How would you translate X少 or X爷 or X哥？Like the surname of someone is 李 Li, and people call him 李少，李爷 in order to show respect
爷 is used with many prefixes, generally meaning "Lord". For example, WangYe or JueYe which are used for different nobilities. So I would translate it as Lord X. 少爷 = son of the guy you would address as your lord/boss/whatever So I'd say Young Master X. X哥 = Big Brother X. edit: http://www.wuxiaworld.com/wuxiaxianxia-terms-of-address/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_honorifics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_titles http://wiki.mywuxia.com/index.php?title=Wuxia_Salutation
Would this work in a modern setting? The situation is not so serious. Like a nightclub owner calling a frequent customer, or school gangsters calling a leader of a group etc...
I am native in Chinese, so I am mainly confused at the English corresponding pre/suffixes. Lord or Master would be good in a ancient or historical setting, but what if it's modern times? Would Lord or Master be too serious and weird in modern days? The situation would be more like a nightclub owner calling a frequent customer, or school gangsters calling a leader of a group etc...
... as a pub owner, i think i would go as how restaurants would address their frequents, as Mister Lee i guess?
Ahh... ok Probably something like "sir" or "ma'am" would be common to use in English. But many of the suffixes are pretty contextual, so it depends, maybe? The case where we use Title + Name in English is a bit more rare than in Chinese, where most titles/honorifics can be used as a suffix. So if you're going for actual common wording outside of formal situations, it's limited to Mr, Ms and Mrs. It's not as varied and specific. No matter how polite you want to be, it's pretty standard. Sir, madam, ladies, gentlemen. These are some that I remember used in some fancier restaurants, if you're looking for some variation. Even the X哥 thing doesn't have a direct translation to English, I think. If you say 'bro', 'brother', etc. you typically wouldn't follow it up with a name. I don't even remember the last time I've heard someone say "second brother/sister". When I introduce my sisters to someone, I just say they're my sisters. In Chinese, though, I'd say eldest and youngest sisters, respectively. So, again, much more general. And on that note, most people just use each other's names. I call my brother and sisters by their names, and although I don't do it personally, I know some people who refer to their parents by their names. So you have choices. How "English" do you want it to be? How much Chineseness do you want to leave behind in your translations? P.S. Just as an example, the US President is commonly referred to as "Mr. President" or "President <name>". Their spouse is commonly referred to as "Mrs. <name>". Nothing really fancy.
Yeah, I understand it would be hard to find exact translations for things like this....I was using Sir or Mr, but wonder if there are better options. Do you happen to know how other translators handle this?
Let's see... IRAS has a modern setting. However, since it's mostly within industry, they use job-titles as honorifics. King's Avatar has more meme-ish honorifics... "God" They're bad examples, but they do show one thing, that it'll always be pretty awkward sounding since there's no direct equivalent words in the English language. So don't mind it too much. For real examples, I think it's best to look at My Wife is a Beautiful CEO. I never read the raws, so I'm not sure what honorifics were used there. I also wasn't really analyzing the translation, so I can't remember it all too well... but I'm pretty sure there's an abundance of Mr/Mrs/Ms. Aside from that, I remember bro/sis, job-titles and sometimes 'boss' being used. So all in all, still much less variation than in non-modern settings. You may also want to have a look at Very Pure and Ambiguous: The Prequel and My Beautiful Teacher; but I dropped those early on, so I can't say much about them.