjeong).

[@ADeeSHUPA]

筆談可能 필담가능

[@화이팅-t2q]

And in north korea, xijinping is read as seubgeunpyeong(습근평).

[@Areveny]

Thank you for this too. I was treating the North and South dialects as being the same for the purpose of this video. I knew there were differences, for example with loan words, but didn't know how these differences would apply to names. North Korea using Sino-Korean readings makes sense to me, it seems to be a more traditional approach than phonetic transcription and reflects the approach used by the PRC, their closest ally.

[@ahqexplains2492]

You specifically excluded Vietnamese from the video, I think the tldr is that many Chinese people and places are still referred to by their Han Nom readings, including Xi Jinping (Tập Cận Bình). However many names which were formerly based off of Han Nom readings have been replaced, for examples 香港, formerly Hương Cảng but is more often now just Hồng Kông.

[@gwe-uh8fs]

in wu chinese：xijinping is read as jet gin bin（bieng）

[@qwertyuiop-l1c8m]

@@Areveny North Korea also uses far less Chinese derived words and foreign words. Instead of foreign or Chinese words, they use a combination of Korean words that have the same meaning. Turn out two groups that spoke the same language and been separated for seven decades has some big etymological differences.

[@TriplePistol]

Sep geun pyeong is the original hanza pronounciation, It's just a way of reading it

[@화이팅-t2q]

I remember that in Joseon dynasty, Toyotomi hideyoshi was read as pungsinsugil(풍신수길), which doesn't resemble the Japanese pronunciation at all. It seems in the past, Japanese names were read in Sino-Korean pronunciation.

[@Areveny]

Super interesting. Thanks for sharing this, all the results I can find on it online are in Korean so there's basically no way I would have learned about this myself.

[@nehcooahnait7827]

yeah honestly it should be... Korean language does have a pool of sino-Korean vocabs especially for names. edit: on second thought, it shouldn't be. some Japanese names only use Kanji for its meaning but the name is pronounced in indigenous pronunciation, for example, 鳥山明Toriyama Akira... some use kanji as transliteration, purely for its pronunciation, 安倍/阿部 Abe... Korean language may or may not have a sino-korean loan word for those and it won't be meaningful either (Abe is a good example. it appears what kanji it uses did not really bother ancient Japanese that much. they were simply pursuing the formality of a name written in Kanji. it is also evident that abe is an ancient aristocratic name, unlike 齋藤，村上，鳥山，福山，which are literally made-up names from 1860s with its meaning matching perfectly with Kanji in spite of arbitrary pronunciations

[@sakataginko9092]

Back then, the written lingua franca of East Asia was Classical Chinese used by China, Korea, and Japan. They could read each other’s letters, but not pronounce it in the same way.

[@EchoHeo]

Sino Korean pronunciation for Japanese names continued to be used up until super recently. Take the example of the colonial era Linguist Ogura Shinpei (小倉進平), known in Korean both as 오구라 신페이 (phonetic) and 소창신평 (Sino-Korean)

[@EchoHeo]

@sunny sunnyday no its not. Korean pronunciation is derived from (a) medieval variety(ies) not a modern variety. you can tell this because Korean keeps distinctions that are lost in all modern varieties but historically recorded, like chongniu.

[@aminadabbrulle8252]

As a Pole, let me tell you, translating names to their equivalent in the language of the person you're speaking to was perfectly normal as little as two centuries ago, and to a degree still occurs nowadays. Like, a Germant migrant to XIXth century Warsaw would call himself "Hans" in his own home, but become "Jan" while speaking to his Polish neighbour. Nowadays, this Pedro guy you speak of would generally be called "Pedro", but once he becomes friends with people, they will likely start calling him by the local diminutive form of the name, "Piotrek".

[@Tavoshel]

Maybe this is made to adapt names to a language's alphabet and grammar rules such as declensions, in Icelandic there are strict laws about first names, that have to fit Icelandic standards

[@aminadabbrulle8252]

@@Tavoshel To a degree, yes. For example, every single Iranian-Polish couple will name their first son Dariusz, simply because it's a name common in both languages and pronunced exactly the same as well. Though in the specific example of Pedro, there is no problem with declension.

[@craigcook9715]

Jan is an interesting case for a personal name, as in some nations (e.g., Nederland) it's considered a man's name, but in the US (but said differently) it's a woman's name. And Mika is a man's name in Finland, but a woman's name in Japan.

[@gerardvanwilgen9917]

"and to a degree still occurs nowadays." Absolutely. I am Dutch but spend most of the time in Germany. When I introduce myself there I use German "Gerhard" as my first name instead of Dutch "Gerard", which is easier for everyone (the pronunciation difference is much bigger than the spelling suggests).

[@homomilitia]

It's fairly common to polonize names of famous eastern european folks, like Володимир Зеленський (Volodymyr Zelensky) exists in Poland both as Wołodymyr Zełeński and Włodzimierz Żeleński.

[@koimackan1287]

Ah yes, Vietnamese is once again left out eh Anyways here are the Sino-Vietnamese pronunciation for them names: - Xí Jìnpíng: Tập Cận Bình (習近平) - Suga Yoshihide: Gian Nghĩa Vĩ (菅 義偉) - Moon Jae-in: Văn Tại Dần (the letter "D" is pronounced like "Z") (文在寅) - Kim Jong-un: Kim Chính Ân (金正恩) For Vietnamese names, despite the French colonists forcing the decline in use of Hán tự (漢字) and Chữ Nôm (𡨸喃) from the 1920s, our way of speaking as well as how we name ourselves and other things has not changed, which means most (if not all) Vietnamese name and place name to this day could still be written using Hán tự

[@Areveny]

Hi. I do apologize for not including Vietnamese. It has every right to be included in this discussion but I didn't have the background to cover it confidently and wanted to keep this video to a certain length. I am therefore very thankful that you are sharing your knowledge with us. You have provided a great summary to compliment what my video is missing. I will keep an eye out for opportunities to discuss Vietnam in the future since I do agree it is missing coverage, and I am regrettably part of that. Cheers.

[@leiyue1411]

Chinese prounce every names of people and places in Sinosphere in the sound of 汉字, except the name of South Korea capital city Seoul. Chinese used to call it 汉城. But South Korea thought 汉城 was too Chinese and change it to 首尔。

[@koimackan1287]

@@leiyue1411 Exactly. Korea (or Joseon/Chosen/Triều Tiên/Chaoxian)’s capital used to bear the name Hanseong (漢城). We Vietnamese also used to call it “Hán Thành”, and it was only until the name Seoul could be written in 漢字 as 首爾 could we call them “Thủ Nhĩ”

[@koimackan1287]

@@f.dud4 I’m actually quite accustomed with transliterating East Asian names already and is learning Japanese atm so this is no biggie to me ^^ I could even read your name in Sino-Vietnamese: Cương Điền Tứ Vinh (岡田 四栄, Okada Yoshi ?)

[@koimackan1287]

@@f.dud4 Yep ^^. And in Sino-Vietnamese: Cương Điền Tứ Vinh. Vietnamese and Koreans both also used Traditional Chinese characters from Classical Chinese, just like Japanese Kyūjitai (舊字體, Sino-Vietnamese: Cựu tự thể) characters. All of the words you have shared belongs to the Sino-Xenic vocabulary, which composes about a third of the spoken language but about ~ >60% in formal form for every East Asian language 🇨🇳🇯🇵🇻🇳🇰🇷 May I ask, is there any known famous Vietnamese person whose name is written in Kanji and is pronounced in On’yomi (Kun’yomi even)? For instance this is my full name written in Hán tự (漢字): 陳曰 元魁 In Vietnamese: Trần Viết Nguyên Khôi In Chinese: chen yue yuan kuai In Japanese On’yomi: ちん えつ げん かい /chin etsu gen kai/ In Korean: jin wal won goe

[@ChronoYGaming]

This is such an underrated video! I saw this in my recommended a month ago and watched it. I looked it up to watch it again only to be shocked to see how few views there were! This deserves hundreds of thousands!

