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How do (most) Chinese people pronounce Japanese names?

I don't know, but I thought it would be interesting to see how the Chinese Wikipedia names some prominent Japanese.

Abe Shinzo is referred to as 安倍晋三 which is Ānbèi Jìnsān. That's what you get if you read the kanji as hanzi.

Takahashi Rumiko is called 高桥留美子 which is Gāoqiáo Liúměizi. Same procedure, but more surprising since "Takahashi" is a kun reading (I think).

The articles give both the kana readings and romanizations, but don't bother to give any sort of phonetic Chinese rendering.

I asked the same question once (maybe it wasnt here) and I dont remember the answer. All I know is Japanese coinages using Chinese vocabulary seem to be pronounced using the normal Chinese sounds of whatever dialect the speaker uses. e.g. Mandarin for haiku is "páijù", just as if Mandarin had had a word for haiku all along that had gone through the normal 1400 years of sound changes that occurred since the Japanese loaned their alphabet.

It's usually pronunced as a normal Chinese character conforming to whatever dialect the speaker is speaking in. If a character is in kun'yomi and there are more than one way to pronunce it in the speaker's Chinese, then the "correct" way to read it is to choose the one whose meaning matches the Japanese best. For example, the naga(長) in Nobunaga has two pronunciations in Mandarin: cháng "long" and zhǎng "grow", "elder", but since the kun'yomi is clearly the stem of the adjective nagai "long", cháng becomes the "correct" pronunciation.

For Japanese-invented crypto-chinese characters, if they match existing/existed characters, then they're pronunced accordingly. If they don't, then they are read like radical-phonetic characters.

And names in kana will be given a kanji/hanzi then pronounced with chinese reading.
EX: 蒼井そら => cang1 jing3 kong1 (蒼井空)

Yeah, from my heyday of Hong Kong film-watching (roughly coterminous with the 90s) I remember Japanese names being read with the Cantonese values of the characters, which could be damn confusing at times. Good thing the films had bilingual (Standard Chinese and English) subtitles in those days. Jackie Chan's City Hunter is a good example. It's based on a manga and all the characters have the same names. But when 今村宏次 introduces himself (6:16 in this clip), he calls himself "Gāmchyūn Wàhngchi" and rather than some approximation of Imamura Kouji.

I met a guy recently who's bilingual in Chinese and English (and presumably some Japanese because he lives here) and he told me that in Chinese they would take the Japanese names straight into Chinese using the kanji spelling as people wrote above. Then he told me how to pronounce Shinjuku and Kichijoji in Chinese. But he also added that for most placenames, because he learnt the Japanese pronunciation first and uses that in English and Japanese, he'd have to think for a bit to work out how to pronounce them in Chinese, and would probably just pronounce it in the Japanese way with his Chinese friends, or so.

Occasionally you get Japanese-made kanji that don't have a direct equivalent in Chinese, like 働 or 込 - if a name comes up with these, Chinese people would change it to the nearest one in Chinese, in this case 動 and 入, as far as I know.

For what it's worth, Chinese people coming to Japan usually do the opposite and convert their name to the Japanese reading. Like Wang is pronounced Ou in Japanese, so sometimes I've seen customer service people with おう on their nametag. But Japanese pronunciations of Chinese placenames are an odd mix of Japanese pronunciations (eg. Sichuan is Shisen) and borrowed Chinese pronunciations, like Peking or Shanghai (still both usually written in kanji but not pronounced Hokkyou or Joukai as you'd expect if the pronunciation was adapted).

finlay wrote:For what it's worth, Chinese people coming to Japan usually do the opposite and convert their name to the Japanese reading. Like Wang is pronounced Ou in Japanese, so sometimes I've seen customer service people with おう on their nametag. But Japanese pronunciations of Chinese placenames are an odd mix of Japanese pronunciations (eg. Sichuan is Shisen) and borrowed Chinese pronunciations, like Peking or Shanghai (still both usually written in kanji but not pronounced Hokkyou or Joukai as you'd expect if the pronunciation was adapted).

Contemporary Korean seems to have switched over completely from traditional Hanja-based pronunciations to new transcriptions. Tianjin and Nagasaki are now 톈진 /thyeyn.cin/ and 나가사키 /nakasakhi/ ~ 나가사끼 /nakasakki/, rather than 천진 /chen.cin/ and 장기 /cang.ki/, as I first learned them.

Derailing a discussion to make it about Korean? Don't mind if I do!

Korean does use transliterations rather than translations. In fact, I (whipper snapper that I am) didn't even know there was a time when the transliterations were dominant. A few of them survive, mostly as "old timey" phrases. For example, Donggyeong for Tokyo. I've never heard anyone actually call it that, but I've seen restaurants and things put it on their sign in some hokey old fashioned font. Historical texts and dramas will sometimes use them, as well. I'm pretty sure I saw a history documentary that referred to Beijing as Bukgyeong. And, as linguoboy pointed out, there seems to be some confusion over whether to use CC or Ch to transcribe Japanese voiceless consonants.

