Where does all the weird Chinese component terminology come from? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: HwAoRrDk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2022, 03:14:16 am
content: I was looking for some parts on LCSC today and it got me wondering where all the weird terminology comes from that the Chinese use to describe in English certain types of electronic components (or their attributes). You come across it in datasheets, parts catalogues, AliExpress listings, and so forth.One of these terms is "brick nogging". They use this name to describe many types of surface-mount headers and connectors. But that name makes almostno sensein the context of such a component!Brick noggingappears to be a very old construction technique where bricks are used to infill the spaces in the wooden frame of a building, and in general (at least in British English) a "nogging" is a horizontal bracing piece of wood used in a wooden wall frame or floor joists. The only (tenuous) link I can possibly imagine is that of the slight similarity to the staggered pattern of brickwork for SMD legs that alternate between sides of the part along its length.Another one is "tube", which refers to transistors, but also LEDs or LED assemblies (e.g. 7-segment displays). That's perfectly understandable for the former, as of course tubes are what predated transistors, so I can see how the terminology stuck. But for LEDs? One possible explanation for that I found in Bunnie Huang's bookThe Essential Guide to Electronics in Shenzhen, where he explains a little about technical language in Chinese. The common term for transistor is 三级管, or "three-pole tube", and similarly for diodes 二极管, or "two-pole tube". So I guess it follows that because an LED is a form of diode, so they are also "tubes".Anyone come across any other weird and seemingly-inexplicable forms of electronics vocabulary eminating from China?

author: retiredfeline
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2022, 03:24:12 am
content: They often refer to soldering as welding because that is han teh (weld iron) whereas soldering is han sik (weld tin, the element not the container).

author: bg8aak
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2022, 07:54:33 am
content: not 三级管 but 三极管极 means "pin"

author: niconiconi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2022, 07:56:24 pm
content: Quote from: HwAoRrDk on July 21, 2022, 03:14:16 amAs a native Chinese speaker, "brick nogging" is gibberish and completely incomprehensible to me.I was curious and just looked it up, apparently it was a mistranslation of "立贴"."立" means "standing" or "vertical", and "贴" is the short-hand for "贴片", which means "pick-and-place" or "SMD", so it just means "vertical SMD".One thing to know about Chinese is that one can create almost entirely arbitrary abbreviations and short-hands by combining characters from different words, a bit similar to Soviet and Russian government agency names like GosPlan, RosCosmos, or RosKomNadzor.The result is often not found in the dictionary, or by coincidence, they may clash with another existing but obscure word in the dictionary. In both cases, machine translation would produce incomprehensible results. For example, in this case it happens to form a word from architectural history.QuoteYep. The term "diode" was originally translated to "two-electrode tube". And after the semiconductor and light-emitting versions came into existence, the same terminology is reused. So all diodes are known as "two-electrode tubes" although the "tube" part has lost its meaning. Similarly, transistors were known as "crystal triodes" and "semiconductor triodes", and today it's still the standard terminology in China.When you think about it, it's actually quite strange how the term "diode" is a generic name for both vacuum and semiconductor rectifiers in English, but the same pattern didn't apply for three-terminal devices - "triode" is exclusive to vacuum tubes, and the semiconductor version got its own name. Of course, it was because crystal rectifiers were as old as tubes, while transistors were not invented until many decades later.

author: niconiconi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2022, 08:05:21 pm
content: Quote from: bg8aak on July 21, 2022, 07:54:33 amIn this case, "极" is a short-hand for "电极", or "eletrode". Just like how the suffix "-ode" in "diode" and "triode" came from "eletrode" in English. The terminology was originally a faithful translation.

author: niconiconi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2022, 08:24:49 pm
content: Quote from: retiredfeline on July 21, 2022, 03:24:12 amWelding, soldering and blazing are not distinguished outside technical fields, all metal-joining techniques are known as "焊接" or "焊". Hence the mistranslation.

author: JohanH
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2022, 08:30:31 pm
content: Quote from: niconiconi on July 21, 2022, 07:56:24 pmThis is interesting and makes sense. Thanks for this explanation.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2022, 08:53:16 pm
content: Quote from: niconiconi on July 21, 2022, 07:56:24 pmIt is strange, but it's down to marketing. "Transistor" akin to "trans- resistor", coined by one of the engineers at Bell, would sell the product better than "Triode" which already existed as a component.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2022, 10:41:47 pm
content: I thought transistor was short fortransfer resistor.Edit: wiki says the following:Quote

author: HwAoRrDk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2022, 01:45:09 am
content: While on the subject of transistor naming, I just remembered another one I've come across in a couple of datasheets for Chinese chips: "audion".According to aWikipedia article, Audion was the trademark name of the first vacuum tube triode, invented by Lee de Forest in 1906. Seems like a very idiosyncratic word to use as the translation of "transistor". I suppose it must have come from the Chinese usage of "crystal triode" as one name for a transistor. Someone probably started with that, chopped off "crystal" to avoid confusion with, well, crystals, then looked up "triode" and found some article about the history of the aforementioned first manifestation of the triode. Weird!

author: niconiconi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2022, 01:57:07 am
content: Quote from: HwAoRrDk on July 22, 2022, 01:45:09 amThe modifier "crystal" or "semiconductor" is usually omitted. Nowadays, "triode" refers to the semiconductor version by default, just like the use of "diode". The original word was almost certainly just "triode", it's just a case of bad machine translation with a dubious dictionary.

author: niconiconi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2022, 01:58:10 am
content: Also, I just stamped upon this Bell Labs document online, on the original considerations of naming this device. Quite interesting, I didn't know there was already a vacuum tube device called the "transitrons", or the suggestion that "diode", "triode", "tetrode" to be used as additional modifiers to describe a transistor (even after transistor became the standard name of this device).Terminology for Semiconductor Triodes - Committee Recommendation - Case 38139-8. May 28, 1948.https://web.archive.org/web/20080528164454if_/http://users.arczip.com/rmcgarra2/namememo.gifQuote

author: Cyberdragon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 23, 2022, 01:24:07 am
content: The very first announcement of the discovery, before they named the invention officially, used the term "crystal amplifier". These were discovered much earlier, but never made practical untill Bell figured out how to make it commercially viable.http://www.earlyradiohistory.us/1922amp.htmhttps://makezine.com/2009/04/02/the-lost-transistor/

author: niconiconi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 23, 2022, 02:46:19 am
content: Quote from: Cyberdragon on July 23, 2022, 01:24:07 amRussian researcher Oleg Losev also did crystal amplification in 1923 but his work was not well recognized in his lifetime. Though, Sci-Fi publisher Hugo Gernsback promoted it in his magazines, so many American amateur radio operators knew this device. These amplifiers used an operating principle different from a transistor, they're essentially negative resistance diodes.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Losev#Solid-state_electronics

author: Cyberdragon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 23, 2022, 08:00:39 am
content: Quote from: niconiconi on July 23, 2022, 02:46:19 amThe 20s devices were more like tunnel diodes, yes, even standard galena crystals can do it. But the 1933 device did have 3 electrodes. Though I can't seem to find any info on how the device was wired to confirm or deny whether it was technically a real transistor (the make article is just basically "look at this cool thing").

author: Wallace Gasiewicz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 23, 2022, 11:32:05 am
content: As Niconiconi pointed out:The name “transistor” is actually (“transconductance” + “varistor”)How the transistor got it's name is from a Bell Labs "Ballot" in 1948:https://www.flickr.com/photos/johngineer/6116137343/sizes/o/in/photostream/So blame the Bell Engineers!

