SCV CAS Chinese Character Translation Thread

hoshinocomet

hoshinocomet

[14] Master
Some people have requested translations of the dozens of characters in Creation, so here it is. I'm still not too sure on what some of the characters mean, but I'll keep looking into it. If I made any mistakes, feel free to point them out, and any contribution is welcome! A friendly reminder : do stay on topic! :sc5rap1:

NOTE : This list is from the FP Official Guide. There may be are errors/repeats which have been corrected.

Final Update : 27th March 2012.

Thanks for all your support!

Credit goes to TheFool for providing additional explanations as to Japanese meanings and corrections.

CHINESE CHARACTERS
1 - Long (JP Meaning : more akin to "leader)
2 - Ore - In Japan, its male informal way of addressing oneself.
3 - Me
4- Otsu (JP Meaning : Witty, Good, Smart, Quaint)
5- One
6- Two
7- Three
8- Four
9 - Five
10 - Six
11- Seven
12- Eight
13- Nine
14- Ten
15- Hundred
16 - Thousand
17- Ten Thousand
18- One Hundred Million
19 - Zero
20- Iron
21 - Rock
22- Steel
23- Laugh
24 - Joy
25 - Anger
26- Happiness
27 - Sorrow
28- Situation
29 - Level
30 - Section (JP Meaning : Grade)
31- Will (In JP, it means general, commander.)
32 - Army
33- Temple
34 - Form/Manner (In JPN, polite suffix to someone's name (~sama)
35 - Participate
36- Flow
37 - Spring
38- Summer
39- Autumn
40-Winter
41- Wind
42- Forest
43- Fire
44- Mountain
45 -Thunder
46- Sea
47 - Water
48 - Flames
49 - Light
50 - Observation post above the gate in the outer walls of a castle

51- Either 究 in jpn – research, study; in chn – investigate, study; or 空 sky, empty (first character of 空手 karate); semantically sky is more appealing, but the last stroke is brushed upwards, and in the case of the 空 character that's normally considered a mistake...but one of those should be correct.

52 - Moon
53 - Colour (apparently)
54 - Heart
55 - Technology/Skill
56 - Body
57 - Strength
58 - Dominate
59 - Leave/Go
60 - Sky
61 - Fierce
62 - Person
63- Up
64 - Down
65 - Left
66- Right
67- Tiger
68- Dragon
69 - Deer
70 - Bear
71- Snake
72- Wolf
73 - In JP, this character is used for character repitition. (e.g. like in 色色 → 色々)
74- Life
75 - Shock
76 - Intense/Strong
77 - World
78 - Boundary
79 - Demon
80 - Soul
81- Evil
82 - Fly
83- Tooth (JP : Fang/Tusk)
84- Again
85 - Sword
86 - Benevolence
87 - Chamber (JP Meaning : Tower (lit.) - often used to describe government)
88 - Jutsu - technique, skill/art
89 - Military, Warrior

90 - Road (JPN : but also both literal and metaphorical e.g. Bushido, Kendo . This can be translated to also mean doctrine, code, principals, ethics, the right path.)

91- Ghost
92 - (In) Love
93 - Gold
94 - Huge

95 - Pie (Yes, its Pie, but its not the Pie that you eat). In Chinese hanyu pinyin, pronounce it as "pyeeh"

96 - Lucky
97 - Straight/Upright (JPN : Right, Correct, Just.)
98 - Sect
99 -Warrior
100 - If
101 - No
102 - Change
103 - Meal (apparently)
104 - Gas (JPN : More of ki -life force, life energy, energy flow )
105 - To fight/war
106 - Move
107 - Big
108 - Strong
109 - Finish
110 - Enemy
111 - Of (JPN : Target)
112 - Longevity
113 - Shadow
114 - Tranquil
115 - Attack, but also to defeat, to conquer
116 - Wrist
117 - Beast

Characters 118 to 125 are errors in the official guide.