[@lzh4950]

5:00 Fun fact: In some Chinese dialects 文 is pronounced as 'boon' instead. The same Chinese surname can also be spelt differently (but not necessarily pronounced differently) in different Chinese-speaking territories e.g. 谢 - 'Xie' in mainland China, 'Hsieh' in Taiwan/ROC, 'Cheah' in Malaysia, 'Chia' in Singapore; 叶 - 'Ye' in mainland China, 'Ip' in Hong Kong SAR, 'Yip' in Malaysia, 'Yap' in Singapore; 黄 - 'Huang' in mainland China, 'Huang'/'Hung' in Taiwan/ROC, 'Hung' in HK SAR, 'Ng' in Malaysia & Singapore, 'Widjaya' in Indonesia

[@yeyu8521]

widjaya!

[@ywgo0362]

The dialectic surnames doesn't work according to countries. That's false info. In Malaysia, 黄 is also common among Chinese. Some are Wong, some are Ng, some are Huang etc. Our names in IDs are only registered in abc alphabets here. It isn't just about the pronunciation of surnames.

[@lzh4950]

@@ywgo0362 Some but not all surnames' spellings are country-specific

[@ywgo0362]

@@lzh4950 yeah that's what i meant

[@ly4430]

The difference of the spelling comes from different pronunciation of different dialects. For example, in mandarin, 黃 is pronounced and spelled as Huang or Hwang. However, 黃 is pronounced as Ng in Taiwanese（台語、閩南語） and Hokkien（星馬地區的福建話）,so the spelling variation thus occurs.

[@christinechen4896]

This gets really interesting when Japanese anime is translated into Chinese. Sometimes the characters' names are transliterated into Chinese and retaining their Japanese pronunciation, other times the names would be transformed into kanji characters (or the best approximation) that would correspond to the Japanese names and read in Chinese pronunciation. Here's an example: Naruto in Japanese is ナルト, but in Chinese is typically 鸣人 (ming ren). Same name but totally different pronunciations. Sometimes Naruto's name in Chinese is translated as 鸣门 (ming men), which goes to show how the same sounds can be written with different kanji. On the other hand, Kakashi's name in Japanese is カカシ, and his name in Chinese is 卡卡西(ka ka xi). This is clearly a case of translating by sound. Even if "kakashi" means "scarecrow" in Japanese, his Chinese name still wouldn't be 稻草人(dao cao ren), which means the same thing. I guess it really just depends on which name the translators think sounds the best. Edit: corrected the translation for "kakashi."

[@Areveny]

Yes! I was going to include this sort of thing in the video but I cut it out because of time. I think there can even be interesting cases where the Japanese name is written in Katagana or Hiragana, but is based on some rare Kanji. In Chinese, the name is rendered in corresponding Chinese characters, which can potentially excavate the meaning that was somewhat obscured in the Japanese representation.

[@yuchengfu4677]

Just wanted to add to this conversation. The anime Detective Conan (meitantei Conan) is translated as 名侦探柯南. The meitantei part is just the Chinese reading of the kanji, whereas Conan (written in katakana) is approximated by sound as 柯南. Also, Mouri Ran (毛利 蘭) keeps the surname, but is usually referred to as 小兰/蘭. The character 小 is used as a diminutive, often used to refer to younger people, and because it IMO sounds unnatural to simply call her 兰. Ran's father (Mouri Kogoro 毛利 小五郎) keeps his name, but the Chinese reading of his name is used.

[@Shanaoh]

Just a question. Why is 鳴人 more popular than 鳴門? It’s really interesting cuz Naruto was based of the topping of the the same name, and that topping was based of the whirlpools of the city of Naruto in Tokushima which is written like this 鳴門. I can see how 鳴人 can be read as “Naruto” but I haven’t seen anyone use that here in Japan. Sorry for using traditional characters. My keyboard can’t type simplified characters.

[@Marc-.]

@@Shanaoh ​Uzumaki Naruto is often known as 漩涡鸣人 in Chinese translation, that whirlpool part and the plot behind Naruto’s Uzumaki bloodline/insignia (漩涡一族/涡之国·涡潮隐村) are well understood in Chinese audiences because 漩涡 is a common Chinese word, but 鳴門の渦潮 would be too much of a reference to be put into a name of an anime character, so they just went with 鸣人, which rhymes better with his first name 漩涡 when pronounced in Chinese.

[@MsZsc]

@@yuchengfu4677 Maybe because 小五郎 is a common japanese name and there's more collective experience of Chinese people seeing the name? Also in my mind 小-name is similar to how name-ちゃん is used, and name-君 is similar to how name-くん is used. However there's a slang version of name-chan where chinese will say name-酱（jiang)

[@benjaminkeast5386]

If you go back a little bit in history, Koreans also pronounced Japanese and Chinese names in Korean pronunciation. To me, 등소평 (Deung So Pyeong) is more familiar than Deng Xiaoping, and older generation Koreans might be more used to 풍신수길 (豊臣秀吉) than Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Even now, there are cases of names being transliterated, for example in K-pop. Former members of WJSN Cheng Xiao, Xuanyi, and Meiqi were known in Korean as 성소 (Seongso), 선의 (Seoneui), and 미기 (Migi). (G)I-DLE has both in a single group. Yuqi uses 우기 (Woogi), while Shuhua keeps her Chinese pronunciation as 슈화 (Shuhwa).

[@piggystudio_07]

Also WayV member Ten 이영흠 (李永欽)

[@yaksirius]

Greetings from WJSN fans。Interestingly, we call WJSN "五舅搜牛" to show humor and affection.These four Chinese characters imitate the Korean pronunciation

[@_maus]

​@@yaksiriusThat's adorable xD

[@0racle01]

Old way much cooler

[@ricardohoang2548]

But Tzuyu is known as 저우쯔위 not 주자유

[@elizakeating8415]

As an international student in Taiwan, I've accepted that 宮崎駿 (gōng qí jùn - Hayao Miyazaki) is the only Japanese name that I'll ever be able to understand in spoken Chinese!

[@AnnaMorimoto]

As a Japanese, I can understand where that pronunciation came from. Makes total sense. I still would have a hard time guessing who that was, though. Here are possible pronunciations used for these characters in Japanese. 宮-miya, kyuu, guu, ku 崎-saki, zaki, ge, ki, i 駿-hayao, shyun, sun, sugu(reru)

[@zhutwo]

TIL Hayao Miyazaki has the same given name as me. What's interesting is 駿 has a Japanese pronunciation "Shun" that is much closer to Jùn phonetically, but has multiple readings that differ wildly, including Hayao.

