iPhone in China
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Q: How do you say "iPhone 7" and "iPhone 7 Plus" in Chinese?
A: "iPhone 7" and "iPhone 7 Plus".
Examples
1.
Warning against purchasing an iPhone issued by the Fuling Xinjiuzhou Gynecology Hospital in Chongqing:
2.
Threat of dismissal for anyone who purchases an iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus issued by the Yongkang Medicine Company in Nanyang, Henan:
Both photographs from "iPhone 7? You're fired! " (BBC Trending, 10/2/16).
Despite this patriotic outcry against the iPhone and the smashing of iPhones in the street to express displeasure with America, Apple recently "confirmed plans to open a $45 million research and development centre in Beijing, its first ever in the country."
Cf. "Does the new iPhone 7 slogan mean 'precisely penis' in Chinese? " (9/9/16).
[h.t. Carmen Lee]
AntC said,
October 4, 2016 @ 8:29 pm
Oh! With those letters being from a hospital and a medicine company, I though there was some health prohibition on iPhones.
This is China, not some capitalist country with free trade. If the Communist Party doesn't like Apple, just ban imports of the darn things, surely! (Or if imported illegally, ban them from connecting to the phone network.)
It always bemuses me smashing products as a protest: Apple has already got the money for the iPhone. If you smash yours, who is it harming? (Or perhaps you went and bought one especially so you could smash it?) You might just have to go and buy another one.
(I went to see the Beatles movie 'Eight Days a Week', in which U.S. Southerners trashed their albums after Lennon's remark comparing The Beatles to Jesus.)
It's the sort of publicity no seller of trendy/iconoclastic gear would turn down.
K. Chang said,
October 5, 2016 @ 1:05 pm
China had mixed political and civilian life so often it's second nature. They believe such gestures are "patriotic". It seems to date back to the Cultural Revolution days… mostly for show. You know people will buy iPhones no matter what. People will just be less ostantatious about it.
——
A question for professor Mair or anyone else, pardon the slight abuse for this feature, as it's NOT related to this topic.
How would you translate "dubstep" (the music genre) to Chinese? I can't seem to find an even somewhat-official translation.
I, for grins, made up the term 達步音樂 in case there are no good candidates. :D
Graeme said,
October 9, 2016 @ 4:42 am
AntC At a symbolic and telegenic level, the public destruction makes sense. I always read the Stamp Out the Beatles crowd also as thinking they were purifying the world by taking one more Beatle LP off the impressionable world.
Meanwhile outside China vs US, the rest of us just want Apple to pay some tax in the country of sale.
unekdoud said,
October 11, 2016 @ 11:15 pm
One thing that caught my eye in the first image was the spelling "iphone7plus", without capitalization or spacing. No big deal, because the typist probably rarely has to deal with these features in Chinese text.
(The BBC article also suffers from some inconsistency: a caption mentioning "iPhone7", and the line "…telling them not to buy the iPhone 7 or Iphone 7 Plus".)
But with recent news about the product recall of the Galaxy Note 7, I paid closer attention to the branding of that phone. It seems that officially there is no space between Note and 7, even though the majority of news articles will include the space, leading to a situation where Note7 appears as one word or two depending on who you ask.