118 - Flower
119 - Snow
120 - Fist
121 - Dance
122 - Sword/Katana
123 - Dream
124 - Mysteriousness, Occultness
125 - Camellia

126 - Green
127 - Village
128 - Sakura
129 - Thought
130 - Wood, but also tree
131 - Only/Sole
132 - Edge (of a blade/blade/sword)
133 - Wealthy
134 - Swim (JPN : To play)
135 - To hunt
136 - Most
137 - High
138 - Hawk
139 - Friend
140 -Genius
141-Moe (Meaning in JP : Crush, fascination), also means sprouting
142 - Fine/Detailed
143- Red
144- Blue and/or Green
145 - Samurai
146 - Endure/Tolerate (also means "to hide" and "shinobi")
147 - Poison
148 - Nothing
149 - Battle
150 - Hand
151 - Abstain
152 - Next
153 - Repair
154 - Live
155 - Ultra/Exceed/Surpass
156 - Vermillion
157 - Attack
158 - Eye
159 - Kindness, also to Excel, to surpass

BACK FRAME CHARACTERS

3 - Love
4 - Drink
5- Soul
6- Offering
7 - Same as Chinese Character 146
8 - Shiki Soku Ze Kuu - "Form is emptiness; matter is void, all is vanity"
9 - Animal
10 - Wind, Forest, Fire, Mountain

FRONT FRAME CHARACTERS

123 - Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter
124 - First in The World
125- Joy, Anger, Sorrow, Happiness
127 -Moe
 
Awesome! Do you know any of the characters in any of the other things like thumbnail parts, patterns, and motif stickers?
 
Awesome work on those translations so far, dude! Thanks a lot and keep it up! I appreciate it.... m(_ _)m

And before I forget, someone sticky this thread, please?
 
Hi everyone, I would like to weigh in.
First off, Luneth22 – terrific job. I mean, it is really difficult to discern the characters in semi-cursive style . Sometimes the character looks entirely different than its printed counterpart, and some other times stroke count and stroke order differs (thank god it's not 草書). So again, nicely done!

I gather You took the 'chinese' approach. I would like to take the 'japanese' one (after all, the game is made by the Japanese). While I have many resources when it comes to jpn, I do not know chn very well, so I will be basing my assumptions on the one hanzi dictionary I have.
I also found some mistakes, added some definitions and proposed certain characters where You left ??? I'm open to discussion.
(btw I still don't have about 1/3 of the characters, so I can't address all the issues. I'll update my post when I catch'em all)

1 – 長 long yes; grow - not literarly I think; although it is part of 成長 (growth, progress), this is not a direct character-meaning connotation; more importantly, another frequent usage is the leader, chief, the eldest (村長 village chief; 社長 company boss; 番長 ringleader; 長男 eldest son）

2 – 俺 ore – I; in jpn it is a male informal way of addressing oneself

4 – probably 乙 otsu – it has many meanings, but the most popular usage is the latter (also: witty, smart, good, quaint)

18 – it is not a billion, it's 100 million

20 – 鉄: less metal - more iron. Like in tekken: 鉄人 tetsujin – iron-man and 鉄拳 tekken - iron fist

26 – agreed; has an additional meaning – music

28 – as You said situation, circumstances; in jpn it accompanies another meaning feelings, emotions.

29 – not sure; right side looks like oozato radical to me, which would exclude 'level' as a character. But then again, this is the hard-to-discern-components-hard-to count-the-strokes weird semi-cursive shape, and I have no better candidate, so I'm gonna stick with Your proposal.