[@aleksasarai8658]

@@zhutwo Characters in Japanese can have multiple readings, but when it comes to names you're dealing with a completely different beast and there are even fewer rules as to how characters can be read. I suspect this is motivated by many different factors (superstitions about how many strokes should be in a person's name, wanting to have a unique name when written but also a "normal" name when read, etc) which leads to many names that can be written in a very large number of ways because you can easily add variations by taking characters that have related meanings or somewhat-related pronunciations and coming up with a new name that way. Even with 駿, online child name websites list 駿央 and 駿於 as alternatives (both 央 and 於 have an "o" pronuncation, but because this is a name you can replace part of the sound of one character with a totally different character for stylistic reasons). If you take 駿 to be from 駿馬(shunba/swift horse) you can take it to mean: 1. Being fast, and thus you can adapt a name from readings like 早い(hayai/fast). I suspect this might be the origin of "Hayao", and probably also the origin of some other readings like "Hayashi" and "Hayato", but I haven't checked. 2. Being exceptional, and thus you can adapt a name from readings like 優れる (sugureru/to excel), which gives the name "Suguru". 3. Advancing forward, and thus you can adapt a name from readings like 進む (susumu/to advance), which gives the name "Susumu". There are also other ways of writing Hayao without using 駿, and I suspect those are using "Hayao" as a pre-chosen name and then picking characters that they feel fit. One site I found lists at least 20-30, including purely phonetic ones like 葉也男・覇矢男・隼央, through to meaning-based ones like 早雄・颯雄・勇生, and all sorts in between (I suspect a lot of these are quite rare and probably have more common readings than Hayao). From what I've been told, unless someone has a fairly common name with a common reading, even native Japanese speakers struggle to know the right reading and usually have to ask the person. (This is a common enough problem that it comes up in shows as a joke or plot point.) My experience as a language learner is that you can sometimes guess, and usually once you know the reading you can see the logic behind it (even if you couldn't guess it beforehand).

[@zhutwo]

@@aleksasarai8658Thank you for that fascinating and in-depth reply. That's the kind of quality content that must have been fueled by some serious procrastination.

[@Me-da-Ghost]

Wait, they're the same person??? I love Miyazaki films and I often hear my Chinese relatives talking about "gōng qí jùn" movies, but I never made the connection since the names are so different

[@junjun_8070]

Personally speaking, I think it's really cool that my Chinese name can be translated into other East Asian languages. I happen to attend a Korean church, and at my first attendance the pastor introduced me as 하연준 (ha yeonjun), which is the hanja reading of my Chinese name 何衍俊 (hè yǎnjùn).

[@똘추-b1m]

I don't know why, but that sounds like a smart name😏

[@ianjohnson1249]

that totally sounds like a real korean name

[@blackniga420]

It's cool how in Japanese, 俊 is ”Shun" and is a relatively common boy's name. Your surname however is not common lol

[@kimjongun2062]

@@똘추-b1m Yes, his name 'yeon' is related to divination and calculation, which gives people a very wise feeling.

[@brewingtonnadine]

​@@똘추-b1m His name literally means like uh how on earth can evolve such handsomeness😊

[@tinanag0]

7:17 this is actually more complicated yes, we tend to write in katakana Nikkei names (ethnically Japanese people living outside Japan) e. g. Michio Kaku, George Takei or Francis Fukuyama But we DO use kanji for them when we want to emphasize that they are "Japanese." The typical case is Naomi Osaka, a Japanese tennis player playing in USA, born to a Haitian-American father and a Japanese mother. She somehow doesn't look like "Japanese" to boomers watching TV shows (you know Japan is a highly homogeneous society), they chose to write in kanji, not katakana 大坂なおみ

[@harukanoe]

As a Nikkei person, I was told I’m not allowed to write my name in Kanji in context of Japan as I’m not a Japanese citizen. Not sure if that’s accurate but it follows your example above as Naomi Osaka is a Japanese citizen representing Japan in sports, whereas Michio Kaku, George Takei, and Francis Fukuyama are U.S. citizens.

[@aleksasarai8658]

@@harukanoe I also thought it was related to citizenship (historically, to become a Japanese citizen you need to adopt a "Japanese" name -- though this rule is far more lax now than it was in the past) but then you see examples like the manga artist ヤマザキマリ (Mari Yamazaki) who is a Japanese citizen who grew up in Japan, moved overseas, and now still lives overseas but regularly comes to Japan and makes Japanese media and yet still has her name written in katakana (so much so that her Wikipedia article doesn't even show how her name was originally written -- most Nikkei folks have their original name written on their Wikipedia page even if they use katakana for the rest of the article). I suspect it's mostly vibes based.

[@toyoashihara6242]

Osaka has the Japanese citizenship so your example is just wrong.

[@yatyayat]

She does look like a Japanese, just dark-skinned.

[@tinanag0]

@@yatyayat no she doesn't. Ask your friend in Japan if she "looks" Japanese, and you'll see how things work. besides she never speaks Japanese language

[@smro2tw]

This exact topic has been going around in my head for the longest time, it’s great to see a video made about it. Keep up the good work!

[@kebbean]

yeah same i just had the itch to search about it on youtube

[@canto_v12]

Chinese characters were used in Korean publication in the past (Hanja). Its usage in everyday life has gradually declined, but Koreans in Korea are still required to know the Chinese characters of their names. This is why Koreans and Chinese immediately understand each other's names in writing, despite the somewhat different evolutions of pronunciation. This also applies to place names. Even Japanese people know a Chinese person or place's name when presented in the correct context--the pronunciation differences don't matter; they see the Kanji and immediately know the thing being referenced. This is why the three cultures have shared so much over the centuries, because the Chinese ideograms are sufficient and the specific native pronunciation doesn't really factor in when they meet (unless they are learning it as a second language).

[@张轩豪-k6j]

确实，汉字的表意能力极其强大。比如我打出来“停止”“猫”“狗”“正”“左”“門”“政策”，这些词语，我不需要知道韩语和日语的读法，但是我能明确知晓其含义。

[@mckendrick7672]

0:32 I would have to disagree with the assertion that you would be deranged to use an equivalent name. Rather, the idea of considering each name as entirely separate is an incredibly modern concept as a result, I would imagine, of the growing diversification of background of the speakers of European languages. Traditionally in European languages it was very common for one's name to be "Jan" in Poland, and "John" in England. Many German settlers followed in the same convention when moving to America, changing their names from those such as "Schmidt" to "Smith". Calling it deranged to use the native language equivalent is a narrow minded modern view. I myself do not mind when others refer to me using an equivalent name from their own language if I am speaking to them in their language, and I know I have friends and colleagues who have deferred to using English equivalents when speaking to English speakers for the sake of ease. Perhaps this is less common over in America (because of aforementioned diversity), but I have seen this a lot in England and Europe, though mostly with names that are still reasonably similar.

[@namelessresource5782]

I made a comment on it but same. As a Spanish speaker, this isn't uncommon to see especially here in the states.

[@toyoashihara6242]

Americans tend to think that the whole Western world is EXACTLY like them.

[@sibeisun5272]

As a Chinese in Japan, I like to use Katakana transliteration of Mandarin for my name. The reason is that the Kanji sounds very strange in Japanese.

[@zsqduke]

Yes and too many homophones

[@leezhieng]

@@zsqduke some completely normal chinese names will sound like gibberish in Japanese

[@ghostnoise1711]

​@@leezhiengidk, it would still make some sense, but it will be like Ember being transliterated into Russian as Агния

[@kamui_harusame]

me too..... what the hell is you ei bin (my Chinese name in Japanese)...... I would rather give myself a Japanese name........

[@0racle01]

那不就跟西方人一样了，失去意思了

[@Sons1717]

Great video! One correction though: In Japanese reading of Kanjis, there are usually multiple ways of Chinese-derived pronunciation (on-yomi) too. Depending on when the sounds came into Japan, we distinguish them as 漢音、呉音、and 唐音 (Kan-on, Go-on, Tou-on).

[@ketchup901]

Also 慣用音 but maybe that isn't relevant to the video.

