The international translation of Fuwa, the once controversial mascot of the 2008 Olympic Games, was officially changed last week, and the new English translation "Hanyu Pinyin" was officially launched. (Beijing Daily Courier reported in June 10 and June 16)
Of course, after the name has been changed, it is actually of little significance to conduct a post-mortem textual research on Fuwa's English name. Facts have proved that any decision that ignores the opinions of the masses and favors the opinions of experts is not applicable to such a grand theme as the naming of Olympic mascots. The reason for Fuwa's name change seems to be the carelessness in naming and the numerous ambiguities that followed, but in fact, when Fuwa was given an English name for the first time, public participation was not enough.
In fact, when the five lively and lovely Fuwa were given Chinese names, the five names "Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying and Nini" were basically recognized by the government and the public. One of the main reasons is that there is a lot of interaction between the government and the people when determining the names of the five Fuwa. It is the public who poured a lot of enthusiasm into these names and voted for them to reflect public opinion. Therefore, when Fuwa's name is finally determined, it will definitely be recognized and supported by the public.
It can be inferred that the power of public opinion cannot be underestimated when it comes to major public affairs of the nation and the country. Specifically, in the two cases of giving Fuwa a Chinese name and an English name, the former has been completely liberalized because of its high public participation, so there is little controversy about the confirmation of the name; The latter relied too much on so-called experts, scholars and professionals when naming, and finally took an English name that was not recognized by the public.
In addition, if we consider that the investment promotion for the Beijing Olympic Games has started and the investment promotion for the Olympic mascots is proceeding in an orderly way, the change of the English names of Fuwa may actually affect the investment promotion for the Olympic Games. For example, after the new English name of Fuwa is determined, should the foreign dealers who are responsible for dealing in Fuwa-related products rename their Fuwa series products? Will it bring unnecessary economic losses? Who should pay for these losses? This series of problems shows that Fuwa's name change is far from trivial.
Second, the original English name is not easy to pronounce and is easily misunderstood.
"Fuwa is more comfortable to read. The organizing committee hopes that this change will enable the people of China to better understand the Olympic mascots. If you pronounce mascots as' friends', they may get confused. "
In China, these five lovely mascots have always been called "Fuwa", but many English websites write their names as "Fuwa". This English name has caused controversy. Some people think that this word is misleading, because "friend" has two meanings in English: a friendly person or a friendly game. (but for pronunciation reasons) "Friendlies" can easily be misunderstood as "Friendless" (without the meaning of friends) or "Friend lies" (friends+lies).