chinese dictionary

L

lujhu

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I haven't upgraded to Tiger yet (it won't be available in Taiwan for at least a month)...

but I'm really curious, how is the dictionary for Chinese translations?

Does it provide pinyin or Chinese characters?
Does it have a pronunciation feature so you can listen to the words?

inquiring (Chinese language student) minds want to know.

m
 
Ni hao ma?

It works very well with traditional and simplified Han, far as I can tell. I do wish it had a Hanyu option for us gweilos.
 
The original text is in Japanese. I don't read Japanese though....only chinese.
 
It's Japanese, probably from a 'love hotel'. It says, basically, 'We're sorry. Customers may not enter with foreign women.' In other words, 'No hookers.'

Edit: I guess a lot of you wouldn't know what a 'love hotel' is. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_hotel for more details. As much as it sounds like bunk, the vast, vast majority of users are married couples. The typical Japanese family still sleeps together in one room (granny and grampa, usually get their own space, but mom, dad and the kiddlets sleep in one room), so privacy is worth paying extra for.
 
Interesting. So in Japanese, the phrase 'foreign lady' is used to mean 'prostitute'?

Very ironic -- "lady who are waiting for the lord" made me think of nuns...
 
Part of the problem is that sign is polite about the matter, and so is slighly oblique. In all likelihood, the owner of the establishment probably plugged his Japanese phrase into a translator program. You should try doing it in Babelfish. It gets a little closer to the heart of the matter, but misses in accuracy by a country mile. The phrase is:

この付近で、客引き行為をしている外国人女性とのお入店はお断りします
Click to expand...

Try plugging that into http://world.altavista.com/tr

I should also note that the sign doesn't just say 'foreign women', it says 'foreign women who are conducting business'. It's a little critical to the meaning. Sorry about that. It is a little surprising that the sign was made in English. The stereotype in Japan (rightly or wrongly, I can't really say) is of Russian prostitutes.

A lot of signs like this are aimed at English speakers. Because, really, we mostly all louts.
 
I appreciate the explanation, very interesting!

I got some rather amusing results pasting that phrase into the Tiger Translator Widget.

If they'd used THIS wording, I probably would have figured it out! ::ha:: :D
 

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How interesting. That is exactly the wording you get from Altavista's Babelfish. Perhaps that widget is just an interface to their web service. Minus the ads. I wonder what sort of license THAT is. You should run netstat after doing a translation and see who pops up.
 
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