Firefly Chinese with pinyin and characters

POSTED BY: ffying2
UPDATED: Sunday, October 29, 2006 18:07
VIEWED: 22133
PAGE 1 of 1

FFYING2

Tuesday, December 30, 2003 8:48 PM

Howdy all.

Using the shooting scripts and the fine translating that folks have done here and elsewhere, I've been compiling the pinyin romanization and Chinese characters for Firefly's Mandarin.

Thus:

FIREFLY CHINESE PINYINARY
[NEW URL] http://fireflychinese.kevinsullivansite.net

I've also included some of the Chinese you can see in the background of the show and some resources.

Come on by.

Ying
Firefly-Serenity Funsite http://fireflyfunsite.kevinsullivansite.net

Firefly-Serenity Chinese Pinyinary http://fireflychinese.kevinsullivansite.net

Language and Humor Blog http://languageandhumor.net/blog

TASS

Tuesday, December 30, 2003 8:53 PM

Way cool ... now all I need to is learn pronuciation better.

Tass - where you are is where you are meant to be.

SARAHETC

Tuesday, December 30, 2003 8:57 PM

This is remarkable! This is the most fantastic resource! I'm only on the F section and already I'm making lists for people to email this link to. Can I link to it extensively?

You've even got the really, really tricky ones on there that I thought people would never figure out. Knowing now what "Fang zong feng kuang de jie" means exactly gives that scene more impact.

This is just great! It is super fantastic!

I'm a dying breed who still believes, haunted by American dreams. ---Neko Case

SHINY

Tuesday, December 30, 2003 9:03 PM

Great job, Ffying! Very shiny!

RIVER
Purple elephants are flying.
MAL
Good. Thanks for the update.

FFYING2

Tuesday, December 30, 2003 9:27 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Tass:
now all I need to is learn pronuciation better.

Me too, but I guess so do our Big Damn Heroes. ;)

Ying

CHANNAIN

Tuesday, December 30, 2003 9:38 PM

I think you just elevated yourself to big damn hero status - this is super shiny!

Firefly Artwork Series
http://www.mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=7922

FFYING2

Tuesday, December 30, 2003 9:40 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Sarahetc:
This is remarkable! This is the most fantastic resource! I'm only on the F section and already I'm making lists for people to email this link to. Can I link to it extensively?

Xiexie.

Link away. I started this a year ago just for me and for bits on my other site, but the shooting scripts were the mother lode, so I thought I'd share. I know it's not perfect because I know very little Mandarin grammar. Coming from a student-of-Japanese background, I've been more of a characters/vocab. person.

Quote:
Knowing now what "Fang zong feng kuang de jie" means exactly gives that scene more impact.

Yeah, we could all figure out Dong ma?, but they should have subtitled the long, more important ones.

Ying

PUNKINPUSS

Tuesday, December 30, 2003 9:49 PM

This is just brilliant! So shiny and cool! Thank you!

I know a bit of Cantonese, but the Mandarin pronounciations always throw me so this is such a treat to have this as a reference. Plus, cursing in foreign languages, hey, that's just fun fun fun!

punkinpuss

TASS

Tuesday, December 30, 2003 10:03 PM

I was just talking to one of my coworkers and he was amazed at how well you did... (most of my coworkers are from China or Hong Hong... such is TO)

His only comment so far was with:
fahng-tzong fung-kwong duh jeh
he said he would have done it as
fahng-jhong fung-kwong duh jeh
based on how most NorthAmericans proncounce letter sets. (Not many know how to do 'tz')

Tass - where you are is where you are meant to be.

SAINT JAYNE

Tuesday, December 30, 2003 10:09 PM

This is most excellent, Ffying2! They aught to write a folk hero song for you.

I wonder if any of the actors/actresses had good pronunciation in Chinese? It would be a lot easier learning these phrases if we could listen to the proper pronunciation.

FFYING2

Wednesday, December 31, 2003 1:40 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Tass:
His only comment so far was with:
fahng-tzong fung-kwong duh jeh
he said he would have done it as
fahng-jhong fung-kwong duh jeh
based on how most NorthAmericans proncounce letter sets. (Not many know how to do 'tz')

Thank you both for the suggestion. Since I'm including the pronunciations from the scripts (when available), however, I'm trying to stick with their way as much as possible--where Zao gao is "Tzao gao" and Fozu is "FWO-tzoo."

Ying

ZAPHODB

Wednesday, December 31, 2003 1:42 AM

Super sweet site!

FLAMETREE

Monday, January 19, 2004 9:30 AM

Great site! Amazing amount of work.

I was looking at bizui
shut up also can be used like hold your toungue ! be silent (ie a command)

zhuzui also means to shut up, be quiet. Perhaps less brisque?

thank you for your great effort

Regards

CAITLYN

Monday, January 19, 2004 3:06 PM

Great site. Whenever I've used a Chinese quote in my sig, guess where the spelling came from :) I've had your site bookmarked for a couple of weeks now. Very shiny.

"Ai ya, wo mun wan leh."

