Chinese Touhou names

[game2011]

Felt like sharing this with everyone.  Anyway, these are the names for the characters in Chinese, and speaking of which, Touhou is called "Dong Fang", meaning East Side.

Reimu = Lin-Mong
Shingyouku = Sun-Yu
Mima = Mei-Muo
Elis = Ee-Li-Si
Kikuri = Ju-Li
YuugenMagan = Yo-Shuen-Muo-Yen
Sariel = Sa-Li-Ai-Ur
Konngara = Jin-Jie-Luo

Genji = Shuen-Yeh
Rika = Li-Shiang
Meira = Ming-Luo
Marisa = Muo-Li-Sa

Kana = Ka-Na
Rikako = Li-Shiang-Zi
Ellen = Ai-Lien
Chiyuri = Chien-Bai-Huh
Yumemi = Mong-Mei

Orange = Tsun
Kurumi = Hoo-Tao
Elly = Ai-Li
Yuuka = Yo-Shiang
Gengetsu = Shuen-Yueh
Mugetsu = Mong-Yueh

Sara = Sa-Luo
Luize = Lu-Yi-Zi
Alice = Ai-Li-Su
Yuki = Shueh
Mai = Wu
Yumeko = Mong-Zi
Shinki = Sun-Chi

Rumia = Lu-Mi-Ya
Daiyousei = Da-Yeow-Jin
Cirno = Shi-Lu-Nuo
Meiling = Mei-Ling
Koakuma = Shiao-Uh-Muo
Patchouli = Pa-Chio-Li
Sakuya = Shiao-Yeh
Remilia = Lei-Mi-Li-Ya
Flandre = Fu-Lan-Duh-Ru

Letty = Lei-Di
Chen = Tsun (yes, it's the exact same word and pronunciation as Orange's)
Lily White = Li-Li-Bai
Lyrica = Li-Li-Ka
Merlin = Mei-Lu-Lin
Lunasa = Lu-Na-Sa
Youmu = Yeow-Mong
Yuyuko = Yo-Yo-Zi
Ran = Lan
Yukari = Zi

Suika = Tsuay-Shiang

Wriggle = Li-Guh-Loo
Mystia = Mi-Si-Di-Ji
Keine = Huay-Yin
Tewi = Di
Reisen = Ling-Shien
Eirin = Yong-Lin
Kaguya = Huay-Yeh
Mokou = Mei-Hong

Aya = Wuin
Medicine = Mei-Di-Shin
Komachi = Shiao-Sun
Shikieiki = Shi-Ji-Yin-Ji

Shizuha = Jin-Yeh
Minoriko = Zang-Zi
Hina = Tsu
Nitori = Si-Niao/Huh-Chu (both are pronounced as Nitori, so Chinese/Taiwanese fans can't decide which it is since there is no official translation)
Momiji = Hua
Sanae = Zao-Meow
Kanako = Sun-Nai-Zi
Suwako = Zou-Fang-Zi

Iku = Ee-Jio
Tenshi = Tien-Zi

Kisume = Chi-Su-Mei
Yamame = San-Nu
Parsee = Pa-Lu-Shi
Yuugi = Yong-Yi
Satori = Jueh
Rin = Lin
Utsuho = Kong
Koishi = Lien

Nazrin = Na-Zi-Lin
Kogasa = Shiao-San
Ichirin = Ee-Luin
Unzan = Yun-San
Minamitsu = Suay-Mi
Shou = Shin
Byakuren = Bai-Lien
Nue = Yeh

Hatate = Ji

Sunny Milk = Sang-Ni-Mi-Ur-Kuh
Luna Child = Lu-Na-Tsai-Ur-Duh
Star Sapphire = Su-Da-Sa-Fei-Ya

Kyouko = Shiang-Zi
Yoshika = Fang-Shiang
Seiga = Chin-Uh
Tojiko = Tuo-Zi-Gu
Futo = Bu-Doh/Bu-Doo (the second word in her name can be pronounced either way)
Miko = Sun-Zi
Mamizou = Tuan-Tsang

Rinnosuke = Lin-Zi-Zu
Tokiko = Zu-Lu-Zi
Toyohime = Fong-Ji
Yorihime = Ee-Ji
Kasen = Hua-Shien
Maribel = Ma-Ai-Zuay-Bei-Li
Renko = Lien-Zi
Akyuu = Ah-Chio
Youki = Yeow-Ji
Layla = Li-La

I tried my best to spell them out in English.  Because certain Chinese words cannot be pronounced or spelled out in English properly, not everything you read is accurate.  For example, all the "Zi" or actually pronounced like "Zz", as in the sound of electricity.  Instead of spelling them in official romanization, I spelled them according to the pronunciation.  Some of the spellings don't look much like the way they are pronounced.

