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curiousdannii ♦
curiousdannii ♦
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One difference between Mandarin Chinese and Japanese is that the former likes to translate foreign terms, while Japanese prefers to transcribe them to Japanese.

E.g. Basketball: Mandarin Chinese: 篮球 (lanqiu); Japanese: バスケ (basuke [from "basket"])

Such tendencies can be made across languages:

  • Hong Kong Chinese does much more transcribing than Mandarin.
  • France likes to translate as well
  • German almost always transcribes, or even uses the foreign pronunciation

It seems to me there is some spectrum here, with adopting words unchanged on one hand, and retranslating them on the other. I wanted to ask whether there were terms to describe such tendencies of languages?

P.S.: I have no idea how to tag this...

One difference between Mandarin Chinese and Japanese is that the former likes to translate foreign terms, while Japanese prefers to transcribe them to Japanese.

E.g. Basketball: Mandarin Chinese: 篮球 (lanqiu); Japanese: バスケ (basuke [from "basket"])

Such tendencies can be made across languages:

  • Hong Kong Chinese does much more transcribing than Mandarin.
  • France likes to translate as well
  • German almost always transcribes, or even uses the foreign pronunciation

It seems to me there is some spectrum here, with adopting words unchanged on one hand, and retranslating them on the other. I wanted to ask whether there were terms to describe such tendencies of languages?

P.S.: I have no idea how to tag this...

One difference between Mandarin Chinese and Japanese is that the former likes to translate foreign terms, while Japanese prefers to transcribe them to Japanese.

E.g. Basketball: Mandarin Chinese: 篮球 (lanqiu); Japanese: バスケ (basuke [from "basket"])

Such tendencies can be made across languages:

  • Hong Kong Chinese does much more transcribing than Mandarin.
  • France likes to translate as well
  • German almost always transcribes, or even uses the foreign pronunciation

It seems to me there is some spectrum here, with adopting words unchanged on one hand, and retranslating them on the other. I wanted to ask whether there were terms to describe such tendencies of languages?

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hgiesel
hgiesel
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How do you call a languages tendency to adopt foreign words rather than translate them to their language?

One difference between Mandarin Chinese and Japanese is that the former likes to translate foreign terms, while Japanese prefers to transcribe them to Japanese.

E.g. Basketball: Mandarin Chinese: 篮球 (lanqiu); Japanese: バスケ (basuke [from "basket"])

Such tendencies can be made across languages:

  • Hong Kong Chinese does much more transcribing than Mandarin.
  • France likes to translate as well
  • German almost always transcribes, or even uses the foreign pronunciation

It seems to me there is some spectrum here, with adopting words unchanged on one hand, and retranslating them on the other. I wanted to ask whether there were terms to describe such tendencies of languages?

P.S.: I have no idea how to tag this...