Translation of neologisms into Chinese generally follows three principles: free translation and transcription or a combination of the two. Chinese translations can be roughly divided into two categories: official translation names and folk translation names. Since the Chinese language is spoken in several countries and territories around the world, most importantly the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, Macau and the Republic of China, and standardisations of Chinese translation names in these countries are regulated by different institutions, it is common for one to encounter different Chinese names for the same subject. More specifically, mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia have official institutions and standards to regulate translations into Chinese, whereas in Hong Kong, translation names from media and established popular translation names predominate, which usually go on to further influence Macau and overseas Chinese communities.
Official translation names refer tostandard translation names of a specific region, which are normally established by relevant governmental nomenclature departments, with the purpose of standardising Chinese names for terms in non-official languages. Such translation names only appear in regions administered by that government, and are often not applicable to regions beyond administration.
Official names are translation names developed by copyright-holding companies and are usually applicable to any Chinese-speaking region. However instances of companies which establish region-wise translation names also exist.
Folk translation names are translation names for things that do not have official Chinese names or official translation names, and are established and popularised by ordinary people. Names as such are most often are not differentiated by region, but are instead divided in terms of the Chinese dialect used, such as Mandarin Chinese used in mainland China, and Cantonese used in Hong Kong.
Special names are names for special disciplines, such as Catholicism and Buddhism, and usually follow special standards or rules. Besides, this category may also apply to foreign officials whose translation names are specially established by foreign official institutions, for convenience of reporting from worldwide Chinese-language media, as well as famous people of Chinese descent from overseas, who make announcements of their true Chinese names to avoid mis-translation by media, for example Hun Sen, the Cambodian prime minister, who announced in 2003 that his Chinese name should be written as "云升 Yún Shēng".
Types
Free translation
In modern Chinese, traditionally, free translations or semantic translations are used for translating of non-proper nouns. Most non-proper noun terms are introduced into modern Chinese using this method, including many names re-integrated into Chinese from Japanese terms, which were originally translated from Chinese kanji, during the 19th and 20th century. This is opposed to transcription. Examples:
Basketball — 篮球 lánqiú, "basket ball"
Physics — 物理 wùlǐ, "logics /reasons matter/things", first introduced by Fang Yizhi
Chemistry — 化学 huàxué, "subject transformations", first introduced by Xu Shou
Mobile phone — 手机 shǒujī, "hand device/machine"
Laser — 激光 jīguāng, "stimulated light", the official translation used in Mainland China coined by Qian Xuesen in 1964
Transcription
s into Chinese are used to translate proper nouns that previously have no equivalent counterparts in the Chinese lexicon. Examples:
Guitar — 吉他, jítā
Coffee — 咖啡, kāfēi
Pizza — 比萨, bǐsà
Laser — 鐳射, léishè, the phonetic translation commonly used in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore