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 23, 2022, 12:37:54 pm
content: Several of us quoted that text 2 days ago…

author: Wallace Gasiewicz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 23, 2022, 01:17:23 pm
content: Sorry, did not click on that particular link.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 23, 2022, 01:21:54 pm
content: Quote from: Wallace Gasiewicz on July 23, 2022, 01:17:23 pmNo, I mean the text in question (not just a link to it) isliterally quoted in the textof several posts:Quote from: niconiconi on July 22, 2022, 01:58:10 amQuote from: tooki on July 21, 2022, 10:41:47 pm

author: amc184
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 23, 2022, 11:14:15 pm
content: One of the ones I noticed on LCSC was 'horn type' capacitors. This was used for snap-in electrolytics, and while the leads do resemble an animal's horns, I've never heard this used in English. That seems to have disappeared from LCSC now though, and they've just put all the snap-in capacitors with the radial leaded ones.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 24, 2022, 01:22:32 am
content: Strange translations are not confined to English/Chinese & vice versa, even related languages like French/ English & German/English have brought forth their share of "howlers".The English translations of original French manuals I used to work with had some seriously inventive efforts which made them really hard to decipher, but the best was one my brother related to me:"This equipment is designed to operate in the 3GHz'group of musicians playing together'"!The German manuals offered their own challenges, often because the English translation was less complete than the original, so it became necessary to look up that manual & sort out from the original German, what was meant. (I am only an English speaker, but I always found written German easier to translate from a logical basis than French.)One thing had me, though, with some equipment which showed a circular device on the schematic, labelled with the word "Drossel".From where it lived, it should be an inductor, but no indication of the winding configuration was shown.Googling, it came up with "Throttle", or "thrush" ( the bird).Surely, German would be "Induktor" if that is what it was?Anyhow, it seems a more obscure translation is "choke", so itwasan inductor, after all!Strangely, I had never seen anything but the official term used in other German equipment, & thought that to all intents & purposes, "choke" was as archaic in German as in English.

author: niconiconi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 24, 2022, 05:42:19 am
content: Quote from: vk6zgo on July 24, 2022, 01:22:32 amQ: What should you do when the music from a shortwave radio is too boring?A: Try a different band.QuoteSpeaking of archaic terms in translation, yep, it's really common. A standard term is one language can be an obscure or obsolete (though technically correct) one in another. For example, "condenser" entered many languages and became the standard term, before the English world decided to replace it with "capacitor".Other classics include:- capacity vs capacitanceTo be fair: older engineers still use "capacity".- inductor vs reactor vs chokeTo be fair: reactor is still used in the electric power industry, and when inductor is used to raise impedance, it's still a choke, like "common-mode choke", "radio-frequency choke", etc. But, like many things in the world, to make it more confusing for everyone, it's also abused from time to time, like "Ringing Choke Converter".- tension vs. potential vs. voltageTo be fair: Modern English is the outlier here. Although it has "current" (physical quantity) and "amperage" (measured value), "power" and "wattage", but for electrical potential, both are named "voltage" today. "Tension" used to be the term but it's long obsolete. This unfortunate historical coincidence further brings confusions to variable names in formulas. In English, most use the letter V, some textbooks recognized the potential confusion (no pun intended) and decided to use E, but it's still confusing since E is energy. The European and international standard U is technically better, but in an industry dominated by the US, everyone just gets used to it soon or later.

author: niconiconi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 24, 2022, 06:09:40 am
content: Quote from: amc184 on July 23, 2022, 11:14:15 pmUnsurprisingly, people invent slang and nicknames, and different people have different ideas. Machine translation without the knowledge of slang differences is guaranteed to produce hilarious results or gibberish.The through-hole ribbon cable socket with two locking grabs on each ends is also known as a "cow horn (牛角) connector". Following the same reasoning, its low-cost variant without locking grabs is a simplified (简易) cow horn (牛角) connector. Thus, it's abbreviated to "简牛", or literally, a "simple cow" connector.Indeed, when I searched for "simple cow connectors" in quote marks, I got many results from Google.

author: janoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 24, 2022, 08:54:58 am
content: Quote from: niconiconi on July 21, 2022, 08:24:49 pmThat's the same in French, for example.To weld or to solder is both translated the same: "souder".So if you hope to buy a soldering iron/station, don't ask for a "machine à souder" at your local hardware store or Conrad or you will be shown a welder(soldering iron is "fer à souder" - literally "iron for welding/soldering").

author: HwAoRrDk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 24, 2022, 10:17:37 am
content: Quote from: niconiconi on July 24, 2022, 06:09:40 amOoh, yes, that's a good one I hadn't come across before. And checking at LCSC, of course they call them "horn buckle".And for some reason they also term the clamping clip that forms the top part of an IDC ribbon cable connector a "reflex cover". Not sure how "reflex" comes into it...Quote from: niconiconi on July 24, 2022, 06:09:40 amThat's hilarious!

author: HwAoRrDk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 24, 2022, 10:24:07 am
content: Quote from: vk6zgo on July 24, 2022, 01:22:32 amYes, you do have to be careful with retaining the correct context when translating, no matter the language. I once saw a French translation of some English source text that talked about delivery to customers, etc. and it was using the word "maritime". Now, my French may be very rusty, but even I knew that was the wrong kind of 'shipping'!I suggested they change it to "livraison".

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 24, 2022, 05:50:03 pm
content: Quote from: vk6zgo on July 24, 2022, 01:22:32 amGerman electronics terminology tends to be a bit closer to archaic English electronics terminology, when they differ. (For example, “Kondensator”, cognate to the archaic English “condenser” for capacitors.)“Drossel” remains the contemporary equivalent of “choke”, which is not an archaic term in English, either: chokes are a subset of inductors. (For example, in the term “common mode choke”, or “Gleichtaktdrossel” in German.) Not sure where you got the idea that this was archaic in either language.FWIW, there is no German word “Induktor”. The word for an inductor is “Induktivität”, or colloquially simply a “Spule”, which simply means “coil”.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 24, 2022, 06:02:43 pm
content: Quote from: HwAoRrDk on July 24, 2022, 10:24:07 amThe worst “translation” (it being so bad as to barely warrant the word) was in the German subtitles of the Swiss release prints* of the American 1994 movie “Kids”. One of the awful kids in the movie was telling another awful kid friend that while at the amusement park, he’d bought his girlfriend a snack.Awful kid: “I got her a corn dog.”The translator had apparently never heard of a corn dog, and rather than asking a fellow translator or American friend, grabbed their bilingual dictionary (where it’s important to note that British usage is generally given priority) and looked up “corn” and “dog”, and came up with:“Ich habe sie zu einem Getreidehund eingeladen.” — “I invited her for a grain canine.” (Because “corn” in British English means grains/cereals, and not maize specifically as it does in USA.)The type of snack was irrelevant, as it did not recur in the story at all. It could have been replaced with anything else — a hot dog, a burger, some pizza, or just “a snack” — but no such sensible substitution took place.*Swiss film prints had both German and French subtitles at the same time, German in plain text and French in italics. They didn’t use the same prints as Germany and France.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2022, 02:56:36 am
content: Quote from: tooki on July 24, 2022, 05:50:03 pmTake it up with R&S & Siemens, who used "Induktor" interchangeably with “Induktivität” on the schematics in their workshop manuals back in the day!They didn't use "Drossel", or I would have been used to it.Of course, they didn't just draw circles with lines leading in & out, either.

author: JohanH
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2022, 09:26:56 am
content: Quote from: tooki on July 24, 2022, 05:50:03 pmThis has been mentioned before in the forum, that a majority of European languages use cognates of the word condensor, instead of capacitor.In Swedish, there is drossel and spole as in German, but we also use induktor nowadays. However, there is no good short term in Swedish for "common mode", which is a pity. There is "gemensam mod", but it is rarely used, except in some technical manuals. In a text you could write it as "drossel för gemensam spänning" (choke for common voltage) or some such. E.g. in Finnish it's easier, because they often use more or less native words to construct such terms, e.g. a common mode choke I believe would be "yhteismuotoinen kuristin".

author: retiredfeline
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2022, 09:36:24 am
content: Quote from: tooki on July 24, 2022, 05:50:03 pmJapanese also uses old terminology for capacitors: コンデンサ (kondensa)

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 26, 2022, 10:42:23 pm
content: Hey @niconiconi!Thank you for your excellent and informative insights on this stuff!

author: Cubdriver
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 27, 2022, 06:42:42 am
content: About 30 years ago I was working for the US division of a company based in Liechtenstein that made instruments used in the electron microscopy field. The manuals for the instruments would initially be published in German, then later in English. One of the new instruments that came out while I worked there was an ion milling machine, used to thin inorganic samples for transmission electron microscopy. As was the norm, we began to get the instruments but a year or so later still had no English literature or manual for them, so we attempted to translate what they supplied in German using an early translation program called Germassist (IIRC) - this was in about 1993, give or take. One of the substances listed as suitable for processing in the machine was translated from German to "half band leader" in English. We puzzled over the possible meaning of this one for a few days, then I think finally gave up and asked one of the guys back at the factory who could speak English what in the world it meant. Once we learned, it made perfect sense, and gave us a good laugh.The German term that the program had translated to "half band leader" was "semiconductor"-Pat

author: niconiconi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2022, 07:02:20 am
content: Quote from: Cubdriver on July 27, 2022, 06:42:42 amSomeone just made this joke days ago.https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/bad-electronics-jokes/msg4296886/#msg4296886

author: JohanH
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2022, 12:34:03 pm
content: Quote from: Cubdriver on July 27, 2022, 06:42:42 amThat's funny. They could even have corrected it to "deputy band leader/conductor". I think I'm going to introduce the term "semiconductor" in musical circles...But jokes are rarely understood between different faculties. A long time ago I joked something about programming and it turned out the C# programmers had no idea about the reference from musical notation to the name of the C# programming language.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 28, 2022, 08:16:26 pm
content: Recent one from Reps:https://youtu.be/uiCwm1dTo-o?t=1350"Steam short"

author: gnuarm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 05, 2022, 03:27:18 am
content: So, I'm a bit lost from the original post. What exactly does "brick nogging" mean? Is it just any SMD connector?I was thinking of getting my prototypes from LCSC, but they don't have very many of the parts I need. Their web site still does a crappy job of helping you sort through their parts inventory. You can't even select parts that are in stock or at least orderable with a backlog.Their PCB prices are amazingly low. I'm thinking of having them fab my test fixture PCBs. But I don't have a lot of need for brick nogging connectors... I think.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 05, 2022, 03:47:39 am
content: Going far back in this thread:Quote from: niconiconi on July 22, 2022, 01:58:10 amActually, the "transitron" is a circuit using a normal vacuum-tube pentode in a non-standard bias state (screen positive with respect to plate) to obtain a negative AC resistance, suitable for use as an oscillator.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Transitron_oscillator_circuit.svgIt replaced the "dynatron", with a tetrode, obtaining negative resistance due to secondary emission from the plate (a less reliable circuit).Later, a transistor manufacturer named itself "Transitron".

