All About China > Understanding Chinese Women

translation is frustrating

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Jason B:
I am so confused, the website Neil posted has a different way of translating to google translate and then it is different again to the Mandarin phrase book that I have.  What is a poor guy supposed to believe.  I suppose I will just ask Wendy and go with her translation.  If it is good enough for her than it is good enough for me.  All  I want to do is say, Hello, I am so happy to be here.  When I see her on Friday. 

shaun:
Jason I have fewer problems with mdbg than I had with google.  There isn't a perfect translation program.

Bee964:

--- Quote from: sameldrum1 on July 13, 2010, 08:38:59 am ---I tried about 3 weeks ago to call my fiance "sweetheart" during one of our chats on QQ...she didn't smile like I was hoping, but starting questioning me about what I was trying to say to her.  She then went on to tell me this was the word for "mistress" in China (married man's girlfriend), and that she did not like it (needless to say!).  I explained that it didn't mean that in the U.S., it was a good word for a man to call the (one and only) woman he loved...she then understood why I used it...but I don't anymore!!!

I found she really likes "honey" instead!  :)    And she likes to call me "dear" (and that's qin ai de, like the others just mentioned).
Scott


--- End quote ---

Scott,

I got into the same situation with a woman I was chatting with and realised that it is much better to ask if there is a different pet name that I could use for her rather than just calling her "dear" all the time. She did give me a couple and "honey" was one of them too. One must not assume that our traditions will automatically work with their different culture.

Dave C

RegnisTheGreat:
This so much reminds me of grad school. I spend 4 years on this in grad school trying to work on the holy grail of machine translation and natural languages. I'll explain later when I get home all the confusion you are having.

shaun:
We wait with anticipation.

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