Post by Cinnamon on Aug 19, 2020 13:54:21 GMT
Resources for understanding Chinese Symbols
Since there are a lot of Bootleg cards originating from China, I thought it was a good idea to share sources I've used to find my way through understand some cards. First of all tools for understanding Chinese characters. After that some information about 'Pokémon' in Chinese characters.
Tools for understanding Hanzi
Hanzi is what the Chinese characters are called. Since these are not present on QWERTY-keyboards, i found a number of useful tools.
Image to Chinese
I've used Yandex Translate to convert photo's of cards and packs to get the symbols needed for translation. Sometimes it didn't recognize the text. If the text is altered, like for example a logo, then there is a change that the converter might show an error.
Handwriting to Chinese
It's also possible to convert drawings to Chinese characters. Basically you re-draw the symbol and the page gives you suggestions for what it could be. Then you can copy-paste the symbol. The site I've used is Qhanzi, but other sites like MobileFish and Chinese Input are also options.
Hanzi List
You can also search for Chinese characters in the HanziDB. I haven't used this, because I thought there where to many characters. This database can be useful, but there are indeed a lot of characters. This database already has 800+ pages.
Chinese to English
I cannot forgot to mention Google Translate. Google Translate is always useful, since you still need to be able to convert the Hanzi symbols to English to be able to understand it. Unless you can understand Hanzi of course. Google Translate is able to convert both Traditional Chinese as Simplified Chinese.
Pokémon and Hanzi
With that being said, there are different languages used in China, as well as different interpretations of the word 'Pokémon'. There are two interesting reddit posts describing a name change of Pokémon.
Naming of Pokémon in China
I found two interesting sources on Reddit, describing the Pokémon name in Chinese. This post on r/Nintendo describes the name-situation. Pokémon Sun and Moon were released in both Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese.
The post stated that Simpliefied Chinese is used in Mainland China. Traditional Chinese is used in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau. Both Hong Kong and Taiwan have different dialects. Cantonese is used in Hong Kong. Mandarin/Putonghua are used in Taiwan (and Mainland China). This results in different translations of Pokémon and even Pikachu.
It also stated that The Pokémon Company decided to combine all of them and change it into 精靈寶可夢. It also stated that Pikachu was called 皮卡丘 in Mainland China and Taiwan, and 比卡超 in Hong Kong. Pikachu was changed to 皮卡丘 in Sun and Moon, making it more likely that it follows the Madarin translation.
'Pokémon' translated in Chinese
- 口袋妖怪 in China (Simplified Chinese)
- 寵物小精靈 in Hong Kong (Traditional Chinese - Cantonese)
- 神奇寶貝 in Taiwan (Traditional Chinese - Mandarin)
- 精靈寶可夢 as the new official Chinese name
On this post on r/ChineseLanguage it's stated that there were no official games in Chinese until Sun and Moon, but that Taiwan and Hong Kong had different dubs of the Pokémon Anime. In the reactions of this post there are some more variations of the Pokémon name.
'Pokémon' translated in Chinese (2)
- 宠物小精灵 in Hong Kong
- 神奇宝贝 in Taiwan
- 精灵宝可梦 as the new official Chinese name
- 宝可梦 as the shorted version (because this part sounds like 'Pokémon')
The names from Hong Kong and Taiwan where stated as popular names in China, which might explain why they're different then the names of the post on r/Nintendo. All of these names translate to Pokémon by the way.
There are two 'new' Chinese names. According to Bulbapedia 精靈寶可夢 and 精灵宝可梦 are both used in Madarin. Furthermore 精靈寶可夢 is only present in Catonese.
Names of individual Pokémon
Another good resourch is this list on Bulbapedia. It features the names of all Pokémon in both Traditional Chinese and Simpliflied Chinese. Some Pokémon even have former names. It even has names in the Pinyin Romanization for Simplified Chinese and the Yale romanization of Madarin.