Sunday, April 16, 2006

How do you say 'Google' in Chinese?

(I found this excerpt to be funny in a much too nerdy way...my apologies to those who don't speak Chinese. Thanks Emily for the post! )

43% of Chinese Internet users referred to the search engine with the English word "Google,"

26% used a Chinese pronunciation, "gougou" ("dog dog") and

13% used a Chinese pronunciation, "gugou," that sounds like "ancient dog."


Google undertook its own survey and discovered an even larger range of imaginative pronunciations, including "guoguo" (fruit fruit) and "gougou" (check check)...

The final choice, (goo-guh, song of the grain), appealed to Google's Asia Pacific Chief Marketing Officer, Wang Huainan, late in 2005. It means "Song of the Grain," expressing the abundance of harvest, but also "Song of the Valley"--a reference to the company's Silicon Valley roots, according to Zhang Jing, Director of Marketing, Asia Pacific.

Did you get all the translations? (dog-dog, check-check, ancient dog, etc.) Which one did you like best? I thought the "ancient dog" was the closest in phonemes.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Christina!

OMG, So relieved it was Ace that got sent home! I promised myself that if Elliot got sent home I would stop watching. Phew, tragedy averted.

Anonymous said...

btw, what was up with Simon falling over Katharine? Paris rocked that night. He was on crack.