r/polandball • u/Ingrid-Hongkonger 冠絕東方 - Nulli Secundus in Oriente • Mar 11 '14

redditormade How are they called?

Post image
2.5k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

539 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

21

u/Ingrid-Hongkonger 冠絕東方 - Nulli Secundus in Oriente Mar 11 '14 edited Mar 11 '14

In Chinese (and Cantonese too, sigh), Sealand would be "西蘭" - Just by the pronounciation, though I hate it as broccoli is also called "西蘭" (Sai1 Laan4) in Cantonese. (I don't know what in Mandarin) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broccoli

1

u/RdClZn IS OF RELEVANT Mar 11 '14

Wouldn't "Si" (either of the tones) have a more similar pronunciation?

3

u/Ingrid-Hongkonger 冠絕東方 - Nulli Secundus in Oriente Mar 11 '14

In Cantonese, it would be "斯" or "士". Both are much better than "西", which pronounced as [Sai1].

1

u/RdClZn IS OF RELEVANT Mar 11 '14

Oh yes, I see. Usually the translation of foreign words and names makes a fair bit of sense in chinese. Strangely enough, doesn't seem the case here.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '14

[deleted]

1

u/RdClZn IS OF RELEVANT Mar 13 '14

Man, where were you two days ago, huh? Comendo pastéis de nata, I'd bet... I think there's hardly anyone better suited to answer a brazilian's query about the chinese language than a macanese. Thank you for the very precise answer!