AI6YR BenI'm going to say there's a better way to get a translation for this new car brand, LOL. #DustProofBag
Hippy Steve@ai6yr lol. according to Yahoo Finance:
The new brand is called Fang Cheng Bao, which translates from Chinese literally as "Formula" and "Leopard".
@exador23 There's a lot lost in translation, LOL. There's a very long and involved process when Chinese people meet each other for the first time to decode exactly how you write the character for their name, because there are so many variants of similar sounding names.
@ai6yr fascinating!
Ben Toh@ai6yr @exador23 as a native speaker, I wouldn’t even have guessed they were referring to formula leopard, the closest I get to something that make sense (aside from the dust bag lol) was like rectangular fort/castle… there are so many words that correspond to each sound even if you know the right tone (4 for mandarin) 😂
Samhain Night@samhainnight @exador23 VERY considerably, LOL.
W6KME@ai6yr This is a two-way street...anyone remember Bite The Wax Tadpole?
@W6KME Haven't heard of that one, LOL.
@ai6yr Coca Cola's first foray into China after the Nixon visit. Eventually slightly different syllables were used that did not have surprising meanings.
@W6KME Ha! I imagine it's a pretty common international problem.
@ai6yr It's the type of subject that journalists like to write about when there isn't a shred of inspiration around. The most commonly cited example is the Chevy Nova, which sold very poorly in Mexico. GM eventually noticed that the name means "no go" in Spanish.
@ai6yr Remember the Mazda Laputa? Or the Honda Jazz, which was originally sold in Scandanavia as the Fitta?