30 – I guess it's 段; checked in the chn dict and indeed it has the section meaning; in japanese however, it's grade, step (reading: dan). used in martial arts: karate, judo etc. Steven Seagal for instance has 7th dan in aikido, and this is the character used to express it: 七段/7段. the jpn translation seems better for FG

33 – agreed; additional meanings may be: palace, hall, mansion; also used as a suffix to someone's name to show respect (~dono)

34 – my guess would be 様; in that case, the meaning both in jp and chn would be form, way, manner, style, rather than look (double checked with a hanzi dict); also in jpn only – polite suffix to someone's name (~sama)

35 – 参 in chn agreed; in jpn it is also to take part, but there are other meanings: three, going (humble), coming (humble), visiting (polite), be troubled, defeated

50 – really tough, but found it – observation post above the gate in the outer walls of a castle (I guess); 門 gate radical + 者 person inside

51 – I'd say either 究 in jpn – research, study; in chn – investigate, study; or 空 sky, empty (first character of 空手 karate); semantically sky is more appealing, but the last stroke is brushed upwards, and in the case of the 空 character that's normally considered a mistake...but one of those should be correct.

59 – hmm, how about 去? Leave, go

73 – looks like a symbol used in jpn to denote a character repetition like in 色色 → 色々; as far as I know it is not used in chn; IF it's that character

75 – 激 I'd say violent, intense, enraged; seems that in chn also quickly; in jpn: additional usage as a prefix meaning extremely~

77 – 世 agreed; additionally generation, society

87 – perhaps it's 閣 literarly tower (jpn) or chamber (chn), often used when describing government

88 – 術 jutsu – technique (like in naruto anime: ~~no jutsu), skill, art (both chn and jpn)

89 – 武 agreed; plus warrior

90 – yes, it is road, but both literal and metaphorical; as in 武士道 bushido, 茶道 sado, 剣道 kendo. I would translate it as a doctrine, code, principals, ethics, the right path

93 – agreed, plus metal, money

95 – as far as I was able to check, this 'pie3' does not hold any particular meaning except for denoting one of the radicals; it's the same in jpn, only called 'no'. Here is the interesting part: 'no' not only is a name of a radical, but also is a possessive particle in jpn. particles are usually written in hiragana script, but occasionally may be written in katakana; and it just so happens that katakana character for 'no' looks like the radical: ノ. So, I would use this character as a possessive particle: 木ノ葉: leaves of trees (actual word), 正ノ光 (may be created from the CaS and would be roughly translated as a Light of Justice)

97 – 正 not sure about chn, but in jpn mostly used as correct, right, just; as in 正義 - justice (written on the back of coats of admirals and other high-ranking officers of the Marine in One Piece anime)

100 – in chn and as a secondary meaning in jpn agreed; in jpn primarily means young, so I would stick with the jpn translation

103 – looks like 膳 – meal, not sure; also used in daily life as a counter for chopsticks

104 – 気 gas??! that got me startled! I consulted the chn hanzi dict and yes, it seems to hold the 'gas' meaning, but in jpn for sure and I think also in chn, its most important dictionary meaning would be spirit, mind, energy; this is the character that is known as the concept of chi/qi (jpn ki) - the life force, life energy, energy flow; so...while 'gas' is definitely not incorrect, in this situation I would bet on the more philosophical connotation. [edit: most kanji (jpn) have the same shape as simplified hanzi or traditional hanzi (depending on a character). In this case however, there are 3 versions, with the jpn one differing from both hanzi trad and hanzi simpl, thus it sort of proves, that all the CaS characters are in fact japanese kanji, not chinese hanzi]​

105 – looks like 勤 – means diligence (both chn and jpn), to serve (jpn), to work (jpn)

109 – additionally completion

111 – in chn yes, it seems to indicate possession, belonging; in jpn however it means target


116 – 腕 in chn a wrist; in jpn on the other hand (pun intended^^) an arm and skill!; I'd go with the jpn ones

118 – ok, this I don' understand at all; to me it's clearly 花 – flower (both chn and jpn); why do You think it's 'most', Luneth?

119 – another tricky one; if It's 'high', what character exactly do You think it is? doesn't seem to be the standard character for high 高, at least in jpn. To me it sort of looks like snow 雪, with slightly abridged amekanmuri radical.