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 05, 2022, 04:03:52 am
content: They don’t give a monkeys armpit about accurate information, marketing or quality - all they care about is shifting shiploads of SKU. I find it ironic how many Chinese companies blatantly rip off western quality designs, but then have the GALL to sand off IC numbers!

author: adeuring
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: November 05, 2022, 07:22:31 pm
content: Here is a sentence from the English manual of an alarm system that was probably originally written in German:(https://mobil.abus.com/Privat/Alarmsysteme/Terxon-Draht-System/Zentrale-Alarmierung/Zentrale/Terxon-SX-Alarmzentrale):"Define entry delay time 25.40 mm seconds." (page 136 in the linked PDF file)IMHO, this tops the really interesting observations from vk6zgo about English manuals from German vendors. The German text gives a clue:"Legen Sie die Eingangsverzögerungszeit 1 in Sekunden fest." (page 66)If "25.4mm" is replaced with "in", the English sentence majes more sense: "Define entry delay time in seconds". But how on earth could it happen that "in" was translated as "25.4 mm"? Sure, one inch equals 25.4 mm. But the assumption that the letters "in" in the German text could be an acronym for "inch" is just insane:The German word for "inch" is "Zoll". While Germans like to adopt English words, "inch" is, to the best of my knowledge (German is my native language), not among those "adopted" words.If I replace "in" with "Zoll" in the German text ("Legen Sie die Eingangsverzögerungszeit 1 Zoll in Sekunden fest.") reading the sentence leads to the same mental parsing error as reading the English translation.It is very uncommon in German to use imperial units. How could the translator – be it a human or a translation program – get the idea that a German text would specify a value in inch and then translate that value into a metric one for a language where imperial units are more common?And this is not the only error in this manual. Some texts in the grey boxes of the drawings on pages 91 (English manual) and 15 (German manual) are cut off, for example. In this case, the English drawing is slightly more informative than the German.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 05, 2022, 08:06:59 pm
content: Quote from: adeuring on November 05, 2022, 07:22:31 pmMachine translation! In US "customary units", the abbreviation for "inch" is "in", and "foot" is "ft".

author: adeuring
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: November 05, 2022, 09:39:26 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on November 05, 2022, 08:06:59 pmYeah, it could be a machine error. But then it seems that this machine has no clue about abbreviations that are common in a German text and simply assumes that any English abbreviation can easily occur there…

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 05, 2022, 09:42:19 pm
content: Clueless machinery is a world-wide problem.On the other hand, when I studied German at age 16, I was told that German university students would read Immanuel Kant's works in standard English translations, which was easier to understand.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 05, 2022, 10:09:21 pm
content: Quote from: vk6zgo on July 24, 2022, 01:22:32 amIn the 70s, ST's data sheets (Thomson in those days) were often hilariously mistranslated into English.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 05, 2022, 10:15:47 pm
content: There was something weird in all German documentation that I came across several years back which was either written or translated by German tech staff. I can't explain, but you have that "..not sure what is going on... " feeling as you read it. They have their style ,so to speak, writing technical documentation, which did not flow smooth with me. It was noticably different from north american technical documentation style that we were used to. Not saying here it was bad, it was just different.

author: gnuarm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 05, 2022, 10:42:26 pm
content: It's not often you find good documentation of any sort. It's hard to write good documentation. Try it sometime. It's more work than engineering, for sure.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 05, 2022, 10:43:54 pm
content: Literal translation does not give an idiomatic translation.Or, as the Italian saying goes,traduttore, traditore.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 05, 2022, 11:07:21 pm
content: I remember seeing in the catalog of a connector manufacturer, sections named "hermaphrodite", "lesbian", and "gay".

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 05, 2022, 11:16:45 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on November 05, 2022, 10:43:54 pmIt was not about gramma or spelling, it was about the workflow of information in the manual.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 05, 2022, 11:18:47 pm
content: Quote from: gnuarm on November 05, 2022, 10:42:26 pmWriting technical documentation is part of my daily job.Not all engineers want to do it, for sure.

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2022, 12:04:22 am
content: A lot of things have odd names if you look too closely. Why is a vacuum tube grid called a grid?This is a gridBut a vacuum tube grid looks like thisSo, why isn't it called a fence?

author: HwAoRrDk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2022, 12:15:36 am
content: I think in that case grid is an abbreviation of "gridiron". With the definition of gridiron being "a frame of parallel bars or beams, typically in two sets forming a grid".

author: Whales
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2022, 12:23:57 am
content: Quote from: gnuarm on November 05, 2022, 03:27:18 amI'm not sure of the definition I saw earlier in this topic (of being a PNP SMD part). I thought "brick nogging" referred to breakaway parts like this:Notice the little brick-shaped sections that can be cut away?My other favourite translation on LCSC is "Lying", eg "50mA 12V SPST Lying Round Button Plugin Tactile Switches ROHS". No it's not a phonetic English spelling of a Chinese name being used as a brand name. No it doesn't mean the part specs are false. It means it's a right angle part, like a right-angle PCB-mount slide switch.

author: Whales
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2022, 12:32:09 am
content: Hmm, a search of LCSC for "brick nogging" seems to defeat both my theory and the previous PnP theory.- Both SMD and through-hole parts have it in their description.- Both PnP-able and non-PnPable parts have it.- Even tactile switches are labelled with brick noggingMaybe any part that has one line of pins (eg flat flex connector) or multiple parallel lines of pins (eg 2-row headers, tactile buttons) is "brick nogging"? Exclusions include parts with lines of pins in non-parallel directions (such as LQFP). A bit odd.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2022, 03:12:40 am
content: Quote from: Whales on November 06, 2022, 12:23:57 amThat was probably something like "lying down".

author: bsfeechannel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2022, 05:55:48 pm
content: Quote from: Alex Eisenhut on November 06, 2022, 12:04:22 amFromWikipedia:in his[Lee De Forest's]earliest versions[of the Audion], this was simply a piece of wire bent into the shape of a gridiron (hence grid).

author: gnuarm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 07, 2022, 09:44:35 am
content: Quote from: Alex Eisenhut on November 06, 2022, 12:04:22 amQuoteConsider that the name came from the very first tubes. I bet the grid was, in fact, a "grid" in those early tubes.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 07, 2022, 09:25:49 pm
content: Quote from: Whales on November 06, 2022, 12:32:09 amIt just means "surface mount". In some cases LCSC didn't fix the translation/category (under Mounting Type).Yes, some of them do have through hole support leads (USB connectors). Digikey would call those "surface mount, through hole" to cover all the bases. LCSC doesn't go to that level of detail.

author: niconiconi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 23, 2022, 02:45:17 am
content: Quote from: Alex Eisenhut on November 06, 2022, 12:04:22 amFun fact: its Chinese translation is, indeed, a "Fence electrode" (柵极). The same terminology is also reused for the gate of FETs. So... you know what's going on if you ever see a AliExpress vendor is selling "MOSFET grid driver" in the future... (though, this mistranslation per se is not common, as "gate driver" is a dictionary word).Quote from: Whales on November 06, 2022, 12:23:57 am"Brick nogging" is a mistranslation of "vertical" + "SMD". I already explained the detailed etymology behind this mistranslation (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/where-does-all-the-weird-chinese-component-terminology-come-from/msg4313581/#msg4313581).QuoteIt's exactly the other way around. The translation is actually "horizontal". "Horizontal" (Lying) refers to the fact that the touchable part of the pushbutton is 0-degree, in parallel with the board. Meanwhile, "Vertical" (Brick nogging) refers to the fact that the touchable part is 90-degree with respect to the board.The same terminology is also used for all kinds of connectors, such as a USB connector. A "lying" one would be something you usually see on a PC motherboard, for example.As a demonstration, compare these two connectors."Brick nogging 6.2mm SPST 12V SMD"https://www.lcsc.com/product-detail/Tactile-Switches_Diptronics-DTSL-61N-V-T-R_C495902.htmland"Lying SPST 12V Plugin"https://www.lcsc.com/product-detail/Others_C-K-PTS645VK832LFS_C285521.html(BTW, "plugin" is yet another mistranslation. It should've been "through-hole".)