[@arduous222]

5:01 This is correct for names of all currently-living people. However, the official guideline is, for Chinese people before "1911 revolution", to read their name in Korean pronunciation. For instance, Liu Bei is read as Yu Bi in Korean. Primarily because we have been reading their name traditionally as such, but also note that the Korean pronunciation of Chinese characters reflect the ancient Chinese pronunciation when it was imported. On the other hand, we rarely read their name in Korean pronunciations for Japanese names, primarily because they have multiple pronunciations for a single Chinese character. Although this is not completely out of option when historic context is given. E.g., Toyotomi Hideyoshi is usually read as the Japanese pronunciation in Korea, but it is sometimes read as Pung-Shin Su-Gil to reflect how Koreans referred to him back in the days.

[@Dordord]

When it was imported, with Korea accents *

[@mulberryjam5210]

+이등박문

[@perfectpitchtodd]

I found this very interesting. I've lived in Japan and visited both Korea and Hong Kong. Thanks for bringing back some great memories.

[@astroch]

This is also a thing in European languages, now less common but still present (see historical figures, like kings, each language has its own translated version of the royal name). But there is another important distinction. Peter and Pedro both are written in latin alphabet, no transcription is needed, so a Spaniard can read Peter with a spanish accent without any English knowledge. But Chinese/Japanese/Korean need to transcribe everything, and the common root are Chinese characters, which is why they are also used for transcription. And unlike names in alphabets, chinese characters do have a very clear meaning and is culturally important aspect of it. Nobody calls her son Peter because he wants to emphasize he has stone characteristics, but in Asian names are picked with a meaning in mind.

[@0racle01]

And it bothers me when I find out that the meaning between Korean and Japanese translations and Chinese to them are lost, only Chinese is preserving that

[@00MSG]

This is also done with Western names, when I went to university in Taiwan I never used my English name, but only my Chinese name, which I basically chose myself, but ideally it should resemble my name either phonetically or semantically.

[@T33K3SS3LCH3N]

Yeah Chinese exchange students I met in Germany had chosen English names. But this wasn't easily received by Germans, who are used to maintaining the original pronunciation of foreign words and names as best as they could and generally don't use many nicknames.

[@RAIJINMARU670]

yea because theres no system of transliteration for chinese its basically a free for all lol

[@planetyeo]

The topic of Korean translations of Chinese names is quite interesting, especially for non-contemporary figures. As many others have mentioned, while contemporary figures like Xi Jinping are written as 시진핑 (shi-jin-ping), an approximation of the Mandarin pronunciation, this becomes rather ambiguous for historical figures as recent as Deng Xiaoping, where 덩샤오핑 (deong-shao-ping, approximation of Dèng Xiǎopíng) and 등소평 (deung-so-pyung, the Korean pronunciation of the hanja 鄧小平) would both work perfectly well in day-to-day conversation. There is a seemingly gradual transition for this preference between the two approaches until some point around the fall of the Qing empire, at which point the Korean pronunciation of the hanja takes over. For example, the Ming era explorer Zheng He would unambiguously be written 정화 (jung-hwa, Korean pronunciation for 郑和). The recent solidification is almost certainly due to the change in media formats in South Korea as well as South Korean attitude towards mixing hangul and hanja in written media. To this day written formats (basically exclusively newspapers) continue to use some hanja, particularly for proper nouns, but this was much more widespread as recently as the 90s. For proper nouns prior to the PRC standardizing the Chinese language so that Mandarin became the common tongue (putonghua), there is little justification for using the Mandarin transliteration. In fact it could be argued that the Western use of Mandarin transliterations for the names of figures like Zheng He or Li Bai are rather anachronistic, though I suppose there isn't a good alternative. We need not go farther than Chiang Kai-shek or Sun Yat-sen (Cantonese transliterations) to see that name translations can be historically informed.

[@davetissue]

translating name is also still done to a certain extent in european languages - the current King of the UK is known as Carlos III in spanish, for example

[@pedropadre911]

Korean pronounce Xi Jinping itself bc we tend to pronounce what locals do. If reading it as "Korean" Hanja style then it's pronounced 습근평(Seup geunpyeong). Suga yosihide also can be pronounced Gwan Ui Wi. :)

[@lzh4950]

Meanwhile names of Indonesian Chinese are very different when pronounced in Mandarin instead of English/Bahasa/Indonesian e.g. former Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahana Purnama Mandarin name is 钟万学 (zhōng wàn xué)

[@crabapple.]

@@lzh4950 the Tja (modern spelling = Ca, Cahana. pronounced like 'Cha') in his name is derived from Zhong/Chung 钟. Example, if someone Chinese Indonesian has the name ".... Salim " we can guess their family name (by the word Lim) as Lin 淋 .

[@MsZsc]

I think mainland China in general likes to do their own thing instead of the other's thing. Even with transcribing western names. like 爱因斯坦 or 莎士比亚 or 奥巴马 (funnily enough there's no historical proof how _exactly_ shakespeare's name is spelled too)

[@himssendol6512]

예전에는 그냥 한국식 한자 발음 사용했죠.. 모택동 등소평 이렇게

[@taoliu3949]

​@@MsZscTranscribing Western names is all phonetic, theres no standard way of doing it and theyre all approximations like any other language. For names that has a Characters associated with it, its all read in Chinese because for the Chinese, the characters are the names. If you "transcribe" it it will look completely different. The characters are what matters, pronunciation is whatever. And this applies to all Chinese, not just the mainland.

[@ivanperdana6537]

05:40 but there is the way how to say chinese name in Korean. For example one of nct member from China named Huang Renjun or simply called as Renjun have a pronunciation by another nct member as Reonjwin (런쥔) based on south standard, but since he was born in Yanbian Korean Autonomous Country which is located in Jilin Province, he got korean name as Hwang Injun (황인준) or simply as Injun (인준) which is based on north standard. So converting the chinese name into korean is depend on what they wanted to pronounced it.

[@piggystudio_07]

And Chinese voice actresses called 姜英俊, in Chinese called Jīang Yīngjùn, and in Korean called Kang Yeong-Joon (강영준), which is used Hanja to change into Hangul, so converting the Chinese name into Korean is depend on what they wanted to pronounced it.

[@Liliquan]

Your treatment of foreign words being translated into Chinese was quite simplistic. There are 6 basic ways that come to mind.... 1. Purely sound based: Auckland 奧克蘭 2. Sound and Meaning: "New" Zealand 新西蘭 3. Purely meaning: Dog Island 狗島 5. Inspiration: Christchurch 基督城 (lit. Christ City) 6. Simultaneous sound and meaning: Coca Cola 可口可樂 (sounds similar and also means "delicious, delightful") But it ain't normal for people to take Chinese things seriously so your video makes sense.

[@lzh4950]

& there're also translations into Chinese of names from other languages that're more closely related to Chinese I think e.g. Vientiane -> 万/萬象; Kanchanaburi -> 北碧, while I think Cambodia's name translation into Chinese derived from its older name _Kampuchea_ instead

[@heian17]

@@lzh4950 Kampuchea has always been Cambodia's official name in its own language. Cambodia is just English name

[@lzh4950]

There're also some Mandarin translations that follow how the Chinese characters are pronounced not in Mandarin, but in other Chinese dialects e.g. Sweden translates into 瑞 (pronounced as Ruì ('ray') in Mandarin but as 'swe' in Hokkien) 典 (Diǎn)

[@jeffrey2326]

@@lzh4950I heard that in Sichuan, they also pronounce瑞 as sui

[@Aurelio-Z-Masanez]

@@jeffrey2326 actually pronouncing 瑞 as Rui is exclusive in Beijing and Nanjing; nevertheless these happened to be where the most powerful accents come from

[@Mattia_98]

Translating names happens a lot in Europe, I don't know why you'd say otherwise. It's maybe not as common, but I often heard e.g. people called Pedro be referred as Peter in English.