120 – 拳 a fist

121 – 舞 not a friend; (to) dance [edit: more often than not, poetic or metaphorical; used for instance in naruto anime: Kimimaro and his Bone dances, like 柳の舞 yanagi no mai (dance of the willow) or 椿の舞 tsubaki no mai (dance of the camillia) and Bleach anime: the shikai powers of Rukia's Zanpakuto: 初の舞月白 some no mai tsukishiro (first dance - white moon), 次の舞白漣 tsugi no mai hakuren (next dance - white ripples), 参の舞白刀 san no mai shirafune (third dance - white blade)]

122 – 刀 a sword, katana (knife in chn)

123 – 夢 a dream

124 – 玄 not detailed; mysterious, occultness; also association with dark, black

125 – I'd say 椿 camellia; no other character, of which the right side denotes 'spring', comes to mind

134 – in jpn it means to play

135 – looks like 狩 to hunt

141 – cannot say; the arc stroke goes the opposite way, but resembles a bit kemonohen – a beast radical; the problem is, this radical cannot stand on its own...so maybe it's a weird-looking 才 talent, genius

143 – in jpn it's the usual red

144 – actually 青 ao - means blue and/or green. the other green character 緑 midori - just means green

153 – 修 agreed; in jpn it also means to study, to master, which seems a better connotation for CaS

159 – 優 kindness; but also to excel, to surpass

that would be my 2 cents
cheers!
 
@TheFool: Hmm.... Those translations are interesting! Now I need to ask you a small question:

Which Chinese letters would you want me to use to make the word, "Kageshiro?"

It would help me immensely if you could answer that, so I thank you in advance..... :)
 
@Lonewolf_Kai:
Hi. Thanks for the message. Let me begin by saying that I don't have all the characters uncovered, so I will be using Luneth's list as a reference.

Kageshiro consists of two words: kage (shadow) and shiro (white).
- the first one can be written using 2 different characters: 影 or 陰 (with very slight difference in usage but that's unimportant right now). According to Luneth, number 113 means 'shadow', I will double check it later, but for now 113 is your first character

- the second word, meaning white, uses this character 白. as far as I know, both in jnp and chn this is the only one, no alternatives. unfortunately, I don't see it in Luneth's list. There's a chance it's one of the unknown ???, but I can't help You with that, don't have those uncovered. Try browsing through the character list. I'm pasting different calligraphy forms of the character, maybe it will help a bit. If You can't find it, You can't create 'kageshiro', sorry

white.jpg

If You have any other compound words You'd like to create, let me know
cheers!
 
Hmm.... I thought that "Shiro" translates to the word, Dog...? o.O

In that case, if I invert the name "Kageshiro" to "Shirokage," would that be an even better name that makes absolute sense, right? I mean, which version would be better as a surname, TheFool? Or maybe as a first name...? I'm confused now.... @.@

Also, what about the Chinese Character #145? Might that be "White", by any chance...?

Oh, man, I'm so confused.... Both languages are a whole lot harder to understand than I realize.... ~_~
 
@Lonewolf_Kai:

No, no, no, shiro is definitely NOT a dog; if You wanted dog, it would be inu 犬 (for the more chinese-oriented: gou3 狗)

