| | | | | 3 October 2008 18:22 | | | Rongyou Liang, I miss you so much. | | | 3 October 2008 18:57 | | | "VERY much" would be better. As with the name, it doesn't matter that much any more. The westerners know about the "last name first, first name last" rule and very often conform to it. But feel free to change it if you want to be exact. | | | 3 October 2008 19:29 | | | Hi, thank you for suggestions. I often heard in movies "so much" when is used with the verb "miss". I know you live in Canada, Cacue, maybe your sense for Englis is more developed, so I will change it if the expert says it is ok. However, it is true, the mot-a-mot transaltion is "I miss you very much". | | | 3 October 2008 19:32 | | | Both would be correct, Oana.
Your choice. | | | 3 October 2008 19:34 | | | If there is no alteration of the meaning, I prefere "so much" | | | 3 October 2008 19:45 | | | Swedishsnow, why do you think that "Liang Rongyou" is wrong? | | | 4 October 2008 02:38 | | | She's just rearranging the names into the usual Personal Name + Family Name order that is usually used by native speakers of English.
As you know of course, Liang is this person's family name, and Rongyou is the personal name, but native English speakers would usually expect the personal name to come first:
"Hi, my name's John Smith"
Hi John, my name's Fred Allen"
With the names in the order they are now, the second person would say
"Hi Liang, my name's Fred Allen"
because they thought the personal name was given first, which might lead to an embarrassing social situation...
However, as you know, the Chinese person is usually not used to being called just "Rongyou," so they usually don't mind being called just "Liang" anyway! | | | 4 October 2008 15:30 | | | Sure, I know all these things, but for example, when a book in Chinese is translated into English or any other language, the order is never changed: Charles Dickens, Umberto Eco ecc ok, but never Xun Lu o Wei Wang o She Lao. The names are chosen also in base of musicality. For example your name, your parents didn't think how Megill Ian sounds, but Ian Mill. So, in my opinion, we shouldn't change the order. I would like to hear more native speakers'opinion about this. | | | 6 October 2008 02:55 | | | I know a few people from (the old?) Hong Kong, and they have an English name too, so they give their name as
Nancy Fei Yang
i.e. with their Personal name ("Fei" ) before their family name ("Yang" ).
Sometimes, to make it easier for the English speaker, they'll write it on the English side of their business card as:
Nancy F. Yang
or even without their Chinese personal name, i.e. just
Nancy Yang
On the other ("Chinese" ) side of their business card, they put only
Yang Fei
in the usual Chinese order (Family name + Personal name).
However, I have found people from (mainland) China almost always give their names the other way around:
Yang Fei
and this, as I mentioned in my post above, often makes English native speakers say
"Hi, Yang!"
whereas I wouldn't want people to say
"Hi, Megill!"
to me...
But as I also mentioned, they usually don't mind anyway!
---
In academic writing, we often get around this problem (it occurs with Japanese names too) by writing the family name in ALL CAPS, i.e.
YANG Fei, TAKAHASHI Eriko and MEGILL Ian
but I've only ever seen this in academic circles, never in ordinary ("friendly" ) ones...
---
More food for thought? | | | 6 October 2008 08:34 | | | I wanted to know why Liang Rongyou was wrong. And anyway the chinese change their names on the visit cards only when they have an English name. If Rongyou is an English name, then is my mistake | | | 6 October 2008 10:03 | | | Sorry Oana, I didn't want to say you were wrong (I might have translated it your way too!): I was just suggesting maybe why Swedishsnow thought
Rongyou Liang
was the appropriate order?
Maybe we can ask her again?
CC: Swedishsnow | | | 6 October 2008 10:43 | | | She voted for "wrong translation", that's why I asked. It doesn't matter anyway... |
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