[@jbjaguar2717]

Yep. Not uncommon at all. Look at all the European monarchs whose names are translated to English: 'King Louis of Hungary' = King Layos. 'Pope Francis' = Francisco. 'Charles of Germany' = Karl. Etc etc.

[@Nathanthelate]

What an incredible, no frills video! This was great work, sir!

[@Areveny]

Thanks! I had fun making it.

[@r4kung]

This is like as if you'd see this in English news: "President Wieldmere Pouten of Rowerland has made a state visit to the US"

[@ricardohoang2548]

That's what Anglish would say, but I thought Vladimir should be Waldemar, first time hearing Wieldmere

[@r4kung]

@@ricardohoang2548 Waldemar is the adoption of the German form. Wieldmere is constructed from Old English cognates of the Slavic words voldeti (to rule) and mer (great). Voldeti-wield and mer-mere all go back to proto-indo-european *hwelh and *mehros

[@waffle-waffle5416]

Analogies for the sino-sphere writing system: Japanese = Full game + DLC & Expansion Korean = Standalone DLC/Expansion Chinese = Vanilla Game only Vietnam = Spin-off game based on main game but developed by different studio (cause they adopt roman alphabet) As for Indosphere it would be one main game and then the community around it made mods for it kinda like Skyrim

[@wfnameme6609]

Good analogies, but not 100% accurate. The Japanese kanji is not completely the same as Chinese kanji, while kanji in Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese are not the same either. (Japanese 広　Traditional Chinese 廣 Simplified Chinese 广) And part of kanji is also seldom used in Japanese while still used in Chinese(虞、且、遵、但、朕、附、又etc.)

[@waffle-waffle5416]

@@wfnameme6609 I agree but let me explain in context of adoption Japanese still use Kanji which is derived from Chinese character albeit different since both went separate ways but it still is Chinese character that Chinese people can catch some of it's meaning in their own way thus the main game analogy and then they also uses their own creation based on Kanji which can be analogized as DLC, Korean have Hanja but as of now it's mostly Hangul that were used as main system thus it's Standalone DLC, The Chinese still use the Chinese character from way back so yeah they're Vanilla Game enjoyer, lastly Vietnamese used to use Chinese character (I forget what they called it) but then they dropped it like the Korean but instead of making new system based on or inspired by the Chinese character/writing system they instead adopted modified Roman alphabet which is from outside of Sinosphere as their main system thus it's a Spin-off that were developed by another studio

[@ftft117]

@@wfnameme6609 那幾個漢字日文還算常用:且つ 又は 但し 值得注意的是戰前中日韓都是用同一套漢字

[@anti8925]

​@@waffle-waffle5416 In Vietnamese we call chinese characters are "Hán tự" (漢字) or "Chữ Hán" (宁字漢)

[@ricardohoang2548]

Sinosphere has big guy China with his own logographic script along his featural Korea and syllabary Japan. Indosphere is all in same Brahmin root abugida, Lao ພຸດ, Thai พุท, Devanagari शून्य is all transcript easily

[@e0031-w5e]

This is actually quite a problem for me when consuming English and/or Chinese news media about a Japanese or Korean person (whose languages I don’t speak), where I have to check whether it’s the same person, and have to remember both their phonetic and kanji names

[@imjanng]

As a Chinese (not from China) who speaks Korean and a little Japanese. I just direct translate my name base on Chinese characters to Korean characters. Chinese and Korean names are usually 3 characters. For translating to Japanese, the trouble is 1. not all characters in Chinese exist in Japanese. 2. sometimes a single Kanji is 2 syllables in Japanese. A Chinese name ends up sounding really weird/awful in Japanese which Japanese also recognise it as not being Japanese sounding. 3. Japanese names are typically 4 Kanji. That equals to 5 to 7 syllables. So I prefer them to use Katakana in that sense since my Japanese literal translated name sounds awful in Japanese. When Japanese names are read In Chinese. We can recognise it as a Japanese name. It's doesn't sound awful though. Besides its kinda cool for people to have their own "Chinese" names. Also since we can read Korean and Japanese name in Chinese. It will be weird to invent names for them when there are perfectly readable Chinese characters as compared to Western names which needs to be "invented" and still does not sound similar. For translating Chinese to Korean, it doesn't sound weird because 1 character = 1 syllables. So if a Chinese is fluent in Korean, it is a personal choice if they want it translated phonetically or base on the korean sound of the Chinese word. I dunno if this sounds complicated.

[@silverchairsg]

Chinese names are not necessarily 3 characters. Many mainland Chinese have only 2 characters, ie Li Bin where their given name is just Bin. In fact having 2 characters for their given name tends to be a more Southern Chinese trait. Also I once met a Chinese lady with the surname Wang pu, so her entire name was 4 characters!

[@imjanng]

@@silverchairsg Pardon. I said USUALLY. Southern Chinese and Taiwanese are usually 3 characters. China is big. Han Chinese. Max 4 for Han Chinese I will say. If I put in Mongolians, manchurians... The names are longer.

[@RAIJINMARU670]

@@silverchairsghaving 2 or 4 character names is more recently a trend now in china. southern china does tend to have more 2 character names possibly because they dont have a tradition of naming generations according to their family records or the records and rules themselves are more uncommon across the population. but also recently more parents have been giving 3 character names to their children to mimic the rare 2 character surname or 1 character names to copy those uncommon 2 character names and because almost all family records and traditions have been lost after the communist revolution.

[@silverchairsg]

@@RAIJINMARU670 Interesting, I'm Chinese Singaporean and the norm is usually 3 Chinese character names + 1 English first name if the parent chooses it. Ie Lee Kuan Yew, Harry Lee Kuan Yew, or sometimes Lee Kuan Yew Harry depending on how they choose to order the official name. 2 character names are rarer and usually indicate the person is mainland Chinese. The surnames and given names can be in dialect, though given names tend to be Mandarin ones nowadays.

[@choreomaniac]

I’m running into a similar issue. I am American born but have a Korean name, based on hanja, as well as an American one. So, I instantly have a Chinese name just by using the Mandarin or Cantonese word whatever pronunciation instead of the Korean. But I want to use it in Japan and don’t know how it would sound to a Japanese person. Would two random kanji sound like a name? How would I pick what reading to use? It’s only two syllables total so way to short for an average Japanese name. My current solution is to take the first kanji and use a common Japanese name that is derived from it. (Masaki from “Ma(ま)”which is the Japanese pronunciation of 真 (진 or Jin in Korean). Basically, it’s very difficult to have a name that sounds good in Korean, Chinese and Japanese that maintains the same underlying meaning but it’s fun to try.

[@lemonosharky3338]

One good example that i would take regarding onyomi and kanyomi from my childhood classes on Japanese history was 織田信長 Oda Nobunaga where in Cantonese, it would be pronounced Ziktin Shuncheung. Sounds entirely different right? However, if we used the traditional pronounciation of Japanese different from modern Japanese, you get Shokuten Shinchō, which sounds similar if you say it aloud at least.

[@megapangolin1093]

Crikey, now that is a complicated story. Fascinating and well explained. When identifying myself, normally to Europeans whose first language is not English, I would pronounce my name in a way that they would pronounce it, to quickly get them to identify my name. I enjoy the process.

[@alcyonae]

Descartes is called Cartesio in Italian. Richard the Lionheart is Riccardo Cuor di Leone. Adapting names to one’s language is/was very much a thing in Europe. Only now that nearly the whole world in globalized we can afford to assume foreign people will understand our native names.