Now before some of you go like "Why the name changes?", let me remind you that these are not changes, but literal translations.  Names in China/Taiwan and Japan are similar in the way that they are different words combined together, unlike English names.  Reimu is the combination of spirit and dream, and the same goes for her Chinese name.  Japanese names will pretty always be pronounced differently in Chinese because of translation, but Western names, due to not being compromised of more than one word, retain their pronunciations, sometimes with minor differences due to certain words not being able to be pronounced in Chinese or for the sake of trying to make it sound better.

People who have good knowledge of Chinese will understand what I'm saying and will also not complain about the names.  Seriously, I can safely assure you that you will never find anyone in Taiwan and China saying that the Japanese names sound better whenever talking about Chinese dubs.

Also...

Junya Oota (ZUN's real name) = Tai-Tien Suin-Yei

Thanks for taking your time to read through them!  Any comments? 

[AAAAAAAAAAAAA]

Meira = Ming Luo. Missed her by accident?

E: Miko is more "Shen Zi" than "Sun Zi".
E2: IMO, Dao Ye would be more fitting for Tewi, even though it refers to the original Inaba.
E3: Mistyped Aya's "Wun" as "Wuin".

[EdibleGhost]

Huh, cool idea

I found 3 things that kind of sparked my interest
Tenshi has the same name as Tianzi from CG? Kind of cool, since I'm assuming Tianzi(天子) means child of heaven.

I also like how, Seiga's pronunciation Chin-Uh kind of kills this part of her wiki page(unless this isn't mandarine)

Her full name is Seiga Kaku (霍 青娥). Her nickname is Seiga Nyan Nyan (青娥 娘々, lit. Lady Seiga). Kaku (霍) is a genuine if uncommon Chinese surname pronounced "Huo" in Mandarin Chinese. Likewise, her given name Seiga (青娥), is pronounced "Qing'e" in Mandarin Chinese and literally means "Blue/Green Beauty".

And lastly, that Miko's name would come out as Sunzi, aka Sun tsu the Art of War guy.

Also I thought Meiling would be Zhong Guo

[game2011]

Meira = Ming Luo. Missed her by accident?

E: Miko is more "Shen Zi" than "Sun Zi".
E2: IMO, Dao Ye would be more fitting for Tewi, even though it refers to the original Inaba.
E3: Mistyped Aya's "Wun" as "Wuin".

Yeah, missed out Meira's...  Wanted to go to the Chinese Wikipedia to check out ones I forgot, but missed her out...

Again, I spelled out the names according to how they are pronounced, and as far as pronunciation goes, it's pronounced "Sun", not "Sen".  I know that's how official rominization spells it, but like I said in the first post, pronunciations are sometimes different from the spellings themselves.  Same applies for "Wuin" and "Wun".

[Berzul]

*Thinks about the idea.. reads some names out-loud in "stereotypical Chinese"*

Does sound Chinese yes...

[Ibaraki Ibuki]

Isn't China's name already in Chinese? 

Overall, this is pretty impressive guide. I'd say your pronunciations are a reasonable approximation for non-Chinese speakers. (I'm learning Chinese myself, so I find this especially cool.)

By the way, if you're using pinyin, the 神 character in Miko's name does sound more like "shen" rather than "sun".

[Transugano Sora]

I have a feeling this is Wade-Giles romanization...

Which I heavily disagree with and suggest using Hanyu Pinyin instead to avoid confusion. Well, I am a native Chinese speaker though so I cannot speak for those who cannot speak Chinese natively, Wade-Giles may be easier for them to sort of grasp basic pronunciation. Yet, Hanyu Pinyin gives you correct and accurate intonations.

青娥
In Wade-giles it is Ching-Oh
In Hanyu Pinyin it is Qing1e2

[game2011]

I'm a native Chinese speaker as well (I'm Taiwanese) in case you're curious.

[Kinoko]

What dialect is this? My Chinese reading and speaking are dismal at best, but shouldn't 橙 be cheng, not tsun in Mandarin?

