Rêve sans peur. Aime sans limite.

Chinese has many everyday phrases built on this pattern, like 输不起 and 舍不得. They can be confusing as some are literal verb phrases e.g. 忘不了(unable to forget), whereas some don't have the exact same meaning e.g. 了不得 (amazing or incredible).

Here are some of the most common ones:

看不起 - kàn bu qǐ/瞧不起 - qiáo bu qǐ - to look down on, disdainful, to despise, to think little of Example: 别看不起别人 - Don't look down on other people

买不起 - mǎi bu qǐ - can't afford to buy Example: 这房子太贵了，我买不起 - This house is too expensive, I can’t afford it.

输不起 - shū bu qǐ - can't afford to lose, can't accept defeat/losing, a sore loser Example: 他输不起，会生气 - He can’t handle losing, he gets angry.

伤不起 - shāng bu qǐ - can't afford to get hurt but also has the meaning of unbearable, something being just the worst Example: 最近工作太累了，真的伤不起 - Work’s been exhausting lately, I really can’t take it anymore/can't bear it

I really like this website. It’s just for handwriting Kanji. It’s super simple and straightforward. There aren’t adverts and you can sort them a few different ways ( WaniKani levels, JLPT levels, KanjiGarden levels…).

Us: speak only limited German

Lady: barely speaks English

Us:

Lady:

Lady: Czech? Slovak?

Us: Czech

Lady, to herself: Czech, that's a Slavic language right

Lady: understand Yugoslavian?

Us:

Waiter: Germany?

Me: No, Czechia.

Reminds me of the time when we were in Poland and I tried to order a burger using a truly unholy mix of Slovak, Russian and Ostrava dialect (which in itself is like an unholy mix of Czech and Polish).

*Each of us talking in their mother tongue*

Me: Bla bla bla.

Russian: I don’t know this “bla”.

Czech: Oh, we have “bla”! We also call it “that”!

Russian: Oh I know “that”! It’s a very old version of “this”.

Me: Oh, we have “this” too, but it means something slightly different.

List of various terms of endearment that can be used in different languages. A lot of them are gender neutral.

English

Dear

Pet

Baby

Babe

Honey

Darling

My love

Sunshine

Sweetheart

Sweet cheeks

Prince/Princess

Arabic

Habibi حبيبي (m) (my love)

Ya hayati يا حياتي (my life)

Ya qalbi يا قلبي (my heart)

Ya ruhi يا روحي (my soul)

Hubbi/hobbi حبي (my love)

German

Liebling (beloved/favourite)

Schatz (treasure, I would say the most common one between established couples)

Liebes (loved one) (f, I don't find it that romantic)

Liebster (m) (loved one, bit old-fashioned)

Liebste (f) (loved one, bit old-fashioned)

Hase / Hasi (bunny)

Maus (mouse)

Spatz (sparrow)

Bär / Bärchen (bear)

Engel / Engelchen (angel)

Prinzessin (f) (princess)

Sonnenschein (sunshine)

Kleines (f) (little one, can be used in a cute way for women, but can also sound degrading or offensive)

French

Mon amour (my love)

Mon cœur (my heart)

Chéri (m) / Chérie (f) (darling)

Chou (used like "honey", but directly translates to cabbage)

Italian

Tesoro (treasure)

Amore mio (my love)

Cuore (heart)

Vita mia (my life)

Cucciola (puppy/cub) (mostly used for women, but you could say "cucciolo" for men)

Piccola (little one) (mostly for women, "piccolo" would be the male version)

Cara/caro (dear) (now mostly used by grandmas for grandkids but perfect for couples in the past or old couples nowadays

Bimba (f) (child)

Patata/patatina (potato/little potato) (again mostly women when used romantically, "patato/patatino" for men, but they can also be used for pets, babies, your kids or anyone that you find cute)

Tata/tato (short version of papata/patato)

Polpetta/polpettina (meatball/little meatball) (very uncommon, but I've heard it used for girls)

Topolina (little mouse) (very uncommon, but could be used for girls)

Spanish

Cariño (darling)

Bebé (baby)