(sorry no hangeul, not my computer)

Back in high school, I asked the only Cantonese speaking friend how to pronounce my Japanese name in Canto, and I think he said "Singye Wingjok" or something like that. My Japanese name is 星野栄作.

sing¹ ye⁵ wing⁴ jok³ [sɪŋ˥ jɛː˩˧ wɪŋ˨˩ t͡sɔːk˧]

Rui wrote:sing¹ ye⁵ wing⁴ jok³ [sɪŋ˥ jɛː˩˧ wɪŋ˨˩ t͡sɔːk˧]

m̀hgòi

Another one I was curious about is Sino-Vietnamese versus Cantonese.

I found a Cantonese version of Prince Ali from Disney's Aladdin (catchy tune) on Youtube and it had the characters. Ran them through a tool at hanviet.org. The Vietnamese transcription of the Cantonese I got is actually not terrible... at least, writing Cantonese with Sino-Vietnamese is about as accurate as English spelling. Brackets are where hanviet.org didn't have a transcription for a rare character, or where there appeared to be something weird with the transcription (three cases of this: Cant. sơi vs. SV nhu, Cant. bân vs. SV tân, and Cant. miện vs. SV diện.) If there was a regular, believable correspondence, such as SV v vs. Cant. m or w, I left it alone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScLiTW6WFc0 (the Youtube copy with the characters was deleted some time ago)
nhượng khai giá thị vương tử / thị tha hữu giá bổn sự

thành trung nhai đạo khả phủ nhượng cấp tha / hi nhĩ thỉnh phương tiện bất [xơi] hà đại giá / hảo lai thỉnh tẩu tiền đa nhất vọng tha đích phong thải / khán ba tha tẩu cận xao la đả đả cổ / khả hội ái thượng giá cá tha

thị vương tử đa ma tôn quý thị tâm trung anh hùng / quỵ hạ tương dĩ biểu tôn kính nguyện tố bộ hạ / cá cá dã vọng đáo nhập thần / kim thiên tương canh gia hưng phấn / giá lí chánh tụ mãn trứ bách vạn chúng nghênh thượng ân

thị vương tử đa ma anh vĩ vạn thế anh hùng / lực lượng túc khả bỉ đắc thượng thập cá nam nhi / [cỡi] thậm chí khả dĩ [m]iện đối / bách vị chấp kiếm đích hảo hán / tha thị vĩ đại dĩ nhận hứa thùy cảm địch đối

độc hữu thất bát thập chích chân kim lạc đà / hựu hữu tử khổng tước ngũ thập chích / lánh hữu cổ quái cự thú thị tân chủng loại / chủng chủng dã thú quái dĩ khả xưng đắc / giá thị thế giới động vật hối điểm　

thị vương tử đa ma anh tuấn tâm trung đích anh hùng / vọng trứ tha bất [xơi] đa thuyết tiện yếu quỵ hạ / tâm khước dĩ bị tha khiên dẫn / bãi kiều tư tương tha hấp dẫn / nhãn định khán trứ khán trứ tha vương tử thị dã

độc hữu thất bát thập chích ba tư tiểu hầu / hựu phái kim giá địa dĩ bị hộ ấm / hựu đái kim khối tặng tống thị tì nhất quần / đa ma dạng đa kính úy giá đa ái đái / giá vĩnh viễn trung tâm diệc toàn vi giá / vương tử vương tử　

vương tử nhất sanh cân [cỡi] chí tử bất di / vấn vấn công chủ khả phủ hội nhượng tha nhất kiến / thâm tín yếu nhượng tha tri đạo / thân thân ư giá khắc cản đáo / dữ bách chích đại tượng đa ma tráng lệ / hùng dữ sư tử tương khả dĩ đái lĩnh hiệp trợ / đồng lục thập lục đại tương bính sư hòa hậu điểu / tề tề lai hợp khiếu hiêu / giá kịch nghênh tiếp vương tử

BGMan wrote:Brackets are where hanviet.org didn't have a transcription for a rare character, or where there appeared to be something weird with the transcription (three cases of this: Cant. sơi vs. SV nhu, Cant. bân vs. SV tân, and Cant. miện vs. SV diện.)

Actually there's a standard correspondence between Cantonese/Chinese b and Sino-Vietnamese t. I'm not sure the exact conditions of the correspondence but there's enough examples that it's definitely not a screwy transcription. It might just be a sporadic change but I've seen it before.

Rui wrote:Actually there's a standard correspondence between Cantonese/Chinese b and Sino-Vietnamese t. I'm not sure the exact conditions of the correspondence but there's enough examples that it's definitely not a screwy transcription. It might just be a sporadic change but I've seen it before.