author: Whales
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 23, 2022, 09:42:22 am
content: My apologies. Thankyou niconiconi.

author: niconiconi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 23, 2022, 11:57:21 am
content: Quote from: Whales on November 23, 2022, 09:42:22 amYou don't have to apologize. It's LCSC who owes everyone an apology for these ridiculous translations...

author: nukie
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 13, 2022, 03:54:23 am
content: @niconiconi - from a place where no one uses English, your English deserves aMaybe you will find these names originate from early Chinese academic electronic textbooks.

author: Traceless
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 13, 2022, 08:49:13 am
content: Recently I also stumbled upon a weird translation. I was looking for DMM rotary knob contacts/contact wipers on Aliexpress and didn't have much luck untilfloobydust told meto search for "multimeter shrapnel". Still haven't found any sensibly priced ones though -it just seems to be cheaper to buy the contacts with a meter around them.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 13, 2022, 03:10:38 pm
content: Quote from: Traceless on December 13, 2022, 08:49:13 amI think that came from 碎片.

author: Infraviolet
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2022, 11:09:36 pm
content: Would I be right in suspecting also that a lot of these terminologies come from the fact that most linguistic translators aren't experienced in electronics, they've sent a whole career learning to swap between the common vocabulary of two or rmoe languages and never had time to enter the world of engieering, translating a word you don't know the meaning of must be tricky.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2022, 01:12:46 pm
content: Quote from: Infraviolet on December 14, 2022, 11:09:36 pmWhat makes you think any humans whatsoever were involved?

author: bsfeechannel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 25, 2022, 10:32:21 pm
content: Quote from: niconiconi on November 23, 2022, 02:45:17 amAnother reason why Lee De Forest might have called said electrode a grid is that, before he experimented with partially evacuated tubes and hot filaments, he experimented with open flame detectors.Neat way to have your signals amplified and your steak well done at the same time.

author: pdenisowski
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2022, 11:19:20 am
content: Quote from: TimFox on November 05, 2022, 09:42:19 pmI've read and studied Kant in both languages (and I even did a thesis discussing the influence on Kant in the works of Heinrich von Kleist)Trust me, it's not any better in English.

author: pdenisowski
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2022, 11:27:07 am
content: Regarding bad Chinese technical terminology: it's not uncommon to see the wrong character being used, even for very common words.I recently was testing a transformer and the two sides were labeled "红色" (hóng sè - red) and "兰色" I'm pretty sure they meant "蓝色" (blue) and not "兰色", both of which would be read "lán sè." "兰" means "orchid" so "兰色" would probably mean "orchid colored" (if it were a real/common word)Incidentally, 25 years ago I started what is now the largest online Chinese-English dictionary project (>100,000 words), so I have some experience with Chinese vocabulary, even if my spoken Chinese is still amazingly badhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEDICT

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2022, 02:15:00 am
content: Quote from: pdenisowski on December 26, 2022, 11:27:07 amhttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%85%B0#Etymology_2It seems it was intended to be the simplified character for blue, but later reassigned to orchid, yet people just started using it anyway. Google Translate says "blue" too.

author: pdenisowski
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2022, 12:25:03 pm
content: Quote from: amyk on December 28, 2022, 02:15:00 amWell, it is easier to write[5 strokes versus 13 strokes]According to Wiktionary (not exactly a primary source, but still ...)"This misspelling appears to be found almost exclusively in Simplified Chinese texts, i.e. 蓝色 is being misspelled as 兰色."https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%98%AD%E8%89%B2#ChineseQuote from: amyk on December 28, 2022, 02:15:00 amYes, but it gives the correct hanzi (蓝) when you reverse the direction

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2023, 02:26:10 pm
content: Quote from: pdenisowski on December 26, 2022, 11:27:07 amSo orange can't be a colour because its actually a fruit? Orchid colour is obviously meaningless, as orchids come in numerous colours. 兰 is not ambiguous, as nobody would read it as blue on its own, only when combined with 色 (colour). There are huge areas of overlap in Simplified Chinese. Even in Traditional Chinese the same character can have several meanings. Simplified reduced the character set so much the overlaps are much greater. There are plenty of words in any language which have numerous meanings.

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2023, 02:47:28 pm
content: This use of "兰色" is a very common mistake in China, especially among less educated people, and is somewhat similar to "I don't have no money" in English.

author: pdenisowski
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2023, 04:43:40 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on January 02, 2023, 02:26:10 pmMy understanding is that most of those cases involved merging of two characters where one of the two merged characters stayed the same, e.g. 雲 and 云 both becoming 云. Situations where two different characters were merged into a single, different character (like 發 and 髮 both becoming 发) are significantly less common.蓝 and 兰 do share a radical in traditional characters (艹 in both 藍 and 蘭) but I get the feeling (not being a Chinese native speaker) that 兰 is being used simply because it's a lot easier to write and has the same reading.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2023, 04:34:28 am
content: Quote from: pdenisowski on January 02, 2023, 04:43:40 pmIf you look at the pre-Unicode character sets, the most popular were Big5 for traditional Chinese, and the CNS standard for simplified Chinese. Depending on the variant, Big 5 is about 13000 to 14000 characters. CNS is about 6000 characters, They cover similar needs. That's how much the character set shrunk. Traditionally 云 was just shorthand for 雲, both meaning the same thing - a cloud. Many of the simplifications in simpliifed Chinese were just codifying the simplified way people were already writing those characters in informal writing.

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2023, 06:04:18 am
content: Quote from: coppice on January 03, 2023, 04:34:28 am云 and 雲 have different meanings in traditional Chinese, 云 means "say", 雲 means "cloud"

author: harerod
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2023, 05:07:41 pm
content: Maybe a native / fluent speaker of Chinese could comment on the following. I am not familiar with writing Chinese, only Japanese.Writing Japaneseon a computerinvolves entering words or phrases in phonetic form. A conversion tool (e.g. Input Method Editor) will then suggest kanji/kana combinations for the input.Due to the huge amount of homonyms (which may be largely due to the historic mapping of the Chinese tonal system to the Japanese vowels), this may result in lots of potential valid kanji/kana. Same as in simplified Chinese, writing reforms obscure the etymological background of many kanji.I'd expect oddities in Chinese technical documentscould be traced to several sources, including:- plain typo- typo due to homonyms (pinyin input)- translation errorInput methods:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_input_methods_for_computershttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin_input_methodhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cangjie_input_methodEdit: clarification / typo

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2023, 05:59:39 am
content: Quote from: harerod on January 05, 2023, 05:07:41 pmThe most common is translation errors, and it is difficult to find electronic engineers with good English to do document translation.

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2023, 06:09:23 am
content: Here's one I remember from a few years back:Humorous FrequencyAnyone jump straight on that one ?

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2023, 11:08:46 am
content: Quote from: tautech on January 06, 2023, 06:09:23 amharmonic frequency 谐波频率谐 means humorous or harmonious---Now you know the answer, could you pls tell me what the meaning of 'jump straight on' in return?

author: pdenisowski
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2023, 11:45:39 am
content: Quote from: gamalot on January 06, 2023, 05:59:39 amWhen I was working on my engineering degree I supported myself in part by working as a translator, and the cardinal rule of translation was always: translateinto(not from) your native language. The vast majority (like, 95%) of translation issues are caused by people who are translating into their non-native language. A Chinese -> English translation would always (ideally) be done by a native English speaker.That said, I am very aware that there are very few English native speakers who can read Chinese (or most other languages, for that matter) and those that can will quickly find themselves being vastly undercut in price (by up to a order of magnitude) by non-natives who live in lower-cost countries. Having a native speaker edit / proofread a translation by a non-native is also very much hit or miss: there's only so such "editing / proofing" you can do before it turns into a re-translation job."Important" translation jobs, like books, are (I hope) still usually handled by a native speaker, but "good enough" translations into English now seem to be almost universally done by non-natives or (shudder) Google translate.I haven't translated professionally in a long time, but I imagine that these days someone living in the States could make a lot more money per hour simply doing rideshare or food delivery compared to translating.(The last book I translated:https://www.si.edu/object/siris_sil_1089190)

author: harerod
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2023, 01:05:53 pm
content: Quote from: pdenisowski on January 06, 2023, 11:45:39 amI'd say that this should be a general rule. In my services I make the very careful distinction of offering translations of technical documents into Englisch. In contrast, I offer translations from several languages into into my native German. These translations usually happen during projects and are billed by my hourly rate, since I still apply my expertise as an engineer.What are considered "normal rates" for professional translators are a shame. However, the results of "you get what you pay for" are quite often rather amusing. A couple of months ago a client of mine hired a professional translation service (located in Germany) for the translation of a manual from German to Spanish. The Spanish version had plenty of references to "el buceador" - "the (male) diver". This had its origin in the current local fad of "Gendern" (ger.) "männlich/weiblich/divers" -> (eng.) "male/female/diverse" and that service quite clearly using some electronic translation tool.To put things into perspective: A recent quote for translation of patents (legal stuff, for the courts) from Japanese to German: 1..2€/55chars.Edit: Typoc

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2023, 01:19:46 pm
content: Quote from: gamalot on January 06, 2023, 11:08:46 amNo, try again……a different translation. You jumped but not straight to the correct answer.

