In the news right now is "Joe the plumber." In Chinese culture, a plumber is usually an electrician too, so the Chinese name for a plumber is literally a "water-electricity worker." The newspaper I was reading used this same title for Joe the plumber, despite the fact that "plumber" in English does not imply any electrician duties. So, I decided to check the frequency of some of the translations of "Joe the plumber" into Chinese, all using the strange but traditional transliteration of Joe as "Qiao".
Here are the search results from Google:
27,700 results for "水管工喬" (shuiguangong Qiao)
1,700 results for "水管工人喬" (shuiguan gongren Qiao)
938 results for "水電工喬" (shuidiangong Qiao)
59 results for "水暖工喬" (shuinuangong gong Qiao)
So, the top two translations of "plumber" are literal translations of plumber: "water-pipe worker" (shuiguangong and shuiguan gongren).
The third most popular translation is the more common Chinese word for plumber, "water-electricity worker" (shuidiangong).
The forth most popular translation, with 59 results, is "shuinuangong". This is literally a "water-heat worker."
Interesting...
ReplyDeleteSee my post at
http://hanyu.com/2008/10/22/how-to-say-joe-the-plumber-in-chinese/
Very funny post. :) Chinese is an interesting language.
ReplyDeleteSide note: Notice that Americans are basically called Joe (if you don't know their name).