Okay... it only happened once, and all other cases SV used b as expected, so I was suspicious. It was with this character: 賓

It was a bit funny seeing how Sino-Vietnamese tortures t and th into representing several different sounds, where one would expect it to use s/x, tr or ch instead. Although as a native English-speaker, using t in this manner doesn't look entirely weird to me (except where it stands in for b of course).

I also noticed Cantonese goes with the southern Vietnamese pronunciation of SV d (without the crossbar) rather than the northern.

One of the "readings" of 比 in Sino-Viet is tỉ.
毕 is tất
鼻 is tị or tì
必 is tất as well
币 is tệ
滨 is tân
避 is tị

So it looks like it's mostly bi syllables in Mandarin with two bin (though there's no pattern in Cantonese). Most of them are 4th tone, except 比 and 鼻 (and also, 闭, 4th tone, is bế), and the two bin characters.

A theory I'm aware of is that Vietnamese converts Early Middle Chinese labial consonants followed by a non-chongniu medial (i.e. those which have a chongniu counterpart) to alveolar, due to strong palatalization.

So, that would mean the EMC sequence Pj- with /i/ or /e/ as the main vowel is palatalized to T- in Vietnamese, to use a certain phonological reconstruction. Onsets in syllables like /pjan/ /brje/ /m(w)an/ /pʰei/ remain unchanged.

Update: I formerly wrote "Tj-". Although I haven't checked, to me the outcome "T-" does seem more like the reality.

miện/diện could be that too, but what's with the MOA difference?

Seirios wrote:A theory I'm aware of is that Vietnamese converts Early Middle Chinese labial consonants followed by a non-chongniu medial (i.e. those which have a chongniu counterpart) to alveolar, due to strong palatalization.

So, that would mean the EMC sequence Pj- with /i/ or /e/ as the main vowel is palatalized to Tj- in Vietnamese, to use a certain phonological reconstruction. Onsets in syllables like /pjan/ /brje/ /m(w)an/ /pʰei/ remain unchanged.

That sounds plausible. I am aware of one dialect of a certain Caucasian language (I think Ubykh) that changed tw/dw to p/b, which would be the exact opposite movement.

BGMan wrote:I am aware of one dialect of a certain Caucasian language (I think Ubykh) that changed tw/dw to p/b, which would be the exact opposite movement.

That development doesn't seem too unusual, it also happend Old Latin > Classical Latin (PIE *dwi - bi prefix "two", Old Latin duellum > Classical bellum "war", Old Latin duenos > Classical bonus "good".

Update: According to Wikipedia, Japanese names are pronounced in Chinese as if they were written in Chinese.

I've also separately read that 東京 is known as Dōngjīng in Mandarin.

how is that an update
we literally answered the question with that answer two weeks ago

finlay wrote:how is that an update
we literally answered the question with that answer two weeks ago

Sorry, I don't want to seem ungrateful. The discussion seemed to have got a bit sidetracked so I'm not sure if I saw your earlier message.

hwhatting wrote:

BGMan wrote:I am aware of one dialect of a certain Caucasian language (I think Ubykh) that changed tw/dw to p/b, which would be the exact opposite movement.

That development doesn't seem too unusual, it also happend Old Latin > Classical Latin (PIE *dwi - bi prefix "two", Old Latin duellum > Classical bellum "war", Old Latin duenos > Classical bonus "good".

I forgot all about this Old Latin sound change... Gonna have to use this one for some conlang.

Back to the OP: from examining Wikipedia pages in different languages, it would thus appear that Chinese names are "translated" into Sino-Japanese, Sino-Korean, or Sino-Vietnamese when the respective language mentions it. Likewise, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese names are "translated" into Chinese when Chinese mention them.

When translating between Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese (for example, Korean or Vietnamese articles on a Japanese person), the original pronunciation is kept, although the article will also give the respective Sino-Xese version as an aside.

The closest equivalent I can find in European languages would be how English-speakers generally give the names of ancient Romans in the original Latin, barring a few exceptions (Virgil, Pliny, Mark Antony). But the Romance languages and dialects "translate" the Latin into the vernacular versions of their names, just like how Chinese gets "translated" into the respective Sino-Xese. Some other languages (Greek, East Slavic, Baltic languages) simply translate the -us suffix.

And speaking of Old Latin -- I suspect that Spanish is actually descended from Old Latin rather than Classical Latin. If you go here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Latin
and scroll down to the verb declension, you'll understand what I'm talking about: Spanish has fuimos, fuisteis, just like Old Latin, whereas Classical Latin changed it to fuimus, fuistis. This would make sense since the Romans introduced Latin to Spain when it was still in the Old Latin stage.