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2023, 01:30:12 pm
content: Quote from: tautech on January 06, 2023, 01:19:46 pmOK! Here is another answer for freeresonant frequency 谐振频率

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2023, 01:33:38 pm
content: Quote from: gamalot on January 06, 2023, 01:30:12 pmSorry not that either.Getting closer.

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2023, 01:53:58 pm
content: Quote from: tautech on January 06, 2023, 01:33:38 pmGuessing without context is really hard, even for a native Chinese speaker, how about thisself-resonant frequency 自谐频率ortuning frequency 调谐频率

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2023, 02:03:32 pm
content: Quote from: gamalot on January 06, 2023, 01:53:58 pmSorry no again.Context.Earlier User manual for electronic equipment is best I can do for now as not being at workstation where I might still have copies of those old manuals.When revealed you will chuckle as it baffled an EE friend for several days just how a simple translation could go so wrong.

author: pdenisowski
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2023, 02:06:06 pm
content: Quote from: harerod on January 06, 2023, 01:05:53 pmMust be niceI recall seeing medical translation jobs advertised with the requirement that the translator be an actual licensed physician (MD) -- I always wondered how many people who went to medical school and also learned a foreign language were willing to work for < 20 cents a word.Quote from: harerod on January 06, 2023, 01:05:53 pmThat's about what I was making for Japanese -> English engineering documents in the early 1990s. At least I didn't have to compete with electronic translation tools, and outsourcing to foreign countries was difficult as well.

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2023, 02:51:28 pm
content: Quote from: tautech on January 06, 2023, 02:03:32 pmI added another answer (SRF) while you were typing, it must be right!

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2023, 08:17:54 pm
content: Quote from: gamalot on January 06, 2023, 02:51:28 pmYour answers thus far for a Humorous Frequency translation:harmonic frequencyresonant frequencytuning frequencyself-resonant frequencySorry, are all wrong !In terms of English understanding, #1 is the closest.Did I say it baffled an EE for some days ?

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2023, 01:06:43 am
content: Quote from: pdenisowski on January 06, 2023, 11:45:39 amAbsolutely. I worked as a technical translator for one big product (a decent size software package plus all the documentation -- user manual, help files, correspondence templates, website, etc.) from German to English. Since I also did support for the product, sometimes I'd have to write a brand new FAQ, for example, and I'd typically do it in English and then write a draft in German, but always gave it to a native speaker for proofreading. My German is good enough that it wouldn't have beenbad, just notperfect.Quote from: pdenisowski on January 06, 2023, 11:45:39 amYep. In fact, that's how I got the job doing the software translation: originally, a Swiss employee had done an initial translation to English, and of course the owners figured they just needed a native speaker to proofread it. But after discovering some translations that were so off that I couldn't figure out what they meant (or worse: ones that look right superficially, but are actually quite wrong!), it quickly became apparent that going back to the original German to verify the intent, and then comparing that to the "English" translation, was actually more time-consuming than simply starting over. So we trashed the nonnative translation and I did a whole new one. Along the way, it became a great UX review of the original German, since if a user interface is hard to describe, it may well be hard to use, too! And we found some interesting things, too, like: Was the original German menu item "Titel bearbeiten" singular or plural? For English, I had to know, since "Edit title" and "Edit titles" are not the same. But in German, since that particular word lacks a plural marker, they'd never thought about it! Sometimes, I'd reword things in English, and the boss liked it so much, he retranslated it back into German. (The company was run by academics at the time, and they were great at writing very verbose prose, but not the concise text needed for user interfaces. But they couldtranslateconcisely!)I had to immerse myself in the language of library science to do that job, but the end result was quite good.If anyone cares, that product isCitavi, a reference management program (like, to help you with a bibliography). Mind you, it's been 10 years since I left that company, so the product (and thus the language) has evolved since then. But I did take a look at the latest version recently (and, in fact, used it for real for the first time on a publication of my own!), and it looks like all the major terminology and wording is still mine.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2023, 01:16:38 am
content: Quote from: pdenisowski on January 06, 2023, 02:06:06 pmAbsolutely. People who need technical* translation work done often fail to recognize that a good technical translator not only needs to be a native speaker, but also a fundamentally good writeranda subject-matter expert. That combination doesn't come cheap, but it's necessary to achieve high quality.*For those who don't know, in the writing/translation world, "technical writing" (and "technical translation") fundamentally just means the counterpart to "creative writing": reports, documentation, memos, etc. Many would even consider typical "business" writing (correspondence, etc) to fall within it as well. As such, I find it rather curious that in school, we place so much emphasis on literary and creative writing, and not nearly enough on technical writing, despite the fact that that's the kind of writing most people will actually do throughout their careers. (Some of the rules apply equally to both, but others are exact opposites. A great example is how in school, we're taught to use synonyms to avoid repeating the same words over and over. But in technical writing, you want to use words consistently for clarity.)

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2023, 06:11:02 am
content: Quote from: tautech on January 06, 2023, 08:17:54 pmMy last try:Humorous Frequency -> 幽默频率 -> 诙谐频率 -> Witty Frequency -> 机智频率 -> Smart Frequency -> Automatic Tuning

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2023, 07:09:20 am
content: Quote from: gamalot on January 07, 2023, 06:11:02 amNot yet.Some context WRT FFT usage from a 10yr old manual:The FFT process mathematically converts a time-domain signal into itsfrequency components. You can use the Math FFT mode to view the following typesof signals:● Analyze the Humorous wave in the Power cable.● Test the Humorous content and distortion in the system................

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2023, 07:47:55 am
content: Quote from: tautech on January 07, 2023, 07:09:20 amThis has nothing to do with Chinese, it's just a person who is not good at English mistakenly wrote harmonic as humorous.

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2023, 07:56:36 am
content: Quote from: gamalot on January 07, 2023, 07:47:55 amSubstituteFundamental for Humorous.

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2023, 08:10:09 am
content: Quote from: tautech on January 07, 2023, 07:56:36 amNo, it doesn't make sense to me ...... unless someone mistranslated 'fundamental' into Chinese and then translated back into English

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2023, 08:43:14 am
content: Quote from: gamalot on January 07, 2023, 08:10:09 amYes, I believe that is what happened.Fun and Humor are near synonyms so English to Chinese back to English for Fundamental somehow came up with Humorous.I have a few of these 10yr old manuals which in context you get the general idea what is meant however it is amusing.Thanks for the Humorous good time !

author: pdenisowski
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2023, 01:18:33 pm
content: Quote from: gamalot on January 07, 2023, 07:47:55 amMy thought was also maybe a typo (in the text or in the translator's glossary). In the 1990s I once saw the English word "headlights" translated into German as "Schweinwerfer"Imagine my surprise / amusement when a did a quick search of Reverso just a moment ago:https://context.reverso.net/translation/german-english/SchweinwerferThis is different from things like "Videogashebel" which were clearly done by someone with no technical background.

author: Infraviolet
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2023, 06:53:16 pm
content: Schwein werfer? Pig thrower?

author: harerod
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2023, 11:52:55 am
content: Quote from: Infraviolet on January 07, 2023, 06:53:16 pmger. "Scheinwerfer" - engl. "sheen - caster" - a device that casts a sheen on the scene. As in a car's headlight."Schweinwerfer" would be a sample of pre-internet German humor. Insert/warp a part of a word and you end up with something funny, i.e. "Schwein" - "pig"."Scheinwerfer" allows for another - wrong or sarcastic - meaning: "Schein" -> "banknote" / "Werfer" -> "person who throws". "Person who throws money to people / at things."

