<p>Putin (Путин) is pronounced as /ˈputʲin/ in Russian. Note the /ʲ/ (palatalization) after the /t/.</p>
<p>Russian differentiates between hard and soft consonants. The soft consonants are palatalized, which means that the tongue is pushed up towards the hard palate during the articulation of the consonant.</p>
<p>When /t/ and /d/ are palatalized in Russian, they are also slightly affricated. The actual pronunciation of /tʲ/ and /dʲ/ are closer to [tʲ<sup>sʲ</sup>] and [dʲ<sup>zʲ</sup>] respectively. In Chinese ears, they sound like /tɕ/. That's why Putin is translated as 普京.</p>
<p>You can listen to <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D1%83%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%BD#Russian" rel="noreferrer">the Russian pronunciation of Putin on Wiktionary</a>.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-06-15T16:33:05.180Z
Agree, a lot of Chinese translation for names of people or countries come directly from the original Language itself so they may not make sense to English speakers. In Путин‘s case, I think 普京 is a better translation phonetically than Putin( English pronunciation). For country's case, for example: Greece is 希腊（xi la）in Chinese, because it was called Ἑλλάς (Hellas) back then.
Archeosudoerus
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-06-15T16:59:21.703Z
This is also true of the two transliterations of the Hebrew name חַוָּה (_Ḥawwā_); via Greek _Εὔα_ and Latin _Eva_, we get 厄娃, as used in Catholic translations; direct from Hebrew through southern topolects (presumed from Shanghai, Ningbo, Guangzhou and Xiamen, as in the 1850s Delegates' Version), we get 夏娃, as used in many Protestant translations; from Arabic  حَوَّاء we get 哈娃 as used amongst Muslims.
Michaelyus
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-06-15T11:07:42.473Z
2023-06-15T11:07:42.473Z
alephalpha
<p>It's Americanese: transpose d and t: Pudin in Americanese.</p>
<p>The d of Vladimir becomes 基 jī， so, to be consistent, the d of -din (= -tin) in Pudin becomes 京 jīng</p>
<p>俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京</p>
<p>弗拉基米尔·普京<br />
fúlājīmiěr pǔjīng</p>
<p>ДаДа!</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-06-15T07:13:31.627Z
2023-06-15T07:13:31.627Z
Pedroski
<p>Some of your examples make sense, but there are also some that I am not sure whether your correct/incorrect is justified. I would just explain what I know about translating foreign names.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>it might be attributed to the original sound of the word in the original language-Russian</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is what translation tries to stick to. If Macron is not translated this way (i.e., w.r.t. French pronunciation) then it is incorrect, given that if Macron is a native last name in France. &lt;- Right, this is also often in consideration, that names originating from the same name often have only one translation. I am not sure if this is specifically related to this case, just thought about this and FYI.</p>
<p>In some other cases, the correct original pronunciation does not have an exact mapping in Mandarin, so there is some convention for translating them into something that sounds similar. Note that &quot;similar&quot; might be different w.r.t. original language's speaker vs. Chinese speaker. E.g., a Chinese speaker might think &quot;thank&quot; sounds like &quot;sank&quot;, while many English speakers think it sounds like &quot;tank&quot;.</p>
<p>Plus, sometimes, the translation was not done to Mandarin, but to Cantonese. Then Mandarin users just used the translated Chinese characters as is, resulting in strange pronunciation.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, what we need is a translation that is somewhat related to the original pronunciation, does not have overwhelming indications, and all users agree upon it. Some translations were not correct, pronunciation-wise, due to the limitations of the translator. However, once conventionalized, it is the de facto standard and it is correct.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-06-15T13:53:36.010Z