[game2011]

What dialect is this? My Chinese reading and speaking are dismal at best, but shouldn't 橙 be cheng, not tsun in Mandarin?

I believe it's Mandarin, assuming that's the most commonly heard Chinese is called, and yes, I know that it is always spelled Chen, but as far as I know, there is no pronunciation in Chinese that sounds exactly like the English pronunciation for words like men, ten, Ken, etc., so while the spelling is Chen, the actual pronunciation sounds something like Tsun.

[巫女パン Trade Shrine]

As someone learning Mandarin (traditional + simplified sets), I'd say it could use some tone marks or denotations. I'd prefer it use Pinyin for romanization, since most learners use that standard.

BRB making Korean version (based on Revised Romanization)...assuming Dormio, psyfaqs, Sungho, etc. don't beat me to it

[N-Forza]

青娥
In Wade-giles it is Ching-Oh
In Hanyu Pinyin it is Qing1e2

How do you pronounce "2"?

[game2011]

How do you pronounce "2"?

Er, or Ur, though the official spelling is the former.  Yes, I know they both have the same pronunciations.

As for tone marks and denotations...  Well, I don't know how to make visible here.  I can copy and paste things from Google Translate, but like I said in my first post, I want to spell out the names according to how they are pronounced and not how they are officially/usually spelled.

BTW, a friend of mines, known here as Savory, finds Sanae's Chinese name downright hilarious.

[KFCbbQ]

How do you pronounce "2"?

Handy guide on Mandarin tones for gaijins!

1 is a flat, high pitch tone that you make when you say "meh".
2 starts at a low pitch and gradually climbs up to a high pitch. The same tone that you make when an idiot says something impossible to comprehend and you go "what?" or "huh?"
3 is a difficult one. Start at a low pitch, dive slightly downwards and then resurface. If two consecutive words have this tone then the preceding word changes to 2.
4 starts high and finishes low. It is the tone that you hear from frustrated people saying "fuck!" or "oh shit!".

Hope it helps!

[Starxsword]

Cantonese speaker here, so I can't really place the pronunciations of most of the words, since it is using Mandarin.

[Darth_Sirov]

I'm at most a Fokien/Hokkien speaker (used to be able to speak a bit of Mandarin, but haven't spoke it for a long time)... so at some of the names with direct chinese words, I read them with the mentioned dialect.

[Ran Yakumo]

BRB making Korean version (based on Revised Romanization)...assuming Dormio, psyfaqs, Sungho, etc. don't beat me to it

I think that that list would be rather boring.
Since, you know, the Korean counterparts to the Japanese names are pretty much identical.

I guess one interesting thing to note would be that the pronunciation of "東方" (동방) is much more similar to the Chinese pronunciation.
In Korean, it's read something like "Dong Baang".

[Darth_Sirov]

I think that that list would be rather boring.
Since, you know, the Korean counterparts to the Japanese names are pretty much identical.

I guess one interesting thing to note would be that the pronunciation of "東方" (동방) is much more similar to the Chinese pronunciation.
In Korean, it's read something like "Dong Baang".

That kind of sounds like either a type of food or something else.

[巫女パン Trade Shrine]

I think that that list would be rather boring.
Since, you know, the Korean counterparts to the Japanese names are pretty much identical.

Already knew that coming in, as the languages are insanely similar to begin with. Wasn't intending on doing so as a result.

But oh well, another example of that - Meiling (美鈴) in Korean would read as 미령 (Mi-Ryeong). Odd to see the Japanese pronunciation (meirin) closer to the Mandarin one, in this case.

[game2011]

Handy guide on Mandarin tones for gaijins!

1 is a flat, high pitch tone that you make when you say "meh".
2 starts at a low pitch and gradually climbs up to a high pitch. The same tone that you make when an idiot says something impossible to comprehend and you go "what?" or "huh?"
3 is a difficult one. Start at a low pitch, dive slightly downwards and then resurface. If two consecutive words have this tone then the preceding word changes to 2.
4 starts high and finishes low. It is the tone that you hear from frustrated people saying "fuck!" or "oh shit!".

Hope it helps!

There's also the fifth tone, but I don't really know how to describe it.  The best way I can describe it would be something like making short and simple grunts.

[Ran Yakumo]

But oh well, another example of that - Meiling (美鈴) in Korean would read as 미령 (Mi-Ryeong). Odd to see the Japanese pronunciation (meirin) closer to the Mandarin one, in this case.

