Chinese character translation

[duckabolo]

Hello, does anyone know of the chinese characters for the wing chun terminologies?
the terminology im looking for are like 'bong sao', 'tan sao' etc
There are wing chun songs or sayings too. Does anyone know where i could find them?

Thanks,
Duck

[LoneTiger108]

I asked a similar question when I first posted here last year! :rolleyes:

Probably, the resources that you may find helpful are already online. I wont name any as I'm sure others will soon let you know.

Why are you interested in the 'characters' and writings of Wing Chun?

[Phil Redmond]

I asked a similar question when I first posted here last year! :rolleyes:

Probably, the resources that you may find helpful are already online. I wont name any as I'm sure others will soon let you know.

Why are you interested in the 'characters' and writings of Wing Chun?

It could help in understanding the energy used in a movement. Tan sao is sometimes
translated as 'palm up' when it actually translates as 'disperse' or 'spread'. Palm up doesn't explain how the movement should be used. Dispersing/spreading does. That's one of the reasons I studied Cantonese in college.

[LoneTiger108]

It could help in understanding the energy used in a movement.

This is very true, sometimes. Although I think that Duck is asking about the characters themselves, not our 'coded' translations which are so varied sometimes from family to family.

Personally, I have used the characters to study and teach. The majority of the time a numbering sytem is just simpler for the students but if you want to teach, study is mandatory.

Here's just one example of a part of our Foundation Curriculum at The Yum Yeurn Academy: http://www.theyumyeurngacademy.co.uk/Curriculum/foundation/foundation.html

If anyone has any interpretations of literature like this I would appreciate any comments. Fook and Bong characters are in this piece somewhere. BTW, these are NOT Kuen Kuit. ;)

[donbdc]

Sifu Randy Williams boooks have all the terminology, characters and translations in the back of his books. Volumes 1,2 and 3. They can be ordered from INside KungFu magazine.
Don

[Phil Redmond]

You can find the Wing Chun terminology in "The Complete Wing Chun" in both Mandarin and Cantonese.

[donbdc]

Just curious,
I have always wanted to study Chinese to understand our art better but since our art is usual associated w/ Cantonese and Mandarin is usually the only thing taught (around here), would it be a waste of time to learn mandarin. And Phil how long did you study and can you converse? looking fwd to feedback
Don

[Phil Redmond]

Just curious,
I have always wanted to study Chinese to understand our art better but since our art is usual associated w/ Cantonese and Mandarin is usually the only thing taught (around here), would it be a waste of time to learn mandarin. And Phil how long did you study and can you converse? looking fwd to feedback
Don
When I studied at CCNY it was the only CUNY (City University of New York), college that had Cantonese. Since I was doing martial arts I took the Cantonese course for three years but I think I learned more hanging out in Chinatown with the Hung Ching (Hung Mung) guys. Yes I can converse but I'm I can't read well. The course at CCNY was more focused on conversation and not reading. Right now I'm learning Mandarin with a Chinese professor that comes to our school to teach twice weekly. He requires that we read characters. Though our art uses Cantonese terms I do think that it's essential to study Mandarin. You can communicate with more people that way. When I was in NY my Cantonese came in handy. But when I moved to Detroit many people there spoke Fujianese and we couldn't understand each other well. Had I spoked Mandarin I wouldn't have had that problem.

[donbdc]

Wow, Thats great. It seems that w/ any language taking courses is one thing but you have a population you can talk w/. Besides adding 1 more activity to my list (which were surely get me killed by wife) I just wonder if its possibe to do w/ a computer program like Rosetta stone?
Take care
Don

[UKBBC]

Anything to stop you butchering the language any further donnie!

:D

[the Preacher]

Hello, does anyone know of the chinese characters for the wing chun terminologies?
the terminology im looking for are like 'bong sao', 'tan sao' etc
There are wing chun songs or sayings too. Does anyone know where i could find them?

Thanks,
Duck


this is a great English Chinese dictionary:D

xuezhongwen.net
(http://www.xuezhongwen.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict)

[Sihing73]

Hello,

I am ashamed that no one pointed you in the direction of Renes' site. You can look up the terms, sayings and get both English Translations as well as Chineese Characters.