Those who pronounce "thank" as "tank" are most probably South Asian people, like Indians, Pakistani or Bangali. The examples I listed in my original post are all in Putonghua or Mandarin, and whether there are such cases in Cantonese, I will keep an eye on that.
NanningYouth
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-06-15T21:35:58.017Z
The Irish often say, "Tank you very much!" "I tink you are right!" "I'm gonna take a bat." (bath). Maybe you know the old joke: 2 Irishmen are looking for work in Canada (加拿大). They see a sign: tree-fellers wanted. Sean says, "Hey Paddy, dat might be sumtink for us!" Paddy says, "No, dey want tree fellers, but there's only 2 of us!"
Pedroski
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-06-16T07:55:46.910Z
@NanningYouth There are native English speakers who told me "thank" sounds more similar to "tank" than "sank".
王博龙
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-06-17T13:54:37.350Z
@NanningYouth The fact that the transliterations are used in Mandarin does not mean that they _originated_ in Mandarin. Many of the characters now used as standard correspondences to transliterate especially English words originated in Cantonese, Min or other southern Chinese languages. Such transliterations were then borrowed wholesale into Mandarin, and from that the individual characters gradually became standard for particular sounds, even if Mandarin happens to have closer correspondences. Using 夏 for _ha_ is a good example: 夏威夷 makes no sense as _Xiàwēiyí_, but _Haa⁶ wai¹ ji⁴_ works.
Janus Bahs Jacquet
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-06-15T08:32:03.117Z
2023-06-16T07:54:35.547Z
2023-06-16T07:54:35.547Z
王博龙
<p>The translated name is quite different from the original in sound, and it might be attributed to the original sound of the word in the original language-Russian, but the same criterion will not apply to the case of the name of the sitting president of France, Macron（马克龙）, which should have been 马克红 according to the pronunciation of the original language-French. So in China are there two different systems of translation?</p>
<p>Other examples of name mistranslations frequently found in Chinese media from mispronunciation:</p>
<p>Trump,correct:川普, incorrect:特朗普</p>
<p>Obama,correct:欧巴马，incorrect:奥巴马</p>
<p>Celts,correct:塞尔特人, incorrect:凯尔特人</p>
<p>JK Rowling, correct:劳玲, incorrect:罗琳</p>
<p>Jerome Salinger,correct:萨林泽,incorrect:塞林格</p>
<p>Henry Kissenger, correct:基辛泽, incorrect:基辛格</p>
<p>Elon Musk,correct:一龙马斯克,incorrect:埃隆马斯克</p>
<p>Andy Murray, correct:安迪默里,incorrect:安迪穆雷</p>
<p>Novak Djokovic,correct:焦科维奇,incorrect:德约科维奇</p>
<p>Eve,correct:伊芙, incorrect:夏娃</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-06-15T19:52:45.083Z
Your "mistranslation" and "mispronunciation" examples assume the origin is English and the translation is for Mandarin. Unfortunately, neither assumption holds true consistently.
xiaomy
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-06-16T00:41:47.717Z
How did you decide which is correct and which incorrect?  For instance, "JK Rowling, correct:劳玲, incorrect:罗琳" seems backward to me. (In English, "Rowling" rhymes with "Bowling (ball)", not with "Howling (wolf)".)  Similarly the "incorrect" Kissinger sounds more correct. As for Macron, why not "Róng"?
Ray Butterworth
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-06-16T06:36:31.587Z
@RayButterworth You can find out whether Rowling is R-au-ling or R-ou-ling from BBC Radio 4, which is what I did a while back. "R" in French sounds like "H" of Pinyin, that's why I think 红 is closer to the original than 龙.
NanningYouth
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-06-16T06:38:55.933Z