Well, if you were to convert the names written in Chinese characters, rather than hiragana/katagana, I guess that could be interesting.

In fact, I might do this when it's not past midnight and I want to go to sleep.

[巫女パン Trade Shrine]

I've learned the fifth tone as a neutral one. Basically speaking it was flat, had no special pitch positioning, and tended to be short (eg. 好啊, or hao3 a).

Also, inb4 Cantonese / other dialect and Vietnamese tones.

Well, if you were to convert the names written in Chinese characters, rather than hiragana/katagana, I guess that could be interesting.

That's what I was intending anyway. Transliterating the kana into Hangul is too easy.

[AAAAAAAAAAAAA]

Fifth tone is short and abrupt, but not "angry" like fourth tone. Like the "Pop!" in "Pop goes the weasel", without the high pitch.

[Transugano Sora]

Handy guide on Mandarin tones for gaijins!

1 is a flat, high pitch tone that you make when you say "meh".
2 starts at a low pitch and gradually climbs up to a high pitch. The same tone that you make when an idiot says something impossible to comprehend and you go "what?" or "huh?"
3 is a difficult one. Start at a low pitch, dive slightly downwards and then resurface. If two consecutive words have this tone then the preceding word changes to 2.
4 starts high and finishes low. It is the tone that you hear from frustrated people saying "fuck!" or "oh shit!".

1 = -
2 = \
3 = v
4 = /

They are usually indicated on top of a particular letter in the pronunciation, usually a vowel. I can't type accented pinyin, so I use this particular notation.

the actual pronunciation sounds something like Tsun.

Again, shockingly close to the Wade-giles romanization, which I really disagree with providing people because it's just not accurate. If you use Hanyu Pinyin as a reference you'll get the intonations and the actual sounds correct most of the time in actual practice.

[KFCbbQ]

1 = -
2 = /
3 = v
4 = \

Fixed

I also think it is a good idea to include the hanyu pinyin here as a reference as the accuracy in many of the listed pronunciations is debatable.

[Transugano Sora]

Fixed

I always get 2 and 4 mixed up

[game2011]

Again, shockingly close to the Wade-giles romanization, which I really disagree with providing people because it's just not accurate. If you use Hanyu Pinyin as a reference you'll get the intonations and the actual sounds correct most of the time in actual practice.

Input this word, 橙, into Google Translate and have it pronounced in Chinese.  You'll see that the pronunciation is that of a short u sound and not a short e sound.  I know the voices in GT isn't accurate 100% of the time, but as a Taiwanese, I can assure you that it is indeed pronounced with a short u sound.

[Kinoko]

Chen sounds very much like Cheng to me. Hanyu pinyin isn't really pronounced like English.

[Transugano Sora]

Input this word, 橙, into Google Translate and have it pronounced in Chinese.  You'll see that the pronunciation is that of a short u sound and not a short e sound.  I know the voices in GT isn't accurate 100% of the time, but as a Taiwanese, I can assure you that it is indeed pronounced with a short u sound.

I'm familiar with Mandarin, Cantonese, and Fukien/Hokkien and in my forays in mainland China, I hear 橙 pronounced more of a mixture of u/e (eu?) than one or the other. I tend not to trust those voice things though.

[Walthermelonz]

Yea, the e in pinyin is almost always just a short "u" sound that kinda sounds like the u in "gun". Though you wouldn't want to spell 橙 with a u, since that letter is being used by the "oo" sound like in "poop". For instance, 车/車 is spelled chē in pinyin, and is pronounced with the short "u" sound; but if it were chū then you'd get 出 instead.

Pinyin is probably the most accurate alphabet representation of Chinese, but it's not perfect. A lot of the time you can't pronounce it like an English word. The letters of the Latin alphabet were assigned to specific sound in pinyin, and sometimes you'd get an entirely different sound than what the letter usually represents. The word 青 is written as qīng in pinyin, but it sure as hell doesn't make a regular English "q" sound. It's just a regular "ch" sound like in "chew" or "choke", but they can't use ch for 青 because ch represents a different sound.  The ch in pinyin is really similar to the pinyin q sound. Pinyin ch is also like a regular "ch" sound but with your tongue curled back. So I guess they just picked a random letter they haven't used yet, and ended up with q or something, I don't know.

Man, even though I'm a native speaker, I don't really like the language that much. A lot of the pronunciation sounds like people are mad at each other, the writing system is inefficient and tedious, and it's hard as fuck to learn as a second language.