Help needed on third supplement

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Does anyone know the Cantonese for:

"Bad Town"

and

"Small Village"

That would be most helpful.

Many thanks,
Ron

[Matt Wilson]

Hello,

Does anyone know the Cantonese for:

"Bad Town"

and

"Small Village"

That would be most helpful.

Many thanks,
Ron

Babel Fish is actually pretty good for this. My gf knows Mandarin (sorry, I tried) but said she gets good results for Mandarin when she plugs words in.

[Bankuei]

Ron, if you happen to find a good source, please post it for use.  I'd love to get a good source on Cantonese.  As it is, my family speaks a dialect near to cantonese, and all I remember is the word for "Bad boy!" from the spankings I received... :P

Chris

[Ron Edwards]

Hi guys,

Um, it's nice of you to post and all, but I'm not seeing an answer yet ...

Anyone?

Best,
Ron

[xiombarg]

Ron, perhaps these people can help you:

http://www.freelang.net/translation/index.html

They have people who know Cantonese and will do short little translations for free.

[Mike Holmes]

Babel Fish is actually pretty good for this. My gf knows Mandarin (sorry, I tried) but said she gets good results for Mandarin when she plugs words in.

I think that Wilson there was refering to:

http://www.babelfish.com/main.html

Mike

[Matt Wilson]

I think that Wilson there was refering to:

http://www.babelfish.com/main.html

Mike

Doh! Provide link good. More coffee please.

Thanks Mike.

[Gordon C. Landis]

From the program available at :

http://www.freelang.net/dictionary/cantonese.html

bad = m ho
village = hèung chùen
small= säi

No word for "town" in that dictionary . . .

[jrs]

Hi Ron,

I asked my boss about the Cantonese translation for "Bad Town" and "Small Village".  Her first language is Mandarin.  The written Chinese for Mandarin and Cantonese are the same, but the spoken and romanized versions are not.  She is not able to romanize to Cantonese, but she had some questions that you may want to consider-- primarily that the two phrases are not ones that would be used in Chinese.  The closest equivalent she could think of for "Bad Town" is "Ghost Town".  For "Small Village", it would be either "Poor Village" or "Half-deserted Village".  If you want to pursue this you may want to clarify what you mean by "bad" and "small".

Julie

[Gordon C. Landis]

OK, I went to a co-worker with a Cantonese-speaking wife, and another with a Cantonese-speaking mother, and got identical answers

1. Bad Town = wai sing si
2. Small Village = siu chuen

Still no guarantee, given all the subtleties of translation, but there you go - hope it helps.

Gordon

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

"Bad Town" = full of troublesome, quarrelsome people.
"Small Village" = not very many houses or farms (but not deserted or half-empty)

Anyway, I'll go with Gordon's terms, just for the hell of it, unless it turns out that his translations were way off the mark in terms of meaning, as clarified above.

Thanks to everyone!

Best,
Ron