@xiaomy That makes sense. Would you point out which of the above is not English in origin?
NanningYouth
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-06-16T07:25:56.650Z
I am French and I find that 龙 is much easier to pronounce / closer to usual French sounds than both 红 and 荣, so it fits a transcription from French much better.
Stef
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-06-16T12:57:44.160Z
@NanningYouth: [[pronounce rowling - Google Search](https://www.google.com/search?q=pronounce+rowling&oq=pronounce+rowling) sounds exactly like [pronounce bowling - Google Search](https://www.google.com/search?q=pronounce+bowling).
Ray Butterworth
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-06-16T13:01:35.263Z
How is 凯尔特人 supposed to be ‘incorrect’? Given that _Celts_ is pronounced with a [k] sound as its first consonant (not an *[s] sound), it is if anything 塞尔特人 that’s wrong. As for ‘Rowling’, the correct pronunciation is by definition the one used by JK Rowling herself, and that is unambiguously /ˈrəʊlɪŋ/, with the vowel of _go_, not that of _how_ – as Ray says, it rhymes with _bowling_, not _howling_. Something like 喽玲 would be closer to the English pronunciation than either of your versions.
Janus Bahs Jacquet
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-06-17T11:26:05.987Z
(to answer your question) As a comment below pointed out, 夏娃 is Hebrew -> Cantonese.
xiaomy
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-06-17T13:40:45.647Z
@Stef It may be easier to pronounce exactly for French people, but the Mandarin /l/ (an alveolar liquid) is definitely not _closer_ to the standard French /ʁ/ (a uvular approximant/fricative/trill) than the Mandarin /h/ (uvular/pharyngeal approximant/fricative). The latter pair are phonetically much closer than the former. /l/ would be closer to the dialectal alveolar realisation [r] still found here and there in the south of France, but that’s hardly ‘standard’ in French anymore. At any rate, what’s easier for the French doesn’t affect how the Chinese represent the sound.
Janus Bahs Jacquet
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-06-17T13:51:41.833Z
@JanusBahsJacquet Doesn't it? I'd be embarrassed if I traveled to China and was unable to pronounce my own name.
Stef
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-06-17T14:07:35.200Z
@Stef No, it doesn’t. How Mandarin speakers transliterate and represent French words in Mandarin is based on which sounds _they_ consider the closest match, not which sounds French speakers consider the closest match. What _you_ choose as your own personal Chinese name is an entirely different matter – you’re choosing a name to go by – one that may or may not have any relation to your French name – not transliterating a French word to be used in Mandarin.
Janus Bahs Jacquet
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-06-20T03:37:14.787Z
@JanusBahsJacquet  Another two such examples for your critique, Argentina阿根廷, Mexico墨西哥, which in my opinion should be 阿汉提纳 and 墨希可 following their Spanish sounds.
NanningYouth
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-06-20T08:43:46.087Z
@NanningYouth Well, those two were clearly borrowed through an intermediate language (probably German or English), which is also quite common – compare the English name _Japan_, which was borrowed from Cantonese, not Japanese, or indeed _China_ itself, which has an extremely winding history (< Portuguese (influenced by French) < Persian < Sanskrit < probably 秦, though no one really knows). If you wanted to match the Spanish sounds of Argentina and Mexico as closely as possible, it would be something like 阿尔很迪纳 and 美希果 (Spanish /k/ = [k] = Mandarin /g/).
Janus Bahs Jacquet
<translation>
Why is Putin translated as 普京 but not 普定?
# Why is Putin translated as 普京 but not 普定?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2023-06-15)