THECRAZYIVAN

Monday, March 15, 2004 4:44 AM

About time! I love the site!

~~~~~~~~~~
Take me out to the black.....

FFYING2

Tuesday, September 21, 2004 1:14 AM

Hey, all. I've been doing a bit of updating and revising lately, so I thought I'd give this a bump. 谢谢 (xiexie) as always for the kind words and linking.

http://fireflychinese.kevinsullivansite.net/

Ying

DRAGONFLYGYPSY

Sunday, September 26, 2004 10:53 PM

Wow, what a site! Thanks for all the hard work you've put into translating. I do speak Mandarin and lived for a year in Shanghai teaching English at a high school and I was getting all set to translate it by myself and now - well thanks again, I can sit back and enjoy the ride. I agree our Heroes pronunciation is a little hard to follow but still not bad on the basics. Can't wait for the movie but haven't heard when it will be released in Australia. And btw, the show has never been on tv down here but quality still makes it way across the miles.

FFYING2

Monday, September 27, 2004 2:52 AM

dragonflygypsy:
Xiexie. I didn't actually translate much, but there was a lot of "pinyin-ating" and "hanzi-tizing." A little translating.

Ying

GOJIRO

Tuesday, September 28, 2004 4:15 AM

Very cool. I'll never understand Chinese as long as I live, and I find those that do understand it amazingly intelligent.

Very pretty to look at, though! I don't think any other language in the world lends itself as well to art as does Chinese. Maybe Arabic comes close.

gojiro

IZCHAN

Monday, December 6, 2004 5:13 AM

Actually both words are used in the same context.

Usually we use them when we want to show we are business ...

Bi Zui ...
Bi means Close
Zui is Mouth

Zu Zui
Zu means stop
Zui is again mouth ...

so it means the same ...
close/stop your pie hole.

FLAMETREE

Wednesday, December 8, 2004 6:08 AM

Hello izchan,

xiexie Ni!

thanks for the clarification.

I hope the new movie uses some of these words.

It is fun to understand even a little bit of chinese when it is used.

Cheers :)

IZCHAN

Wednesday, December 8, 2004 7:14 AM

you are welcomed

FFYING2

Wednesday, February 23, 2005 4:35 AM

Lots of updates to my Firefly Chinese Pinyinary site:

http://fireflychinese.kevinsullivansite.net/

And to my Browncoats.com Chinese Page:

http://www.browncoats.com/index.php?ContentID=42e83b412a309

Ying
Firefly Funsite http://fireflyfunsite.kevinsullivansite.net
Firefly Chinese Pinyinary http://fireflychinese.kevinsullivansite.net

Browncoats.com http://www.browncoats.com

BANDANAGIRL

Tuesday, March 29, 2005 1:31 PM

Wow this is so shiny!!!!

Frell me dead!!!

LIZANNE

Friday, April 15, 2005 7:12 PM

Super super shiny!

I'm an online gamer (very dorky) and people are constantly shouting things in Chinese in my game.

I get to shout back now!

:cD

Lizanne

YT

Tuesday, May 10, 2005 10:27 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by ffying2:
Yeah, we could all figure out Dong ma?, but they should have subtitled the long, more important ones.

I prefer it without. I may not have known what words Wash was using, but I was in no doubt about what he meant. What FOX should have done is paid you for the right to use your pinyinary, & added it to their site. Glad to see your work in Finding Serenity.

On the other hand, subtitles would have let Joss avoid a flaw in the pilot. Mal says "shut up" in Mandarin three times, and each time everyone in hearing immediately shuts up. That is not realistic, especially with a group of nine such diverse individuals. I think Joss repeated it to give the audience a chance to decipher it for themselves.

Keep the Shiny Side Up . . . (wutzon) Steve Kimock Band, "Ice Cream", from "Live in Colorado"

FFYING2

Friday, May 13, 2005 1:17 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by YT:
What FOX should have done is paid you for the right to use your pinyinary, & added it to their site.

Thanks, but 20th Century Fox Film Corp. already owns the scripts and rewrites. They also could have had Jenny Lynn, the Mutant Enemy translator, type it all up with pinyin and characters in a fairly short time (hopefully for extra pay) if anyone on the inside had wanted that.

Quote:
Glad to see your work in Finding Serenity.

Xiexie ni.

Quote:
On the other hand, subtitles would have let Joss avoid a flaw in the pilot. Mal says "shut up" in Mandarin three times, and each time everyone in hearing immediately shuts up. That is not realistic, especially with a group of nine such diverse individuals. I think Joss repeated it to give the audience a chance to decipher it for themselves.

Perhaps. Or maybe it was just done unnaturally to save time or keep the flow going, whether in Chinese or English.

Ying

FFYING2

Monday, January 23, 2006 4:17 AM

Hi all. I've added some Serenity updates and reorganized the site to combine the Serenity parts with the Firefly parts. I've also added some pictures of the props from Serenity Fan Fest.

If nothing else, come find out what flavors Fruity Oaty Bars come in.

Firefly-Serenity Chinese Pinyinary
http://fireflychinese.kevinsullivansite.net/

NEW URL

FFYING2

Sunday, October 29, 2006 6:07 PM

For those who missed it last month, I've moved my Firefly-Serenity sites off my ISP member site area.

Still flying.

URLs in sig.

Ying

Firefly-Serenity Funsite http://fireflyfunsite.kevinsullivansite.net
Firefly-Serenity Chinese Pinyinary http://fireflychinese.kevinsullivansite.net
Browncoats.com http://www.browncoats.com

Language and Humor Blog http://languageandhumor.net/blog