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2023, 03:12:18 am
content: Behold theright ear VGA disk:https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000103927037.html

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2023, 01:44:55 pm
content: Quote from: amyk on February 20, 2023, 03:12:18 amBasically nothing seriously wrong here, it's the right ear control panel flex cable connect to the hard drive backplane (next to the VGA port).People may be confused by this description, but I think those who are really looking for it will understand.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 17, 2023, 04:29:45 am
content: Came across this one recently. Figuring out the meaning is left as an exercise for the reader

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 17, 2023, 05:04:15 am
content: Quote from: amyk on November 17, 2023, 04:29:45 amThis is too easy to Chinese native speakers.wheat = 麦 = 麦克风 = microphone

author: harerod
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 17, 2023, 09:45:56 am
content: amyk, gamalot - nice. GT reads 麦克风 as màikèfēng. So no big etymology, just hanzi being used for their sound value, right?(I checked and found no reference to this in Japanese, where the term is just rendered in katakana as マイクロフォン.)

author: Whales
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 17, 2023, 09:49:53 am
content: American throat clamps(I think this is perfect)

author: pdenisowski
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 17, 2023, 10:56:19 am
content: Quote from: gamalot on November 17, 2023, 05:04:15 amMarketing probably thought "话筒" isn't cool enoughI 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(风 = wind, 埋 = hide or bury, 客 = guest or customer)

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 17, 2023, 11:00:53 am
content: Quote from: pdenisowski on November 17, 2023, 10:56:19 amIts a poor transliteration of microphone. That one is easy to figure out, but why is the Chinese for a power supply a fire cow?

author: harerod
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 17, 2023, 11:27:32 am
content: Quote from: coppice onTodayat 12:00:53Logographic writing takes "technical jargon" to a whole different level...I wonder if one day I will find the spare time to delve into hanzi. So far, Japanese and its writing system keeps me plentybusyentertained.

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 17, 2023, 12:03:55 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on November 17, 2023, 11:00:53 amfire cow = 火牛 = power transform火牛 is the name for power transformer in Cantonese, toroidal transformer in Cantonese called 环牛.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 17, 2023, 12:26:57 pm
content: Quote from: gamalot on November 17, 2023, 12:03:55 pmYou 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.

author: harerod
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 17, 2023, 12:33:12 pm
content: Quote from: coppice onTodayat 13:26:57Assuming that your native language is English: Even your mother tongue names step-down converters after male ungulates...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...

author: pdenisowski
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 17, 2023, 03:54:00 pm
content: Quote from: harerod on November 17, 2023, 12:33:12 pmActually, 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) / (diànhuà)Japanese: 電話 (denwa)Korean: 전화 (jeonhwa)Vietnamese:điệnthoạiwhere 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 languagesChinese: 电流 / (diànliú) and电压 (diànyā)Japanese: 電]流 (denryū) and電圧 (denatsu)Korean: 전류 (jeonlyu) and전압 (jeonap)Vietnamese: dòngđiệnandđiệnápwhere 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/

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 17, 2023, 05:59:20 pm
content: Quote from: pdenisowski on November 17, 2023, 03:54:00 pmIf 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.

author: harerod
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 17, 2023, 06:25:23 pm
content: pdenisowski, first of all - thanks for your effort. Out of curiosity - have you met Jim Breen? He is a hero for many students of Japanese.Regarding "shared words" in Asian langauges - I am fully with you guys. What I actually meant to say: Learning my first Asian language (Japanese) made me feel like a toddler, because it made me start at about zero vocab and grammar. Things are improving. Of course one can find some familiar terms, it always makes me smile when I see technical terms based on old German works. My hometown is the birthplace of Siebold, a doctor who may have brought lots of medical terms into the Japanese language.The examples chosen by coppice show how easily one can browse Chinese datasheets. One knows what to expect, hanzi and unit give a hint or serve as a sanity check.

author: schmitt trigger
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 17, 2023, 06:52:52 pm
content: Every language has its own idiosyncrasies.In Spanish, cargar means, to charge, to load or to lift.Therefore the phrase:carga la bateria, could mean charge the battery, load the battery or lift the battery. The true meaning is known by context.Also, when one actually wants to mean to load the battery, one uses a more complete sentence like apply the load to the battery,aplica la carga a la batería.

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 18, 2023, 02:52:00 am
content: Quote from: harerod on November 17, 2023, 12:33:12 pmIn Cantonese, the term "牛" is used to specifically refer to a transformer. Some people call modern power adapters and even ATX power supplies "牛" just because they think those devices are also transformers.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 18, 2023, 03:05:41 pm
content: Quote from: gamalot on November 18, 2023, 02:52:00 amSo, A power supply is a transformer on fire?

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 18, 2023, 03:45:48 pm
content: Yes. Submarine-iron fish, bomber-pregnant bird. If there will be shortage of Navajo people by next world war, we could recruit some Chinese to talk code.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_talker

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2023, 12:06:18 am
content: Quote from: coppice on November 18, 2023, 03:05:41 pmEven I as a native Chinese speaker can't find a reasonable explanation, but I know that the term "火" here means "electricity". Relatedly, in Chinese, the live wire is called "火线", literally means "fire wire".

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2023, 12:34:19 am
content: Quote from: gamalot on November 19, 2023, 12:06:18 amAnd the formal word for electricity (literally spark) 電, forms 電車 which literally means electric vehicle, but actually means a gas powered motorbike. Languages are a mess.

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2023, 12:40:07 am
content: Quote from: coppice on November 19, 2023, 12:34:19 am"電單車" is a traditional Chinese term. In mainland Mandarin, motorcycle is transliterated as "摩托车".

author: EPAIII
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2023, 07:42:36 am
content: What I find most curious here is that the Chinese can actually read those characters at the scale that they appear on my computer screen. Either they have very sharp eyesight or they must have a different type font size setting on their computers.Quote from: niconiconi on July 21, 2022, 08:05:21 pm

author: EPAIII
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2023, 08:29:15 am
content: A lot of this is centered around Chinese, but they do not have an exclusive on terminology differences and confusion. Back in the 80s I worked in a TV station when the Japanese companies, like Sony and Ikegami, started to make equipment sales to the US TV market. I am talking about professional equipment, not consumer. This equipment came with thick manuals where maintenance and set-up procedures were explained on a step by step basis. Often there would be two or more thick manuals for a given item of equipment so there was a lot in them.One such manual, translated from the original Japanese, that I recall had a cover title that immediately told you that you were going to have real problems understanding what was within. That title read, "Color Handi Lookie System".It was not unusual to see small groups of our TV engineering staff standing around for a half hour or longer trying to understand just one sentence or phrase in that manual. And the item of equipment was stuck on a maintenance bench until the meaning was figured out. With our people afraid of messing things up to where only the factory could fix it, procedures that should have taken only a few minutes, wound up taking all week.The translations did get better with later generations of equipment. I am sure there was some unpleasant feedback on that manual.PS: If you haven't figured it out, "Color Handi Lookie System" meant "Hand-Held, Color, TV Camera".

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2023, 03:05:49 pm
content: Quote from: EPAIII on November 19, 2023, 07:42:36 amIts just a matter of familiarity. I didn't start learning to read Chinese until I was about 40. Not knowing any, I started out needing every element of the character to be clearly defined. As I started to grasp what makes sense as part of a character and what doesn't my need for clarity relaxed. I can't cope with the level of poor clarity that my children, raised reading Chinese, can, but I have gradually expanded what I can read. Note: doctor's writing is very hard to read in any language.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2023, 03:11:45 pm
content: Quote from: EPAIII on November 19, 2023, 08:29:15 amThat was the period when native English speakers set up agencies in Japan, not to translate Japanese documentation into English, but to clean up the terrible translations a second language speaker had produced. I used to know someone who seemed to make very good money doing that. A native English speaker, with some technical proficiency, and very little ability to speak Japanese. Just enough to be able to question the original Japanese author and try to figure out what they really meant.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2023, 03:14:08 pm
content: Quote from: gamalot on November 19, 2023, 12:40:07 amTrue, but in conversation 電單車 gets contracted to 電車, and in HK you are often left wondering whether someone meant the tram service or a motorbike.

author: harerod
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2023, 07:54:30 pm
content: Quote from: gamalot on November 19, 2023, 12:06:18 amOnly through learning secondary languages one starts to see the quirks his mother tongue...Soo - how fast in Chinese fire wire?Is there a rule to when 火 fire and when 電 lightning is used for electricity? Reading or meaning wise?How did the lightning end up in automobiles? Fiery and noisy?