The translated name is quite different from the original in sound, and it might be attributed to the original sound of the word in the original language-Russian, but the same criterion will not apply to the case of the name of the sitting president of France, Macron（马克龙）, which should have been 马克红 according to the pronunciation of the original language-French. So in China are there two different systems of translation?

Other examples of name mistranslations frequently found in Chinese media from mispronunciation:

Trump,correct:川普, incorrect:特朗普

Obama,correct:欧巴马，incorrect:奥巴马

Celts,correct:塞尔特人, incorrect:凯尔特人

JK Rowling, correct:劳玲, incorrect:罗琳

Jerome Salinger,correct:萨林泽,incorrect:塞林格

Henry Kissenger, correct:基辛泽, incorrect:基辛格

Elon Musk,correct:一龙马斯克,incorrect:埃隆马斯克

Andy Murray, correct:安迪默里,incorrect:安迪穆雷

Novak Djokovic,correct:焦科维奇,incorrect:德约科维奇

Eve,correct:伊芙, incorrect:夏娃

**Tags:** translation

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Your "mistranslation" and "mispronunciation" examples assume the origin is English and the translation is for Mandarin. Unfortunately, neither assumption holds true consistently.  
> **username_2**: How did you decide which is correct and which incorrect?  For instance, "JK Rowling, correct:劳玲, incorrect:罗琳" seems backward to me. (In English, "Rowling" rhymes with "Bowling (ball)", not with "Howling (wolf)".)  Similarly the "incorrect" Kissinger sounds more correct. As for Macron, why not "Róng"?  
> **username_0**: @username_2 You can find out whether Rowling is R-au-ling or R-ou-ling from BBC Radio 4, which is what I did a while back. "R" in French sounds like "H" of Pinyin, that's why I think 红 is closer to the original than 龙.  
> **username_0**: @username_1 That makes sense. Would you point out which of the above is not English in origin?  
> **username_3**: I am French and I find that 龙 is much easier to pronounce / closer to usual French sounds than both 红 and 荣, so it fits a transcription from French much better.  
> **username_2**: @username_0: [[pronounce rowling - Google Search](https://www.google.com/search?q=pronounce+rowling&oq=pronounce+rowling) sounds exactly like [pronounce bowling - Google Search](https://www.google.com/search?q=pronounce+bowling).  
> **username_4**: How is 凯尔特人 supposed to be ‘incorrect’? Given that _Celts_ is pronounced with a [k] sound as its first consonant (not an *[s] sound), it is if anything 塞尔特人 that’s wrong. As for ‘Rowling’, the correct pronunciation is by definition the one used by JK Rowling herself, and that is unambiguously /ˈrəʊlɪŋ/, with the vowel of _go_, not that of _how_ – as Ray says, it rhymes with _bowling_, not _howling_. Something like 喽玲 would be closer to the English pronunciation than either of your versions.  
> **username_1**: (to answer your question) As a comment below pointed out, 夏娃 is Hebrew -> Cantonese.  
> **username_4**: @username_3 It may be easier to pronounce exactly for French people, but the Mandarin /l/ (an alveolar liquid) is definitely not _closer_ to the standard French /ʁ/ (a uvular approximant/fricative/trill) than the Mandarin /h/ (uvular/pharyngeal approximant/fricative). The latter pair are phonetically much closer than the former. /l/ would be closer to the dialectal alveolar realisation [r] still found here and there in the south of France, but that’s hardly ‘standard’ in French anymore. At any rate, what’s easier for the French doesn’t affect how the Chinese represent the sound.  
> **username_3**: @username_4 Doesn't it? I'd be embarrassed if I traveled to China and was unable to pronounce my own name.  
> **username_4**: @username_3 No, it doesn’t. How Mandarin speakers transliterate and represent French words in Mandarin is based on which sounds _they_ consider the closest match, not which sounds French speakers consider the closest match. What _you_ choose as your own personal Chinese name is an entirely different matter – you’re choosing a name to go by – one that may or may not have any relation to your French name – not transliterating a French word to be used in Mandarin.  
> **username_0**: @username_4  Another two such examples for your critique, Argentina阿根廷, Mexico墨西哥, which in my opinion should be 阿汉提纳 and 墨希可 following their Spanish sounds.  
> **username_4**: @username_0 Well, those two were clearly borrowed through an intermediate language (probably German or English), which is also quite common – compare the English name _Japan_, which was borrowed from Cantonese, not Japanese, or indeed _China_ itself, which has an extremely winding history (< Portuguese (influenced by French) < Persian < Sanskrit < probably 秦, though no one really knows). If you wanted to match the Spanish sounds of Argentina and Mexico as closely as possible, it would be something like 阿尔很迪纳 and 美希果 (Spanish /k/ = [k] = Mandarin /g/).  

---

## 3 answers

### Answer by username_5 on 2023-06-15. Score: 11

Putin (Путин) is pronounced as /ˈputʲin/ in Russian. Note the /ʲ/ (palatalization) after the /t/.

Russian differentiates between hard and soft consonants. The soft consonants are palatalized, which means that the tongue is pushed up towards the hard palate during the articulation of the consonant.

When /t/ and /d/ are palatalized in Russian, they are also slightly affricated. The actual pronunciation of /tʲ/ and /dʲ/ are closer to [tʲsʲ] and [dʲzʲ] respectively. In Chinese ears, they sound like /tɕ/. That's why Putin is translated as 普京.

