When things just don’t have a word in Chinese…but we want need to write about them, or talk about them, they are often given a 中文名字 (zhōng wén míng zi) or a ‘Chinese name’.  Sometimes it is given a phonetic name, a name that sounds like the original name, sometimes a name that shares the same meaning, or sometimes a bit of both.

So when a person, or a character from a movie/book, or a product (not from China) becomes famous enough to be talked about in China, they get a Chinese name!  Can you guess who or what the following are in English?

1.Justin Bieber  2. Harry Potter 3. Darth Vader 4. Coca Cola

Here are the names of our Wednesday older students group in Chinese.  Can you guess which one is your name?

霍利	huò lì	艾丽西亚	ài lì xī yà
赖安娜	lài ān	斯稻姆	sī dào mǔ
雷电	léi diàn	泰丽亚	tài lì yà
恰拉	qià lā	斯科特	sī kē tè
丹尼尔	dān ní ěr	芦卡思	lú kǎ sī

You can copy and paste your Chinese name into any program, change the font, colour, add the characters to photos etc.  Send me your work of art on our facebook page when you have done!

Here is the Groovi Pauli song we sang last week…you can now substitute your 中文名字 (zhōng wén míng zi) ‘Chinese name’ into your answer!