author: harerod
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2023, 08:12:38 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on November 19, 2023, 03:11:45 pmHonestly - that sounds like my dream job. I offer technical translations into my native German and into English from several languages (e.g. Japanese, French). Most of the time I would be deemed too expensive. However, quite often good technical documentation is a must.Back in the 1980's was the time when I started collecting interesting translations. Documentation wording had to endure several hops, before it arrived in, for lack of a better word, German. We imagined how that text had started out in Korean, was then translated into Japanese, from there to English and finally to German.From the top of my head, some nice examples:-> a calculator able to work with "Zauberzahlen" (magic numbers, 0..F, you know?)-> that wonderful device could also figure out the "eingebildeten" components (conceited, from double meaning of the German word for "imaginery") of "komplizierten Zahlen" ("complicated Numbers" complex)From a monitor manual we had a whole load of gems like:-> don't water the technical equipment-> do gruesomely abuse not by walk on power cord (German text was: "niemals wandeln auf Stromkabel um grausam misshandeln")You get the idea, same as DNA got, when he gave Dirk Gently that I-Ching calculator.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2023, 10:47:16 pm
content: David Henry Hwang is an American playwright of Chinese ancestry, best known as the author of "M Butterfly".Back in 2011, we attended the premiere production of "Chinglish" in Chicago, done in English and Mandarin.The plot involves the interaction between an American businessman in China, and his translators and intended Chinese customers.It had an interesting use of "supertitles" (which are now ubiquitous in opera performances): the titles showed the literal translation back into English of the Chinese translator's translation of the English text."I represent a family-owned company in Ohio" became "He is from an insignificant company"

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2023, 10:52:39 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on November 19, 2023, 10:47:16 pmTranslation is a very imprecise tool. The fact that many of the "great works" to read in English started life in Russian has as much to do with the translation work falling into the hands of great bilingual writers as it does to the original Russian authors.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2023, 11:46:07 pm
content: The fun thing is that it absolutely doesn't prevent them from having an impressive economic growth with international business.

author: EPAIII
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 20, 2023, 03:18:37 am
content: Nor will it prevent an economic collapse there. It will be interesting to see which predictions come true.I am neither predicting nor encouraging anything here, just an observer.Quote from: SiliconWizard on November 19, 2023, 11:46:07 pm

author: pdenisowski
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 26, 2023, 03:25:36 am
content: Quote from: harerod on November 17, 2023, 06:25:23 pmJim and I go way, way back (early 1990s). In fact, I think I was Jim's first friend on FacebookI was a contributor to EDICT and Jim eventually folded my COMPDIC (Japanese-English computer dictionary) file into his main EDICT filehttp://nihongo.monash.edu/compdic_doc.htmlJim was also one of my heroes when I was studying Japanese (using a Canon Wordtank and a beat up copy of Nelson's dictionary)

author: pdenisowski
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 26, 2023, 03:38:51 am
content: Quote from: harerod on November 19, 2023, 08:12:38 pmI did translation work to support myself (financially) when I was working on my engineering degree: it wasn't great money even back then, but it paid (some of) the bills. Technical translation jobs always paid better than non-technical jobsThis was (long) before machine translation, electronic dictionaries, Google translate, etc. I haven't done translation work in a long time, but I can't imagine trying to make a living doing it now. Some of the AI translation tools are frighteningly good, even for more obscure languages or technical topics.My feeling is that in the future, translation as a profession will be limited primarily to books / literature, where you really need a human translator for style, nuance, etc.(I actually did translate an entire book once:https://www.si.edu/object/siris_sil_1089190)

author: harerod
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 26, 2023, 02:18:04 pm
content: Quote from: pdenisowski on November 26, 2023, 03:25:36 amWow, reading your reply gave me goosebumps. Without the aid of a computer and the free resources available online, learning any Japanese would most likely have been beyond my capabilities. I certainly noticed COMPDIC inside JMDICT, being an EE myself. Those collections are the foundation for tools that I use daily, such as Rikaichamp, Yomichan and Jisho.org, to name a few examples.I'd like to thank you again for your effort.I learn Japanese via English, simply because of the quality of the available material. Nevertheless, here's a link to a collection of my notes regarding Japanese in German, which mostly quotes sources in English or Japanese.http://www.harerod.de/nihongo/index.html

author: harerod
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 26, 2023, 02:48:30 pm
content: Quote from: pdenisowski on November 26, 2023, 03:38:51 amWell, I am offering technical translations, because of all the hilarious stuff that I have seen. The output from professional technical translation services must be checked, if one wants to avoid embarrassment. As can be seen not only in this thread...Learning a language is about understanding your foreign partner. Something that a translation tool cannot do for humans. I appreciate modern tools, but I see them as an extension to the basic abilities of a human being.I also appreciate the effort of all those guys who use their L2-English, rather than Google Translate, to contribute to this forum.I am pretty sure that I read this book in German. Messerschmid / Furrer, those names were well known to nerdy German kids back in 1985. STS-61-A, the penultimate flight of OV-099 Challenger.

author: soldar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 27, 2023, 03:06:40 pm
content: Quote from: janoc on July 24, 2022, 08:54:58 amSame in Spanish. Weld, braze, solder and sometimes even "glue" are "soldar", from latin solidus, to make solid.Most people do not realize how the language you speak conditions your perception of the world. But words are not single points with a one to one correspondence in other languages. Each word covers some area and that area can be covered by different words in another language and viceversa. Each word has a lot fo connotations and relations that it may not have in another language.An english-speaking person might thing it is strange that another language does not distinguish between welding, brazing and soldering and use the same word for all three.A native Spanish speaker might think it is strange that English speakers use the word "wall" for what in Spanish we distinguish many different categories. City walls, garden walls, load bearing walls, non-load bearing walls, retaining walls, etc. are just all "walls" in English.A common example is colors. Where one culture sees two different colors another culture sees two shades of the same color. Also the separation of two colors may exist in different points. Where does a mixture of blue-green become green?We have light blue and dark (navy) blue and consider them two shades of the same color. And yet we see dark orange and call it brown and consider it a different color altogether.

author: soldar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 27, 2023, 03:12:03 pm
content: English as she is spokehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_as_She_Is_SpokeEnglish as She Is Spoke, is a 19th-century book written by Pedro Carolino, with some editions crediting José da Fonseca as a co-author. It was intended as a Portuguese–English conversational guide or phrase book. However, because the provided translations are usually inaccurate or unidiomatic, it is regarded as a classic source of unintentional humour in translation.The humour largely arises from Carolino's indiscriminate use of literal translation, which has led to many idiomatic expressions being translated ineptly. For example, Carolino translates the Portuguese phrase chover a cântaros as "raining in jars", when an analogous English idiom is available in the form of "raining buckets".Mark Twain said ofEnglish as She Is Spoke"Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2025, 05:45:38 am
content: As old as this thread is, I must say it's still quite useful as I've noticed a small increase in the number of native Chinese posters on this forum talking through a translator recently, and the accompanying mentions of MOS tubes, multimeter gears, and hosts.

author: daisizhou
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2025, 06:54:43 am
content: Quote from: amyk on September 02, 2025, 05:45:38 amThat's because currently China requires strict internet censorship to post anything.Mobile phone number and personal ID real-name authentication is required.Many amateur electronic gamers cannot post or communicate, so they come to the EEVBLOG forum, and the atmosphere here is very good.

author: LaserSteve
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2025, 04:00:18 pm
content: SMT Solder paste for one of our Chinese clients is "Black Bean Paste" when it was translated. As in "Ensure the "black bean paste" is properly spread by the machine to a thickness of 0.0xx MM. "That took some explaining to some ladies who have been soldering for 30 years.We had a Chinese born Professor of Chemistry, and one day I walked up to her with a Amazon sourced roll of "Molybdenum" wire, and asked her to confirm it was Moly, as it had no English label and had the distinct appearance of brass. "Oh I don't know, that could be any of five metals, as we have different names for Everything!" So, I was off to the spectroscopy lab for a spark test.Once upon a time, a Russian Postdoc walked up to me with a chunk of 6061 Aluminum and asked me to "Make it Squarical" in the machine shop. He based that on Spherical. The laughter of those surrounding us was immense! Soon the whole College was asking for "Squarical" parts. I will never forget that.(For those who are not native speakers of English, the correct phrase would be "Can you square this up?", as the "CAL" ending is only used with a few words.Alex, wherever you are, I miss you and Alexi!Steve

author: HwAoRrDk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2025, 05:36:10 pm
content: Quote from: LaserSteve on September 02, 2025, 04:00:18 pmOn a related note, it may amuse you to know that there is actually a shape colloquially know as a "Squircle".

author: LaserSteve
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2025, 06:31:01 pm
content: HwAoRrDk wrote..."On a related note, it may amuse you to know that there is a shape colloquially know as a "Squircle"."Argh, I stand corrected. Postdoc in Question was a light scattering and neutron scattering specialist. He probably used the correct optics definition as referenced in your post. Everything was massively overbuilt to avoid resonances and thermal drift.For a few years there I had to keep the lasers locked to an iodine adsorption line, and I dare say I had optical frequency stabilities comparable to NIST at the time. I probably set some records for Coherence Length as well. Brillouin scattering at the professional level is not easy.Still, we all had a good laugh, including him.Now I'm laughing even more, but he did like sharp, square, edges on his devices. Parallelism was a must.Thank You for letting me know!