Here is the link:

http://www.wingchunkuen.com/modules.php?name=Encyclopedia&op=list_content&eid=3

[Phil Redmond]

Hello,

I am ashamed that no one pointed you in the direction of Renes' site. You can look up the terms, sayings and get both English Translations as well as Chineese Characters.

Here is the link:

http://www.wingchunkuen.com/modules.php?name=Encyclopedia&op=list_content&eid=3
I did mention The Complete Wing Chun book.
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Wing-Chun-Definitive-Traditions/dp/0804831416
It has Cantonese, Mandarin, and the Chinese characters. I couldn't find Tan Sao on the link you sent. ;)

[duckabolo]

It could help in understanding the energy used in a movement. Tan sao is sometimes
translated as 'palm up' when it actually translates as 'disperse' or 'spread'. Palm up doesn't explain how the movement should be used. Dispersing/spreading does. That's one of the reasons I studied Cantonese in college.

:) Yeah, im chinese so i'd be interested in learning the chinese words of the art and it kind of makes sense easier for me than the romanized english. Sometimes when the words are translated to english, the meaning becomes a bit weird.

Ta,
Duck

[duckabolo]

Hello,

I am ashamed that no one pointed you in the direction of Renes' site. You can look up the terms, sayings and get both English Translations as well as Chineese Characters.

Here is the link:

http://www.wingchunkuen.com/modules.php?name=Encyclopedia&op=list_content&eid=3

Thanks sihing, i'll have a look at that :D

[duckabolo]

I did mention The Complete Wing Chun book.
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Wing-Chun-Definitive-Traditions/dp/0804831416
It has Cantonese, Mandarin, and the Chinese characters. I couldn't find Tan Sao on the link you sent. ;)

Thanks for the lead Phil :)

Duck

[muaddib09]

Someone told me that it is difficult to learn to read Cantonese because there is no romanization to help translate. Has anyone found this to be true? Do Mandarin and Cantonese use the same charcters? I know rosetta stone software does not offer Cantonese, but they are always offering new languages. I have been trying to find books for young children.

[duckabolo]

Someone told me that it is difficult to learn to read Cantonese because there is no romanization to help translate. Has anyone found this to be true? Do Mandarin and Cantonese use the same charcters? I know rosetta stone software does not offer Cantonese, but they are always offering new languages. I have been trying to find books for young children.

Cantonese is definitely harder to learn than mandarin. Cantonese speaks differently to the way it is written in the sense that they use lots of slangs and informal words. mandarin resembles much closer to the way they speak and write and more polite. I don't think there's pinyin for Cantonese. I use a software called NJwin just to type chinese and view chinese characters on the internet. Mandarin and cantonese both use the same words.

The mainland chinese uses simplified chinese words, whereas taiwan and hk uses tradition chinese words. simplified chinese has less strokes for the same character and usually resembles the traditional.

Duck

[CFT]

There is formalized pingyum (pinyin) schemes for Cantonese, e.g. Yale, Lau, Jyutping. The only problem is that it doesn't have the government of the PRC promoting it and teaching it from day 1 in school.

[duckabolo]

There is formalized pingyum (pinyin) schemes for Cantonese, e.g. Yale, Lau, Jyutping. The only problem is that it doesn't have the government of the PRC promoting it and teaching it from day 1 in school.

Hi CFT, do you know how i can learn this Yale, Lau ping yum? when u used the njwin software i use the lau but only spelled it the way i would translate from english.
eg, typing 'lo' would bring a list of words which has that sound. i don't know how to add the extra to make it lower or higher etc.

Sorry if this is going off the topic :D

Thanks,
Duck

[CFT]

Duck, check out wikipedia. Plenty of links to investigate.

Yale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yale_Romanization
Lau: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Lau_romanisation
Jyutping: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyutping

I think NJWIN/NJSTAR support Jyutping now.