[@dylantech]

If anyone is curious how Koreans handle English names, for public figures they’ll typically use Konglish for their surname in the news headlines because Korean names are usually only three syllables, rarely four, and full English have many more syllables. For example, Trump becomes 트럼프 (Trum-puh) and Biden becomes 바이든 (Ba-ee-den). In the body of news, they’ll just use Konglish approximation to state their recognizable name like 도널드 트럼프 (Do-nal-duh Trum-puh) or 조 바이든 (Joe Ba-ee-dun). If you’re an English speaker from a western country living in Korea on a visa, then all of your official documents will have a Konglish approximation of your full name, which can cause problems. For example, my full three name is six syllables, which becomes seven syllables in Konglish. However, many Korean sign-up portals online don’t allow you to type that many syllables, so you’re left guessing which part of your name to use and discard. In day-to-day living, just as Koreans will adopt English names that are different from their actual names, English speakers often choose their own Korean name to introduce themselves to Koreans who might otherwise have difficulty saying their actual name.

[@dirtiestharry6551]

Before modern times, Korea too used korean readings of chinese characters to pronounce chinese and japanese names. So chinese pre-modern historic figures are genreally called this way in Korea. For example Caocao(曹操), the genearl/stateman at the end of Han dynasty is called Jojo(insert jojo meme here) in Korea. Because both 曹 and 操 are pronounced "Jo" in Korean. Japanese names were treated in same manner. For example, Toyotomi Hideyoshi(豊臣秀吉), Kanpaku of unified Japan who ordered invasion of Korea, used to be called Punsin Sugil. But as you mentioned, Japan has On'yomi(trying to pronounce chinese way) and Kun'yomi(japanese original), and example I used Toyotomi Hideyoshi, is all read in Kun'yomi execpt for "豊". So reading it as Punsin Sugil, doesn't resemble original name at all. So Korea decided to read and write all Japanese names in Japanese pronunciation in Hangul, including pre-modern historic figures. So now Toyotomi Hideyoshi is written and called 도요토미 히데요시(Doyotomi Hideyoshi). Old generation still sometimes use these old ways of pronouncing Japanese names though. My grandpa used to say names like "Punsin Sugil", "Ideun Bakmun(Ito Hirofumi)" and "Gadeun Cheongjung(Kato Kiyomasa)".

[@Ume_Plum_Candy]

wait 曹操 being pronounced as Jojo is actually HILARIOUS

[@arnoldwu744]

Kazuo ishiguro mentioned! Instant like! Great video, very concise overview of an interesting part of human culture. Names are very important to people, and it's great to see it being explored through an interesting angle

[@Lunatday]

썸네일.. 참을 수 없었다

[@yeeshin]

Thanks for this video, I’ve been wondering about this topic in the back of my mind since forever but grateful to see an actual flushed out explanation

[@AleaumeAnders]

The base assumption "it's completely deranged to consider Peter, Pedros, Pierre as the same name" is completely... deranged. Sorry, but that's such an us-american view. In Europe, where we are used to have different languages in our life, people will not bat as much as an eye on this. It's only for politeness, that we try to use the original pronounciation. Only dimwits will not be aware that Peter the Great, Peter der Große and Пётр I Вели́кий is the same person, only spelled in different languages. My own name is formally using the greek spelling in german, but I am usually called by the scandinavian spelling, while both the english as well as french spelling was used when I was abroad, depending on what was more convenient for the speaker. And while I do have a favorite, all versions are fine to identify me in a non-formal context. It's only for formal/bureaucratic context where the precise spelling is used. It's basically the same as with city names: München is Munich in english and french (though with different pronounciation) but Monaco in italian and Мюнхен in russian. A polite speaker will try to pronounce it the german way most of the time (if he is ablt to do so). With the exception being, if he is using it in the context of another language only.

[@omfgacceptmyname]

i love ishiguro's "the unconsoled"! it's about how relationships fail because of a destructive tendency to hold onto emotional wounds

[@SupaSupaKewl]

‘Asia’ 亚洲 is not a good example of a foreign word that’s been transliterated into Chinese. The second character 洲 literally means continent and has no connection to the transliteration of the word Asia, only the first character 亚 does. People do not need to guess from context the meaning when one of the characters literally means continent. Another commenter also made some very good points about how names can be translated and transliterated in Chinese but I think your video only covers people’s official government names in the East Asian sinosphere, and not place or object names, so I think you gets the basics right.

[@calvin7330]

He just neglected to use the full name of Asia (亚细亚洲). Totally out of scope for the video, but this transliteration is based off the dialect popular at the time, which is closer to modern day Cantonese than Mandarin. In Cantonese 亚细亚 is pronounced something like "aa-sai-aa" while in Mandarin it's "yǎxìyǎ".

[@conconcussy]

I know it's a pretty old video, but I just felt like commenting that you have a great presentation style. It's edited better than the average lecture and is more informative than the average educational content on this platform. I lose my interest very easily, but not this time.

[@diuga]

Very interesting observation! As a native Chinese speaker who learned English, Spanish and Japanese, i never really paid attention to the difference of how names are translated in these languages 🤔

[@williampranataphang4548]

It's fascinating actually, I'm ethnic Chinese in Indonesia, I find it fun to have many ways to pronounce my name! The Chinese Character is really sophisticated, the meaning of a character is still the same even though it's pronounced differently across Chinese dialects plus Japan and Korea as well! my surname is 彭 which is "Phang" in Hakka, change it to other dialect or standard Mandarin it would sound similar, but in Japanese with the Nanori reading it becomes "Mitsuru" which I find cool!

[@mjpeng6516]

I’ve got the same last name, only I’m from mainland China so it’s spelled differently! Fascinating tbh

[@Che-rry]

Most of the videos are correct, but I add one thing for your reference. In Korea, Japanese names tend to read and write as similar as possible by respecting Japanese pronunciation. The same principle applies to modern Chinese, but "proper nouns before the Shinhae Revolution" are required to use Korean Chinese character pronounciation. In other words, we read 毛泽东, 邓小平 (Mao zedong, Deng Xiaoping) as a Korean Chinese character pronunciation, such as 모택동, 등소평(Motaekdong, Deung Sopyeong), rather than a pronunciation that utilizes original sounds such as 마오쩌둥, 덩샤오핑(Mao zzeodoong, Deong Shaoping)

[@simondefonseca1121]

From 0:35 to 1:05, when you were mentioning the three East Asian languages (Japanese, Korean, and Mandarin), the video that you chose was from Hong Kong, a Cantonese speaking city

[@erwinc.9117]

Being Chinese I already knew this going in so I was moreso interested to see how this video explains this phenomenon to the English speaking world. I'm happy to say it's very well done, concise and clear, bravo.

[@SomeoneFromBeijing]

I really love this video! The fact that Korea, Japan, and Vietnam have this weird dynamic was mostly due to ancient Chinese cultural influences (and imperialism of course). To Mandarin speakers, characters have meanings, but the way to pronounce it matters very little. The term "Mandarin" used to refer to the governmental language-- the language officials use to conduct governmental businesses. People from all ethnic/religious backgrounds from all over the old Chinese Empires would have to speak that to become an official. A very funny anecdote is about South Korean footballers (soccer players). We usually know how their names sound, so we can always have a "translation" of their name that is somewhat accurate. Yet, since we don’t usually know how their name is written in Chinese characters on their national ID, it would frequently get modified after the players request us to do so. A player who played for my hometown team is Kim Min-jae (김민재), who now plays for Bayern Munich. When he first arrived in Beijing, we called him 金玟载. But later on, he showed his ID to the public, and his name in Chinese became 金玟哉. The two names are pronounced almost identically.

