Translating Pinyin to English?

December 21, 2006 11:52 AM

Can anyone help me translate Pinyin to English or know of a site that can translate phrases? A friend of mine was sent this, 'Wo zhen de shang ni chu, yen wei wo xi huan ni pe wo de shi zhen' and he has asked my help in finding out what it means. For all I know it could be totally insulting, inappropriate, etc... so apologies in advance if its offensive. Anyone?
posted by herword to Writing & Language (21 answers total)

Best answer: The best I can make it out is... "I really [want] you to come out, because I really like you." Maybe someone else can confirm or disagree though!
In chinese it is...
我真得上你出，因为我喜欢你我的是镇。

The only catch is that I don't recognize 'pe' and to the best of my knowledge 'pe' is not pinyin.
posted by daviss at 12:11 PM on December 21, 2006

it means "Wo Zhen de ni" shang ni chu means "I really [shang] your [chu]" and "yen wei wo xi huan ni pe wo de shi zhen" means something like "but I want you to [pe] my [shi zhen]"

It's very basic (which Is why I understand part of it)
posted by delmoi at 12:15 PM on December 21, 2006

daviss: I don't think 'shi' there is '是'. 'pe' is probably 'pi' (also, yen should be 'yin')
posted by delmoi at 12:21 PM on December 21, 2006

I very much want to go with you, (the next word is probably yinwei) because I like you (pe?) (wo+de) mine is very...

My Mandarin is rusty, but that doesn't seem like the end of the statement. Is there more?
posted by B-squared at 12:43 PM on December 21, 2006

Response by poster: No, that's all there was. Does it seem like an incomplete statement?
posted by herword at 12:50 PM on December 21, 2006

Response by poster: Oh, and thank you all very much. Askmefi never ceases to amaze me.
posted by herword at 12:51 PM on December 21, 2006

Maybe "pe" is really "pei", which could mean "accompany"?

"I really want you to go, because I'd like you to accompany me..." but I can't figure out what 'shi zhen' could be.
posted by steveminutillo at 1:08 PM on December 21, 2006

THIS JUST IN! "shi zhen" can mean "time", so the full translation could be:

"I really want you to go, because I like the times when you accompany me"
posted by steveminutillo at 1:16 PM on December 21, 2006

Best answer: Since Chinese is a tonal language, the pinyin can be difficult to decipher without the traditional numbers (1-4) behind each character.


A best guess:
Wo3 zhen1 de4 shang4 ni3 chu4, yen1 wei4 wo3 xi3 huan1
ni3 pe2 wo3 de4 shi2 zhen1

Which, if it means what I think it should mean should be spelled:

Wo3 zhen1 de4 shang4 ni3 chu4, yin1 wei4 wo3 xi3 huan1 ne3 pei2 wo3 de5 shi2 jian1

All of which would be:
I would really like you to go because I like the times you spend with me.

But to be honest, I'm not that familiar with the phrase "shang4 ni3 chu4" but that might be because I was born in the US to a Mandarin speaking family and we may have a bit of a corrupted idea of the language.
posted by oreonax at 3:51 PM on December 21, 2006

I think "shang" is actually "xiang3" (which sound close), so that "Wo zhende xiang ni chu" = "I really want to go out with you".
posted by RavinDave at 4:31 PM on December 21, 2006

Wo3 zhen1 de4 shang4 ni3 chu4, yin1 wei4 wo3 xi3 huan1 ne3 pei2 wo3 de5 shi2 jian1


我真的上你去，因为我喜欢你陪我的时间。

(in case you wanted the characters)
posted by jbb7 at 7:25 PM on December 21, 2006

Oops, replace the 4th character, 上, with 想。
posted by jbb7 at 7:26 PM on December 21, 2006

I agree with RavinDave on the 'shang' being in error for 'xiang' (想), and bet the 'chu' should be qu (去) 'to go', which would still make orenax's the best translation.

Ditto oreonax on the yen=yin too. The whole thing reads like it wasn't written by a native speaker; even though lots of Chinese friends here are worse at pinyin than I am, as it wasn't taught in the schools when they were young, the grammar is a bit weird too.。
posted by Abiezer at 9:21 PM on December 21, 2006

Looks like just really bad pinyin/Chinese to me. Was this written by someone who just started learning Mandarin, or maybe only half-knows pinyin?

Original: Wo zhen de shang ni chu, yen wei wo xi huan ni pe wo de shi zhen.

Possible correction: Wo zhen de xiang ni qu, yin wei wo xi huan ni pei wo de shi jian.

我真的想你去，因为我喜欢你陪我的时间。

Still not great gramatically, but it gets the point across: the speaker wants the person to go because they enjoy the person's company.
posted by msittig at 9:45 PM on December 21, 2006

I think msittig pegged it. I also agree this looks like it was not written by a native speaker of Chinese. "Wo zhen de xiang ni qu" or as msittig has it in Chinese 我真的想你去 is an awkward basically ungrammatical way of saying you want someone to go [out]. And the "because" part coming second rather than first is not the normal flow in Chinese (although possible). This reads like someone translated from English word for word into pinyin, then screwed up some of the pinyin to boot.
posted by mono blanco at 4:03 AM on December 22, 2006

I think what they're trying to say is, "I hope you'll go, because I like it when you're with me."
posted by mono blanco at 4:04 AM on December 22, 2006

btw: chu1 ( 出 ) is a perfectly fine word and there's no need to assume it should be qu4 ( 去 ). CEDICT glosses it: "to go out; to come out; to occur; to produce; to go beyond; to rise; to put forth; to occur; to happen; (a measure word for dramas, plays, or operas)." qu4 is generic; chu1 can take the sense of "go out on the town", which seems to fit the context.
posted by RavinDave at 9:56 AM on December 22, 2006

I disagree RavinDave. Not saying it's impossible, but at the apparent level of the speaker it's far more likely to be a mistake for qu. If they knew how to say 出来玩儿 or some such, they would have IMO. Used on its own it's far morel likely to mean 'to pay' or something.
But this is pedantry, and who knows?
posted by Abiezer at 10:37 AM on December 22, 2006

You're probably right, Abiezer. I was recalling a dialogue from ChinesePod that went:

我喜欢和朋友出去，我们今天晚上去酒吧。

Wŏ xǐhuan hé péngyou chūqù, wŏmen jīntiān wǎnshang qù jiŭbā.

I’d like to go out with friends. We are going to a bar tonight.

But even there it's used in concert with qù.
posted by RavinDave at 11:05 AM on December 22, 2006

chu1 ( 出 ) is an auxilary verb when meaning "go out". As a stand-alone verb, it means "emit", like smoke from an exhaust pipe.
posted by mono blanco at 3:29 PM on December 22, 2006

Yes, but mono blanco, as I said, if you hear it on it's own, chances are it means 'to pay'. viz:

老让我付钱，这次该你出, where it's probably a contraction of 出血.

You must have heard that said if you speak Chinese.
posted by Abiezer at 7:21 PM on December 22, 2006