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2025, 04:12:39 am
content: To circle back (or perhaps squircle back...?) on the original post, it's worth noting that as of this post, the single result Google gives for a search of"brick nogging" "立帖"is the page athttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikumenon which both appear, although they are clearly mentioned on the first page of this thread, showing how useless Google is becoming at finding things. (I can't believe there are NO other pages on the Internet that have both those two terms.)

author: fzabkar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2025, 04:47:25 am
content: I watch a Chinese Youtube channel where "NAND flash IC" is translated as "particle". How does that come about?

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2025, 07:34:57 am
content: Quote from: fzabkar on September 03, 2025, 04:47:25 amI believe you heard "闪存颗粒".It is an informal, non-professional, and popular term, especially in spoken Chinese. Here, "颗粒" is used to describe granular objects.This term is generally only used for smaller chips such as memory chips or flash chips that often appear in groups.I highly suspect that the term originated in Taiwan, or perhaps Hong Kong.

author: Chicane
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2025, 08:27:10 am
content: Disposable Fuses.Some time last year they renamed the conventional fuses to Disposable. I've also seen them listed as Single-use Fuses on Aliexpress. PTC fuses (Polyfuses) they call Resettable Fuses.

author: HwAoRrDk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2025, 11:54:34 am
content: Quote from: gamalot on September 03, 2025, 07:34:57 amThat reminds me of something I saw recently (but I don't remember where): a translation from whatever the Chinese was for "small metal parts" to "shrapnel".Technically Isupposeit could almost be considered correct, but it's a very odd translation."Shrapnel" is colloquially used in British cockney slang (but not as rhyming) for a collection of small coins. I wonder whether Chinese has a similar slang usage, or if that was just a weird wrong-context translation.

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2025, 06:25:01 pm
content: Quote from: HwAoRrDk on September 03, 2025, 11:54:34 amI believe the name of that part is "弹片", it can have two meanings, one is a springy piece of metal, such as a battery contact spring, and the other is a shrapnel.

author: daisizhou
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2025, 07:25:12 pm
content: Quote from: HwAoRrDk on September 03, 2025, 11:54:34 amTo be precise, this is because you don't understand Chinese.The first character of “弹片” (弹) is a polyphonetic character.When pronounced with the second tone, it is pronounced "tan" and means "a thin, sheet-like object of metal."When pronounced with the fourth tone, it is pronounced "dan" and means "a fragment of a shell or bullet".For text comprehension, you need to combine context to understand it most accurately.

author: HwAoRrDk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2025, 09:06:49 pm
content: Quote from: daisizhou on September 03, 2025, 07:25:12 pmThat is very much not in doubt.Quote from: daisizhou on September 03, 2025, 07:25:12 pmAh, so the source Chinese text may well have been correct, it was just a poor translation to English.

author: daisizhou
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2025, 09:50:50 pm
content: When pronounced with the second tone, it is pronounced "tan" and means "a thin, sheet-like object of metal."It mainly emphasizes that the sheet object is an elastic object.For example, let's say I describe the positive or negative contact of a battery box.For the positive electrode, I will describe the metal contact piece, and for the negative electrode, I will add the negative electrode spring. At this time, using "弹片" can well let the reader understand that the negative electrode is an elastic contact piece.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 05:14:25 am
content: Here's another one I just came across while looking at Ethernet components: RJ45 plugs are apparently called "crystal heads".https://www.hkscable.com/info/what-is-a-crystal-head-94114318.html

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 08:49:25 am
content: Quote from: amyk on September 05, 2025, 05:14:25 amIn Chinese, the RJ45 plug is often nicknamed "水晶头", which literally translates to "crystal head".The name comes from its clear plastic housing ("水晶 crystal") and the word “头”, a shortened form of "插头 plug".

author: harerod
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 12:54:10 pm
content: Quote from: daisizhou on September 03, 2025, 07:25:12 pmAs I student of Japanese and casual reader of Chinese datasheets I enjoy this thread tremendously.Quote from: daisizhou on September 03, 2025, 07:25:12 pmThis character prompted this post: Japanese: 弾 TC: 彈 SC: 弹I like to look at the etymology of Japanese writing. A while ago I started to have a closer look at the patterns of Simplified Chinese writing, in comparison to Traditional Chinese and contemporary Japanese.Although the number of Japanese characters is small in comparison with the vast amount of Chinese, knowing a few relationships between kanji, TC and SC helps in finding a rough meaning in Chinese datasheets. And, best of all, it is fun. However, the relationships are rather complex. Let me share a mapping table that I have been using for a while. Upon closer look one sees that the relationships are non-reversable and depending on context.

author: daisizhou
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 02:14:46 pm
content: I'm glad you're interested in Traditional Chinese characters.Frankly speaking, Traditional Chinese can better reflect the original meaning of this word. The only drawback is that the writing efficiency is very low.Ancient Chinese people used brushes to write, which we call calligraphy(书法)。Many areas far from mainland China, such as Hong Kong and Taiwan, still use Traditional Chinese.Traditional Chinese can better reflect our culture

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 02:32:37 pm
content: “Calligraphy” is itself a lovely word, literally meaning “beautiful writing”. Another nice word is “callipygian” from the same Greek root.Besides Chinese, Arabic calligraphy is very artistic, while well-done Roman and Hebrew writing can be delicate.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 08:54:19 pm
content: Beautiful writing, indeed.Here's my most lately-noticed example of calligraphy, a book cover:(Great read, by the way)

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 08:58:33 pm
content: Unfortunately, modern Chinese calligraphy no longer has anything to do with beauty ...

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 09:15:35 pm
content: Quote from: gamalot on September 05, 2025, 08:58:33 pmReally? Example?

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 09:18:44 pm
content: For those with enough money to buy calligraphy at Christie's:https://www.christies.com/en/stories/collecting-guide-5-traditional-chinese-calligraphy-artists-to-follow-at-auction-32f4f8536202423b9f9f0d333c674a11

author: harerod
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2025, 07:11:48 pm
content: Quote from: daisizhou on September 05, 2025, 02:14:46 pmGlad to hear a native speaker back up my thoughts. Many kanji still have an alternative writing, which quite often happens to be the same form as Traditional Chinese.Japanese writing also suffers from reforms. Since I heavily rely on the graphemes to remember kanji, simplified forms pose a big challenge. The whole kanji feels "off".Right now I try to remember how common graphemes, such as 車 or 頁, get rendered in Simplified Chinese, which should boost my reading. Although I am really interested in Chinese, I feel that I shouldn't tackle another language. Japanese already has a huge impact on my French. So I will leave it at 3.5 active languages. Chinese phonetics would be a nice challenge, though.

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2025, 07:31:09 pm
content: Quote from: harerod on September 06, 2025, 07:11:48 pmI'm sorry that as a native Chinese speaker I can't fully relate to your experience. I haven't learned any traditional Chinese characters myself, but most of the time I can read them correctly, relying on the context.

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2025, 07:34:30 pm
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on September 05, 2025, 09:15:35 pmIt is obvious that modern Chinese calligraphers have no way to surpass their ancient predecessors, so they have taken a different approach and deliberately made their works very novel, and of course, weird and ugly.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2025, 07:36:00 pm
content: It is obvious that novelty must be weird and ugly?

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2025, 07:49:58 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on September 06, 2025, 07:36:00 pmFor me, YES.Calligraphy is a thing with thousands of years of history. It has gone from being a necessary skill to a hobby for a select few. It's difficult to innovate, and even harder to be innovative and excellent.https://youtu.be/fhaENtq5V3g?si=SOgdJPNAjrtC5enahttps://youtu.be/7GrmmYohrBk?si=GPvCARCn7jkC1AGg

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2025, 08:03:29 pm
content: Ordinarily, if the trend for a given art is to go from a common activity to an elite activity, one would expect the peak level to remain roughly constant, but the average level (eliminating the less-interested or less-skilled users) to improve.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2025, 08:45:25 pm
content: Can someone please post an example or three of this supposed new ugly Chinese calligraphy style?I'm still in the dark here (and I wonder if I'd even be able to really discern the difference, as I'm not a Chinese reader or writer). But I am curious to see the difference.

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2025, 09:01:13 pm
content: After some careful reflection, I realized it might be unfair to place all the blame on contemporary calligraphers. The trend of deliberately writing characters in strange—even ugly—ways actually began as early as the Ming dynasty.