[@AhKaSoom]

Well, it's too much to simply describe ancient China as imperialism. Imperialism in Western civilization is the forced spread of one's own culture at the same time as colonizing and dominating other countries. However, that did not happen in East Asia. Korea and Japan voluntarily embraced Chinese culture, and China didn't even control Korea and Japan in the same form as its colonies

[@dhzhbb]

@@AhKaSoom只有越南可能是强行，韩国和日本可是自愿的

[@brandrange2288]

This is so far the most comprehensive explanation.🎉

[@Ilikemeows]

Native Korean words are not mostly derived from Chinese as this video claims. The video might be referring to Chinese character derived words, but Native words are called that since they do not originate from another source. Most Korean is native words/characters, Chinese character derived words are more dominant in academia and scientific terms (like Latin being used in the sciences of English speakers).

[@chappy3125]

This is true. I'm guessing the channel author isn't too familiar with Korean... goes to show video essays can't be taken very seriously

[@ivanchen7436]

I can guarantee that english speakers in academia do not communicate in Latin 😂😂

[@zubiizune8966]

@@ivanchen7436 Latin and Greek are the sole sources for 90% of all scientific terms in English. Around a third to a fifth of all English words are of Latin origin via French influence. If you speak English, you've been communicating (very, very poorly) in Latin. You still have time to delete this comment.

[@雅楽川圭典]

According to the Standard Korean Language Dictionary published by the National Institute of Korean Language (NIKL), Sino-Korean represents approximately 57% of the Korean vocabulary. I think most modern Koreans just don’t know about that because of their very limited hanja knowledge, similar to the Vietnamese.

[@BrakeCoach]

@@chappy3125not to mention that for the japanese parts, chinese characters and the sino pronunciation are written in katakana, not hiragana like 3:42

[@brainylee1159]

The same pronunciation between 3 countries all traced back to the Tang dynasty, including Vietnam where gold are pronounce as Kim in koreans and Kim in southern Min dialects, bridge are pronounce as Kyo in Japanese and Kyo in southern min dialects, and so on. Please check out the article of Southern Min language in wikipedia and it explains why.

[@l3enjamin5in]

It is interesting when you talked about Mandarin Chinese, the background is Hong Kong which uses Cantonese Chinese, and it differs from Mandarin substancially in terms of pronunciation.

[@Chris-pi3ze]

using stock footage of hong kong when talking about China is just sort of a norm particularly here on anglo YT where most video makers don't know better. I wouldn't read too much into it.

[@BrotherCheng]

@@Chris-pi3ze I don't know, as a person from Hong Kong, that immediately stood out to me as signs that this is a video made by an American who may not properly understand the cultural contexts of the topics he's discussing. He *specifically* mentioned Mandarin Chinese, and then showed a place where Mandarin Chinese is definitely not the lingua franca. If you are making a video on potentially culturally sensitive topic, you should try to at least put the right background stock art lol, or at least understand that Hong Kong does not speak mandarin as the primary language. It's just a telltale sign of sloppiness. Another example of the sloppiness is the assumption that Europeans don't translate European names to their own local language. As others have pointed out, this happens in Europe a lot. It's done less in America due to a different cultural context but it was an assertion that is a little misleading.

[@taehunkim7148]

Although many Korean words are said to be derived from Chinese words, there are Korean words that originate from Korean people, not from outside. We call them Soon-soo-Uri-maal (순수 우리말). Some of these Korean originating words have good usages in Korean language. For instance, some babies are named using these original Korean have really pretty sounding names with good meanings.

[@geoffk777]

The Japanese also give the katakana treatment to Yoko Ono. I assume that she has kanji for her name, but since she's a "Western" celebrity, it always appears in print as ヨコオノ.

[@shachihoko4877]

To be correct, it’s オノ・ヨーコ. Her kanji name is 小野洋子. According to her, after she went to America, Japanese media somehow started to use katakana writing for her name.

[@sachi9730]

Also, there are some kanji isn't appeared in Chinese hanzi like 凪(nagi),峠(tōge) or 榊(sakaki). But,we just simply pronounce components inside these kanji 凪(止,zhĭ),峠(卡,qiă),榊(神,shén)

[@Bladavia]

meanwhile in the West, we still haven't figured out wether we should switch Asian first and last names or not. Sometimes we do it for Japanese, sometimes we don't, we rarely do it for Chinese and Korean tho. Most people still confuse Lee, Kim, Wang etc as given names even though they're family names.

[@robinharwood5044]

“Surname” is the correct term.

[@colinwelsch5638]

one interesting thing i saw once was, in a japanese book i was reading, a korean exchanged student named Kim was written as 金 with furigana キム on the top. quite interesting!

[@kierahicks9314]

Neither ancient Greece nor Rome has continued to the present with Latin, so languages ​​written in the Latin alphabet have their own reading methods, and their status is relatively equal; while China has accompanied Chinese from thousands of years ago to 2023 in the Western calendar . Japan, South Korea, North Korea, and Vietnam all borrowed Chinese characters to create their own characters, and directly reserved some Chinese characters for their own use. For this reason China has the so-called "right of final interpretation" of Chinese characters。 In addition, the biggest advantage of Chinese characters is that "the pronunciation is different, but the meaning is the same". There are so many dialects in China that they cannot even communicate with each other, but as long as you have received modern education and know Chinese characters, you can communicate (Mandarin is actually Chinese characters in language). I remember that before 1945, as long as you knew Chinese characters, you could communicate in countries such as China, Japan, North Korea and Vietnam without having to learn the language of each other

[@haruyu123]

A very good concise video! I was confused with the chinese-japnaese name pronounciation but this it cleared up! Thanks!

[@-haclong2366]

Vietnam and China actually do read each other in their own languages, Koreans and Japanese use transliterations, but the Vietnamese axtually use Vietnamese for Chinese politicians. Leaving Vietnamese out actually just showed that you missed an entire different relationship.

[@JanibekQ]

I think something like that happens in countries with Turkic languages, especially in Turkish language when names from other related languages are substituted by the Turkish equivalent.

[@saltA-saurus]

A note about Korean, the relationship with other languages has been simplified because of its now phonetic alphabet. But we still sometimes use hanja, which is basically Chinese in Korean. So Xi Jinping could be rendered as 습근평 (Seup Geunpyung), Beijing could be rendered as 북경 (Bookgyung). For contemporary foreign names it isn't used anymore but for history and such, it is the norm. And actually, in North Korea, that is how they still do it.

[@junainoakuma]

Koreans used to pronounce Japanese and Chinese name in Hanja pronunciation up until three decades ago. That is hinted by how Koreans still pronounce Mao Zhe Deng as Mo Taek Dong, or former Japan Prime Minister Ito Hirobumi as Ee Dung Bak Moon.

[@bibianamajorska6520]

Great video, but minor correction. Native Korean words are not derived from Chinese as opposed to Sino-Korean vocabulary. I think you meant to say that hangeul is used for writing Korean words regardless of origin these days.

[@Rosak]

At 6:23 the katakana reads "Mun Jein", at least in the way I've learnt all the translitterations for Japanese. It's not a standard Japanese syllable, but uses the same logic as きゃ/ きゅ/きょ for kya / kyu / kyo.

[@taoliu3949]

I have a Mexican friend who refers to his friend as "Peter" in English but "Pedros" in Spanish. It can still happen in modern days.

[@rranft]

I got interested in this (and the languages in general) while living in Korea from 1989 to 1994. The entire linguistic and cultural tangle with these groups is fascinating. I passed this video to my daughters as yet another fun tidbit on their mother's Korean heritage.