[Phil Redmond]

Here is one of the books I used in college. It uses Yale Romanization. It's entitled Speak Cantonese Book 1 by Parker Po-fei Huang and Gerard P. Kok
http://www.ecampus.com/book/0887100945

You will have to find a CD for the 7 Cantonese tones. One of the stances for the WC Pole form is called 'diu mah' hanging horse. If you use the wrong tone you might end up cursing someone's mother. That's why knowing the tones is very important. There are some special characters 'coined' for Cantonese slang. But all Chinese can read the same characters. This may be a good way to go:
http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Cantonese-Chinese-Understand-Pimsleur/dp/0743550803

[duckabolo]

Here is one of the books I used in college. It uses Yale Romanization. It's entitled Speak Cantonese Book 1 by Parker Po-fei Huang and Gerard P. Kok
http://www.ecampus.com/book/0887100945

You will have to find a CD for the 7 Cantonese tones. One of the stances for the WC Pole form is called 'diu mah' hanging horse. If you use the wrong tone you might end up cursing someone's mother. That's why knowing the tones is very important. There are some special characters 'coined' for Cantonese slang. But all Chinese can read the same characters. This may be a good way to go:
http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Cantonese-Chinese-Understand-Pimsleur/dp/0743550803

LOL I know exactly what you mean with that 2 words :D
You seemed quite knowledgeable. i've checked out ur site and saw a pretty interesting clip about yip man's students paying respect in the late 90s.
It's great to see yip man students gather together.

i'll check out CFT's links first before buying any books.

Thank you all :)

Duck

[Phil Redmond]

LOL I know exactly what you mean with that 2 words :D
You seemed quite knowledgeable. i've checked out wingchunkuen.com and saw a pretty interesting clip about yip man's students paying respect in the late 90s.
It's great to see yip man students gather together.

i'll check out CFT's links first before buying any books.

Thank you all :)

Duck
You're welcome. I think the clip you saw at Yip Man's grave was on wingchunkwoon.com

[duckabolo]

You're welcome. I think the clip you saw at Yip Man's grave was on wingchunkwoon.com

ah yes it was at wingchunkwoon.com

[taiwan8me]

[QUOTE=LoneTiger108;844582]This is very true, sometimes. Although I think that Duck is asking about the characters themselves, not our 'coded' translations which are so varied sometimes from family to family.

Here's just one example of a part of our Foundation Curriculum at The Yum Yeurn Academy: http://www.theyumyeurngacademy.co.uk/Curriculum/foundation/foundation.html
The chinese script posted on the website of this link is just the different levels that a Wing chun Student will go through during their training. The 4 large characters mean "Student [Wing Chun] groups" With the Wing Chun not written lol

[couch]

Enjoy:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2008/feb/20/zhaou.youguang.pinyin

[Matrix]

Kenton,

Thank you for posting the video link on Zhou Youguang .
I really thought it was quite interesting.

Bill

[MapoTofu]

Duckabolo Let me add Si-Fu Allen Lee's articles (http://wingchunnyc.com/index.php?/articles/) which references the Chinese characters for Wing Chun terminology words. You will find he writes and explains some terms that are not yet published on other sites.

Take care,
Chris



Hello, does anyone know of the chinese characters for the wing chun terminologies?
the terminology im looking for are like 'bong sao', 'tan sao' etc
There are wing chun songs or sayings too. Does anyone know where i could find them?

Thanks,
Duck

[duckabolo]

Duckabolo Let me add Si-Fu Allen Lee's articles (http://wingchunnyc.com/index.php?/articles/) which references the Chinese characters for Wing Chun terminology words. You will find he writes and explains some terms that are not yet published on other sites.

Take care,
Chris

That's a good article. I liked the way the terms are included.
I've seen different interpretations for the kwan sau (tan with bong).
Some interpret as rolling hand, unfolding hand, and tying/binding hand.
I guess they are all correct.

Duck

[LoneTiger108]

http://www.theyumyeurngacademy.co.uk/Curriculum/foundation/foundation.html
The chinese script posted on the website of this link is just the different levels that a Wing chun Student will go through during their training. The 4 large characters mean "Student [Wing Chun] groups" With the Wing Chun not written lol

Yes, I guess you could look at it that way. I would see the four characters as 'Toe Lee Shing Woi' which would indicate a student Lee Shing group. The Wing Chun characters would be seen on the formal statement of 'Wing Doh Mui Faa Tsong Fut Miu - Chun etc...

Actually, this familiar piece to me is seen on the other link MapoTofu posted, in the bottom right hand corner of the page http://wingchunnyc.com/index.php?/articles/

There once was a thread I started, have you seen this one?
http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=50070