The Linguist is a languages magazine for professional linguists, translators, interpreters, language professionals, language teachers, trainers, students and academics with articles on translation, interpreting, business, government, technology
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12 The Linguist Vol/56 No/6 2017 www.ciol.org.uk FEATURES the same meaning together, so this is not strange. I then added another Chinese character 岩, pronounced 'yan', meaning soil, making the translation relate to a vineyard. And these three sounds together – 'hui wa yan' – also reflect the original language pronunciation." Cultural nuance Tone is important, too. "We try to use Chinese characters with positive meanings," Liu explains. The translation of the Australian brand Penfolds is a good example. In Mandarin, it is 奔富 ('ben fu'), which means 'to run towards good fortune'. Zhou cites Sauvignon Blanc as another impressive translation: 长相思, pronounced 'chang xiang si', means 'prolonged lovesickness', and is also the name of a melody to which traditional Chinese poems are composed. "That's romantic and poetic," he says. Such cultural and historical nuances are crucial, and could be the downfall of a novice wine translator. Numbers are notoriously important in Chinese culture, eight being very lucky, for instance, and four being particularly unlucky. "People want lots of eights in their mobile phone number. Also the numbers six and the number nine are lucky, so we might use those in wine packaging around gifting. For Chinese New Year, Penfolds launched a limited edition with lucky numbers – and Penfolds Bin 389 is thought of as the most auspicious wines in the Penfolds range. That plays very well in China." As for colours, red wine has been more popular as red is traditionally used for celebrations including weddings, housewarmings, New Year and the mid-autumn festival. But, Zhou notes, "as red is also the colour of blood, we would avoid writing a person's name using a red pen or on red paper. You need to have some sensitivity to these things if you're translating into Chinese and working on branding." That said, both Zhou and Liu say such traditions and superstitions are less influential than they were in the past. "We used to avoid anything described as 'white' because that colour is associated with death," says Liu. "But these days, Chinese people are very relaxed about drinking white wine, as well as red and rose; it doesn't matter." Fully embracing wine culture, Zhou explains, there is now a thirst in China that doesn't stop when the bottle runs dry. "Wine education is growing, with more and more Chinese people going to courses and classes to learn about drinking wine and the Western lifestyle." Indeed, China is the second-biggest market for the UK-based wine education body WSET in terms of number of students. It's a lifestyle choice, says Zhou. "Wine is seen as having health benefits, because it has much lower alcohol content than local spirits, and there's a belief that wine – especially red wine – is good for your heart and can lower your blood pressure. But mostly, drinking wine is seen as a glamorous thing to do. It's about the glasses and the bottles and how to use a corkscrew – all those rituals." With the Chinese appetite for wine still steadily increasing, this looks like a market that will continue to thrive for consumers and translators alike. For writers' biographies for all feature articles, see page 34. CULTURAL ASSOCIATIONS Red wine has traditionally been more popular in China as the colour is associated with celebrations IMAGES: © SHUTTERSTOCK