Strictly semantically speaking, yes it theoretically would be better to have shirokage than kageshiro, but in name constructing You have more freedom. I gave earlier an example for dance from Bleach - one of Rukia's powers is called tsukishiro moon-white, but You still can translate it as a white moon, and, for me, tsukishiro sounds a bit better than shirotsuki. to summarize, in the case of 2 character compounds, don't worry about the order too much, the sound of a new compound is also important. Both kageshiro and shirokage sound good to me. Mind you, I only talk about words which you invent yourself. Actual compound word construction has many rules, with 5 basic types of compounds. But I'm going off topic.
What do you mean by ‘use it as a surname or a first name’? I hope You don’t mean real-life names because then You are bound by character selection and specific guidelines created by the japanese government. In my opinion (feel free to ignore it), Kageshiro/shirokage sounds like an anime-like power name (all above examples: tsukishiro, hakuren, shirafune), a weapon name (taki weapons: kagenui, kagekiri and others), or in the case of a person, sort of anime-like nickname (from naruto: 4th hokage namikaze minato was known as 黄色い閃光kiiroi senkou yellow flash, Hatake Kakashi’s father was known as 白い牙shiroi kiba white fang; from SC: 吉光yoshimitsu lucky light, joyful light; from One Piece: Edward Newgate known as 白髭 shirohige Whitebeard); of course, You may add something to kageshiro/shirokage, no problem, just be careful not to ‘over-cool’ it (and don’t add any color adjectives, for obvious reasons)
If You want me to tell You about character 145, You have to take a snapshot or something and show it to me, I don't have it

And don't get discouraged!
What I think the problem might be, is that You probably gather bits and pieces from the internet, games or subtitled anime without double-checking. And of course, the internet is full of mistakes (subtitled anime is less prone to errors if done by a serious and respected fansub group, nevertheless throughout my anime-watching era I found numerous inconsistencies). Hell, as You've seen, even things that are supposed to be correct, like the FP official guide above, had errors (probably copy/paste ones). So the first rule is to be skeptical and consult reliable sources, like dictionaries and such. And secondly, if You want to learn jpn or chn, really the best way is to start attending language school or find a professional tutor. You need to be taught the basics and You need time to understand the mentality and philosophy behind those languages, get used to grammatical and lexical differences, and be prepared to double-check everything with dictionaries ;) It may seem a long and difficult road, but it's a fascinating one, so I encourage You to go pro with jpn or chn! (as a japanophile, naturally I encourage You to commit to jpn^^)

sorry to the mods and those who thought tmi or tl;dr (can someone teach me how to use spoiler tags???) Thanks, Luneth!
Hope it helped a bit, feel free to ask me anything, will try to help anyone interested in these things
cheers!
Fool
 
For spoiler tags, type in

[S p o i l e r] (insert content here) [/S p o i l e r]

But type Spoiler without the spaces obviously
 
actually u have to find some chinese or japanese guys who know the chinese and japanese words.
oh they have to know english either.3 different language？eh find some language phd guys in university .lol
for example .
144.青 this word in modern china.the pronunciation is "qing" i dont know how to pronunce it in 1200 year ago before this word spread to Japan.Chinese pronunciation in nearly 1200 years had very big change.
not only blue or green. In some special word it means black.
however The main meaning not colour in modern chiness word. it means young.
young pelpeo .young age.

in japan . 青 the midori. same as china not only the color. however have little diffirent. it means new. the spring blooms. the new things , the start , the future. More young than young.

than we back to the color. actually there's other word means green and blue. "綠" and "藍".
so why two color have one same word. eh...well i think maybe because the Blue-green blind.

In fact.we don't need so strict like this. I'm just too spare......
 
ShatterICE said:
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Click to expand...
Hi!
nice info on chinese characters.

Just a couple of thoughts: (pertaining japanese part)
-青 um, no, it is not midori; it's ao
- 青 meaning black: yes and no; it is practically only used when describing a black horse, but when his hair has blueish tinge; other than this peculiarity it is not used to describe black
- 青 it also does not really mean start, future in japanese; it means young, as in not yet mature (usage in compounds sometimes implies 'spring' or 'future' but I'm trying to avoid compound word connotations and stick with the original meaning of the character; in all japanese 漢和辞典 I checked, the 'young' meaning is explained as 'not yet mature, not ripe'
- I have to disagree 緑 midori is just green, no blue
- 藍 ai in jpn at least is in fact indigo
- there is a ton of other characters for different shades of blue and green, but let's not go there, it's a thread for the characters that are in the CaS
historically there are said to be other countries which languages did not discern blue from green. In japan's case. there were four words describing main colours (main for the Japanese long time ago): aka (red), kuro (black), shiro (white), ao (blue). midori wasn't used then, at least not frequently, so ao became both blue and green; and ao, beacuse of its double meaning with young a.k.a. not ripe not adult yet was and is used when talking about leaves, vegetables and such (the matter isn't simple, now both characters intrude their fields so You see midori addressing the plants and ao addressing things like traffic lights). Haven't heard before the color blindness hypothesis, at least it is not mentioned in linguistic and historical sources I browsed through
 
