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Where does all the weird Chinese component terminology come from?
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gamalot:

--- Quote from: coppice on November 17, 2023, 11:00:53 am ---
--- Quote from: pdenisowski on November 17, 2023, 10:56:19 am ---
--- Quote from: gamalot on November 17, 2023, 05:04:15 am ---
This is too easy to Chinese native speakers.

wheat = 麦 = 麦克风 = microphone

--- End quote ---

Marketing probably thought "话筒" isn't cool enough :)

I can understand why 风 would be a good choice of hanzi here, but 麦克 seems like a random decision.  I suppose those are better than 埋客  :-DD

--- End quote ---
Its a poor transliteration of microphone. That one is easy to figure out, but why is the Chinese for a power supply a fire cow?

--- End quote ---

fire cow = 火牛 = power transform

火牛 is the name for power transformer in Cantonese, toroidal transformer in Cantonese called 环牛.
coppice:

--- Quote from: gamalot on November 17, 2023, 12:03:55 pm ---
--- Quote from: coppice on November 17, 2023, 11:00:53 am ---
--- Quote from: pdenisowski on November 17, 2023, 10:56:19 am ---
--- Quote from: gamalot on November 17, 2023, 05:04:15 am ---
This is too easy to Chinese native speakers.

wheat = 麦 = 麦克风 = microphone

--- End quote ---

Marketing probably thought "话筒" isn't cool enough :)

I can understand why 风 would be a good choice of hanzi here, but 麦克 seems like a random decision.  I suppose those are better than 埋客  :-DD

--- End quote ---
Its a poor transliteration of microphone. That one is easy to figure out, but why is the Chinese for a power supply a fire cow?

--- End quote ---

fire cow = 火牛 = power transform

火牛 is the name for power transformer in Cantonese, toroidal transformer in Cantonese called 环牛.

--- End quote ---
You write that like is makes some obvious sense. :) Native Cantonese speaking engineers just shrug their shoulders when asked to explain it. 火牛 isn't just a transformer. Its the name used for complete power supplies, like an ATX supply for a PC.
harerod:
Quote from: coppice on Today at 13:26:57
...You write that like is makes some obvious sense. :) Native Cantonese speaking engineers just shrug their shoulders when asked to explain it. 火牛 isn't just a transformer. Its the name used for complete power supplies, like an ATX supply for a PC.

--- End quote ---
Assuming that your native language is English: Even your mother tongue names step-down converters after male ungulates...  >:D
The fun with Asian languages (in my case Japanese) is that you lack all those levers, which make gaining a basic understanding of multiple Western languages so simple...
pdenisowski:

--- Quote from: harerod on November 17, 2023, 12:33:12 pm ---The fun with Asian languages (in my case Japanese) is that you lack all those levers, which make gaining a basic understanding of multiple Western languages so simple...

--- End quote ---

Actually, in my experience, there is a "shared" vocabulary base for technical terms in CJKV languages (i.e. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese) in the form of Chinese roots.  One of the reasons I started studying Chinese (and in the process started the largest open Chinese-English dictionary project: CC-EDICT*) was to help me more easily acquire technical vocabulary in Japanese and Vietnamese.

Even though (modern) Korean and Vietnamese no longer use Chinese characters (hanzi), it's still easy to recognize cognates in technical terms, e.g. "telephone"

Chinese: 電話 (电话) / (diàn huà)
Japanese: 電話 (den wa)
Korean: 전화 (jeon hwa)
Vietnamese: điện thoại

where the first morpheme is "electric" and the second is "talk" or "converse" 

If you know the "electric" morpheme, it's easy to recognize or remember words like "current" and voltage" across CJKV languages

Chinese:  电流 / (diàn liú) and 电压 (diàn yā)
Japanese: 電]流 (den ryū) and 電圧 (den atsu)
Korean: 전류 (jeon lyu) and 전압 (jeon ap)
Vietnamese: dòng điện and điện áp

where in each case the other morpheme is "flow" (流) and "pressure" (压), respectively.

Yes, there are a lot of irregularities and it's not possible to accurately predict JKV technical terms from the Chinese equivalent, but it does help (me, at least :))





* https://cc-cedict.org/wiki/
coppice:

--- Quote from: pdenisowski on November 17, 2023, 03:54:00 pm ---
--- Quote from: harerod on November 17, 2023, 12:33:12 pm ---The fun with Asian languages (in my case Japanese) is that you lack all those levers, which make gaining a basic understanding of multiple Western languages so simple...

--- End quote ---

Actually, in my experience, there is a "shared" vocabulary base for technical terms in CJKV languages (i.e. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese) in the form of Chinese roots.  One of the reasons I started studying Chinese (and in the process started the largest open Chinese-English dictionary project: CC-EDICT*) was to help me more easily acquire technical vocabulary in Japanese and Vietnamese.

Even though (modern) Korean and Vietnamese no longer use Chinese characters (hanzi), it's still easy to recognize cognates in technical terms, e.g. "telephone"

Chinese: 電話 (电话) / (diàn huà)
Japanese: 電話 (den wa)
Korean: 전화 (jeon hwa)
Vietnamese: điện thoại

where the first morpheme is "electric" and the second is "talk" or "converse" 

If you know the "electric" morpheme, it's easy to recognize or remember words like "current" and voltage" across CJKV languages

Chinese:  电流 / (diàn liú) and 电压 (diàn yā)
Japanese: 電]流 (den ryū) and 電圧 (den atsu)
Korean: 전류 (jeon lyu) and 전압 (jeon ap)
Vietnamese: dòng điện and điện áp

where in each case the other morpheme is "flow" (流) and "pressure" (压), respectively.

Yes, there are a lot of irregularities and it's not possible to accurately predict JKV technical terms from the Chinese equivalent, but it does help (me, at least :))

* https://cc-cedict.org/wiki/

--- End quote ---
If the term came into use before 1949, there tends to be one term across East Asia. If it came into use after 1949 there tends to be a PRC one, and one everyone else uses.
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