[@mikedaniel1771]

Very good video. It's bizarre that nikkei names get written in katakana but Chinese names get to use the same kanji

[@appa609]

I think everyone used to do this. If you were John in England travelling Europe, they'd call you Jean in France, Johannes in Germany, Juan in Spain, Giovanni in Italy, Jan in Poland, and Іва́н in Ukraine. And in China, where there is no traditional John, they will call you Yue Han. Yohan. Because they consider the Hebrew the original.

[@shiinachan_227]

7:55, there's some weird hidden subs in cc ww

[@jacobsharf8173]

If you turn on subtitles and go to 7:55, it looks like there's a deleted section that was left in the subtitles that talks about videogames -- the entire thing flashes by in a second. You can pause the video and then mash the '.' (period) character on your keyboard to advance frame by frame and read them (press ',' (comma) to go back a frame if you miss something). I thought the content was pretty interesting, hope the OP leaves that bit there so people who want can read it.

[@iany2448]

The phenomena discussed in this video is an extension of how Chinese handled different dialects with a single writing system which was standardized around 220 BC. When reading the same article in different Chinese dialects it can sound completely different but writing and meaning remain exactly the same.

[@Kateyangyuqing]

What is currently written as Standard Chinese is basically the Beijing dialect of Mandarin, so people from around China may not be speaking the words in the way they'd write them. Previously, until the early 20th century, people wrote in Classical Chinese, which is like a completely different language. But the structure and words of the other "dialects" (which are really different /languages/, not dialects) is often quite different to Mandarin, I believe. For example, Mandarin uses a lot of two-character words where another dialect will use just one, often different, character, because Mandarin lost many tones where other dialects retain them (Mandarin has 4 tones, whereas Cantonese has 9, and Cantonese also has consonants at the end of some syllables which also helps to differentiate characters that would sound identical in Mandarin. Because Mandarin lost these, it needs to use two syllables to specify the word, or else too many words would be identical). Even though I can read traditional characters, I sometimes can't understand text from Hong Kong because they write a bit differently more based on Cantonese, I think. At least colloquially they do.

[@Ovenman940]

0:39 Dear KZbinrs: you're making something analogous to television, not something analogous to high school essays. So stop using the same structure where you spend the first 15% of the video telling me what you're going to talk about and just... talk about it!

[@aftokratory]

A very comprehensive and high quality video!

[@Suite_annamite]

*If it really was "comprehensive", he wouldn't have left out Vietnam* and Singapore thinking that they are "Southeast Asian", and therefore, must not belong in this made-up Anglo-American category. If he knew what he was talking about, he'd know that *Vietnam has more in common with China than even Japan does.*

[@strictlylethal]

I'm an international student in Chinese university. It's absolutely fascinating how Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese names can be directly translated into Mandarin. Btw, there are students from all over the world. Africa, Eastern and Western Europe, West Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, the Caribbean, you name it. I love it!

[@davestridr]

3:25 lol the question marks

[@kirilvelinov7774]

Korean uses their own "katakana" for Japanese or English names! Murakami Shingo(moo-lah-kah-mee-sing-goh,6 letters)

[@hi-pwr]

7:42 wanna know why, that's a way of jp gov or publishers sayin: " you will never be authenitically japanese, you will never be like us!!!!"

[@mukjepscarlet]

North Korea (and Chinese Koreans) still read Chinese people's names and geographical names with Hanja pronunciation such as 습근평(Xi Jinping) 하남성(Henan province) (Peking is an exception: 베이징, same as South) Nowadays South usually call Chinese Names before 20th century in this way and using transliterations after that

[@artugert]

This was very interesting. I would like to also see a comparison of how all three languages translate non-Asian names, whether personal names, place names, or company names, etc.

[@qfzpjm159]

Mandarin sounds like this: Winston Churchill: Wēnsīdùn Qiūjíěr（温斯顿·丘吉尔） Ludwig van Beethoven: Lùdéwéixī Fàn Bèiduōfēn（路德维希·范·贝多芬） Abraham Lincoln: Yàbólāhǎn Línkěn（亚伯拉罕·林肯） Saint Petersburg: Shèng Bǐdébǎo（圣彼得堡） Marseille: Mǎsài（马赛） Germany: Déguó（德国） McDonld's: Màidāngláo（麦当劳） IKEA: Yíjiā（宜家） Chebrolet: Xuěfólán（雪佛兰） Notes: The following words are local translations, not transliterations. 德国 (Germany) in Chinese means "moral country"; 宜家 (IKEA) in Chinese means "livable home".

[@shunoinori]

@@qfzpjm159 德国 Déguó (Germany) is actually an abbreviation of 德意志 Déyìzhì which is a transliteration of Deutsch, just like the Japanese ドイツ Doitsu.

[@polkunus]

Hi just want to share. Im half japanese and half persian american, i also speak chinese from years of just studying it and these observations are some that ive also had. My wife is also korean and to be honest i genuinely think, and its obvious because its the newer language, its more accessible and not bogged down by a lot of weird anachronisms. Its just easier to learn and understand. On the last bit of your video, is something that i wouldnt think id see someone talk about in english. My legal surname in japanese is 安部　(abe but not the same kanji as the former prime minister) but when i visited family in japan, when i went to school there as a kid or sometimes when i go there now, people write my name japanese name as katakana, symbolizing my otherness. This is almost like calling someone named pedro, peter and it speaks volumes on how japanese culture views ethnic identity, and its bothered me very much and, i still love going back to japan, but i can never truly feel like ill ever belong there.

[@Areveny]

Thanks for sharing your experience with this! Indeed, while in the video I just tried to described what I observed are the most common ways names are treated, names and naming are intensely personal matters. Cultural tradition can move slowly but I think being open about your personal feelings can do a lot to help others understand. Cheers!

[@mickmickymick6927]

As an English speaker I couldn't care less how someone pronounces my name, as long as it's in the ballpark and everyone knows they're talking about me. People mispronounce my name all the time cause it's not a common name, doesn't bother me. I find it tedious when people are so bothered about pronouncing someone's name right. It doesn't matter.

[@Jayvee4635]

Before the printing press, it's normal for Karl to be called Charles in France and England, Teàrlach in Scotland, and Carlos in Spain

[@AthanasiosJapan]

When I introduced myself in Japan, along with my name, which is a six katakana letters monster, I also write the Kanji that match the meaning of my name: 不死男 Unfortunately, the Japanese authorities didn't allow me to register my name in Kanji, claiming that I don't have any official documents which can prove that I use this name in Kanji. For this reason, I am doomed to used the Katakana version of my name...

[@OVXX666]

your name is "not dead dude"?

[@AthanasiosJapan]

@@OVXX666 Immortal man.

[@manofthepeople2165]

No death male

[@manofthepeople2165]

So your family is named "No" and your given name is "Dead male"

[@indubitablyso7874]

What a funny name 😭

[@isaacloomis3050]

7:56 subtitles zip by with what looks like some video game-based examples? Folks that are interested should check it out!

[@Areveny]

Thanks for pointing this out! Sometimes there's content in the script that gets cut during editing but it still gets uploaded when I try to provide a transcript for subtitles. In that case I think the examples were okay but not compelling enough for the time it took to explain them. I've taken them out of the subtitles.

[@m.koksal3396]

Great and interesting video! Of course people should always be addressed in a foreign language like how they themselves prefer. I'd like to mention however, that people should not be too negative of using foreign pronunciations for native names (personal or geographical). The origin of it is usually a neutral, non-chauvinistic one, in which there was originally a common cultural language involved, like Classical Chinese, in the case of Japanese, Chinese and Korean names, and Latin in the case of Western names. Names of Western Royals, scientists, philosophers, Saints, navigators, etc., are usually converted to each Western language; oftentimes because the people themselves that had these names, preferred to convert them into the foreign language they were switching to.