no no..
actually...
all the chiness characters in jp . they have two way to pronunce it.
not only jp. China surrounding the cultural Chinese characters.
ok in jp. u can try serach 訓読み .
like 山 means mountain. yama and san. two way to read this characters.
san should came from old chiness pronunce maybe 吳語 or 粵語 or 閩南語.
The 山 spread to jp with pronunciation.
yama i think should original Japanese pronunciation, but the royal family writed the chiness characters.

so 青 this character. ao and midori both correct.
by the way. im not japaness . I can't ensure absolutely right.
i think they pronunce 青 to midori in normal life. but read it on the book as AO.
when they say ao most time means the young. midori means the blue.

the black .....i dont know in jp but in china
like 青丝 or 玄青 ... now they means black.
its pretty like same word between french and english but have diffrent mean.
 
I'm sorry, but You are completely mistaken :(
I have diffuclties understanding your english but I think I know what You're getting at and have to respond.
I don't want this thread to turn into Japanese 101 sunday school, but I have to clarify some things.
- yes jap kanji come from chn hanzi; NO they are not the same. 1) yes some, but not all of, characters have the same shape, meaning and similar pronunciation (in jpn naturally I'm talking about 音読), 2) some of them have similar pronunciation and meaning but slightly different shape 3) some of them look the same but mean completely different things 4) some of them are ONLY in japanese (so called 国字); just wanted to stress that we always have to take differences in chinese and japanese characters under consideration, they do exist.

- yes I know what 訓読み is. I LIVE in Japan. You are absolutely correct in saying that for 'mountain' san is on'yomi and came from chinese along with the character, and yama is kun'yomi, the japanese way of pronuncing it. But that in no way makes your case with 青 and I'll get to that in a moment. let me just add that Japanese has way, way more readings for a single character. Even though there are only kun'yomi and on'yomi, in each catergory there may be from 1 to even 7~8 differen readings; and characters with over 10 different readings are not so rare.
- 青...in no universe you can read this as midori, no way. You seem to claim, that because japanese has different readings for one character, you can read this one as both ao and midori. You can't be further from the truth here. actually here I give you the correct readings for both 'green' characters.
青
on'yomi: セイ sei、ショウ shou
kun'yomi: あお ao, あおーい ao-i
in names: あおao, お o, きよ kiyo, せい sei, はる haru
for 緑
on'yomi リョク ryoku, ロク roku
kun'yomi みどり midori
names: つか tsuka, つな tsuna, のり nori, みどり midori, ろく roku
I hope I made my point here
-your words: "when they say ao most time means the young. midori means the blue"
NO!!! this is completely wrong.
when they say ao they mean EITHER green/blue when talking about colours OR green as in inexperienced, rather than young! More often aoi is used as a colour though (the last one is my opinion, not a fact).
when they say midori they mean green! in no way midori can mean blue! please trust me on this!
- It seems to me, You know chinese well or You're chinese yourself, I have no jurisdiction there :). but in modern Japanese 青 does not usually mean black. maybe historically, maybe in one single word. As You say, maybe in chinese it's more frequent, but if You asked a Japanese person, what does 青 mean, black would be the last thing he'd think of (unless he knows chinese^^)
- all in all, I hope we can put that to rest. Sorry if I was too aggressive, just wanted to be very clear and show You where You're wrong. I can back up everything I say with tons of books, dictionaries and other materials. I'm not making empty claims.
but it was interesting to learn some chinese stuff
cheers!
 
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