You can listen to [the Russian pronunciation of Putin on Wiktionary](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D1%83%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%BD#Russian).

> **Comments:**
> **username_6**: Agree, a lot of Chinese translation for names of people or countries come directly from the original Language itself so they may not make sense to English speakers. In Путин‘s case, I think 普京 is a better translation phonetically than Putin( English pronunciation). For country's case, for example: Greece is 希腊（xi la）in Chinese, because it was called Ἑλλάς (Hellas) back then.  
> **username_7**: This is also true of the two transliterations of the Hebrew name חַוָּה (_Ḥawwā_); via Greek _Εὔα_ and Latin _Eva_, we get 厄娃, as used in Catholic translations; direct from Hebrew through southern topolects (presumed from Shanghai, Ningbo, Guangzhou and Xiamen, as in the 1850s Delegates' Version), we get 夏娃, as used in many Protestant translations; from Arabic  حَوَّاء we get 哈娃 as used amongst Muslims.  

---

### Answer by username_8 on 2023-06-15. Score: 5

It's Americanese: transpose d and t: Pudin in Americanese.

The d of Vladimir becomes 基 jī， so, to be consistent, the d of -din (= -tin) in Pudin becomes 京 jīng

俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京

弗拉基米尔·普京  
fúlājīmiěr pǔjīng

ДаДа!


---

### Answer by username_9 on 2023-06-15. Score: 4

Some of your examples make sense, but there are also some that I am not sure whether your correct/incorrect is justified. I would just explain what I know about translating foreign names.

> it might be attributed to the original sound of the word in the original language-Russian

This is what translation tries to stick to. If Macron is not translated this way (i.e., w.r.t. French pronunciation) then it is incorrect, given that if Macron is a native last name in France. <- Right, this is also often in consideration, that names originating from the same name often have only one translation. I am not sure if this is specifically related to this case, just thought about this and FYI.

In some other cases, the correct original pronunciation does not have an exact mapping in Mandarin, so there is some convention for translating them into something that sounds similar. Note that "similar" might be different w.r.t. original language's speaker vs. Chinese speaker. E.g., a Chinese speaker might think "thank" sounds like "sank", while many English speakers think it sounds like "tank".

Plus, sometimes, the translation was not done to Mandarin, but to Cantonese. Then Mandarin users just used the translated Chinese characters as is, resulting in strange pronunciation.

At the end of the day, what we need is a translation that is somewhat related to the original pronunciation, does not have overwhelming indications, and all users agree upon it. Some translations were not correct, pronunciation-wise, due to the limitations of the translator. However, once conventionalized, it is the de facto standard and it is correct.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Those who pronounce "thank" as "tank" are most probably South Asian people, like Indians, Pakistani or Bangali. The examples I listed in my original post are all in Putonghua or Mandarin, and whether there are such cases in Cantonese, I will keep an eye on that.  
> **username_8**: The Irish often say, "Tank you very much!" "I tink you are right!" "I'm gonna take a bat." (bath). Maybe you know the old joke: 2 Irishmen are looking for work in Canada (加拿大). They see a sign: tree-fellers wanted. Sean says, "Hey Paddy, dat might be sumtink for us!" Paddy says, "No, dey want tree fellers, but there's only 2 of us!"  
> **username_9**: @username_0 There are native English speakers who told me "thank" sounds more similar to "tank" than "sank".  
> **username_4**: @username_0 The fact that the transliterations are used in Mandarin does not mean that they _originated_ in Mandarin. Many of the characters now used as standard correspondences to transliterate especially English words originated in Cantonese, Min or other southern Chinese languages. Such transliterations were then borrowed wholesale into Mandarin, and from that the individual characters gradually became standard for particular sounds, even if Mandarin happens to have closer correspondences. Using 夏 for _ha_ is a good example: 夏威夷 makes no sense as _Xiàwēiyí_, but _Haa⁶ wai¹ ji⁴_ works.  

---