Corazón (heart)

Mi amor (my love)

Mi vida (my life)

Cielo (sky)

Amor (love)

Romanian

Iubi (Sweet heart/darling)

Iubirea mea (my love)

Draga mea (f) / Dragul meu (m) (my dear)

Dulceața mea (jam/honey)

Hungarian

Kedvesem (my dear)

Szerelmem (my love)

Drága (precious)

Édesem (my sweetie)

Kicsim (my little one)

Babám (my baby)

Kincsem (my treasure)

Turkish

Aşkım (my loved one)

Canım (my love/soul)

Hayatım (my life)

Bebeğim (my baby)

Kocacığım/karıcığım

(my husband/my wife, but in a more endearing way, you can say it to a person you're not married yet but thinking about marrying)

Her şeyim (my everything)

Yaşama sebebim (my reason to live)

Ceylanım (My gazelle, it's a gorgeous creature like cmon)

Güzel gözlüm (My lover with beautiful eyes)

Nazlı yarim (My coy lover)

Kalbimin sahibi (the owner of my heart)

Güzelim/yakışıklım (my beautiful/my handsome)

Kediciğim (my kitty/kitten)

Biriciğim/bi'tanem (my one and only)

Çiçeğim (my flower)

Balım (my honey) (can also say "bal dudaklım (my lover with honey lips)" if you feeling on fire)

Evimin direği (literally meaning "the post of my house," if you say this to a person (usually your husband), you mean to say that he keeps your household/family up, whether financially or with emotional maturity)

Dutch

Schatje (treasure)

Liefje (loved one)

Lieverd (loved one)

Lieveling (loved one)

Hebrew

Chaim sheli חיים שלי (my life)

Neshama sheli נשמה שלי (my soul)

Lev sheli לב שלי (my heart)

Welsh

Cariad (love)

Hindi

Meri jaan मेरी जान (f) (my life)

Mera jaan (m/n) (my life)

Rani रानी (f) (queen)

Malay

Sayang (dear/darling)

Afrikaans

Lief (love)

Liefie (lovey)

Farsi

Joon/Jaan جان (life)

Azizam عزیزم (my dear)

Asalam عسلم (my honey)

Golam گلم (flower)

Urdu

Meri jaan میری جان (my life)

Pyaari پیاری (sweetheart)

Shahzadi شہزادی (f) (princess)

Polish

Kochanie (my beloved)

Myszko (f) (little mouse for women romantic, or for young daughters)

Misiu (m) (diminutive bear, romantic for men)

Misiaczku (another form of the above but more intersex)

Słoneczko (diminutive for sun, can be for children but also romantic for women)

Pączusiu (diminutive doughnut, romantic partner)

Bąbelku (bubble diminutive for young children, toddlers or infants)

Duszko moja (very outdated, meaning my soul, for women)

Serce moje (also old school, meaning my heart, unisex)

Gwiazdeczko (diminutive star, for girls and romantic female partner)

Kotek/Kotku (kitten, unisex)

Mała (literally: little (f), for women, can be romantic but also offensive if used by strangers)

skarbie (my treasure, unisex)

rybciu (diminutive for fish, little fish, for women)

żabko (diminutive for frog, little frog, for women)

Korean

Jagiya 자기야 (honey/baby)

Aegiya 애기야 (baby/little one)

Gongjunim 공주님 (f) (princess)

Wangjanim 왕자님 (m) (prince)

Nae Sarang 내 사랑 (my love)

Gwiyomi 귀요미 (cutie)

Czech

Zlato (gold, my precious)

Lásko (love)

Miláčku (dearest, little dear)

Russian

lyubov' moya / любовь моя (my love)

radost' moya / радость моя (joy of mine)

dusha moya / душа моя (my soul)

schast'e moyo / счастье моё (my happiness)

sokrovishche moyo / сокровище моё (my treasure)

solnyshko / солнышко (sunny)

zolotce / золотце (golden)

lyubimyj (m) + lyubimaya (f) / любимый + любимая (beloved)

dorogoj (m) + dorogaya (f) / дорогой + дорогая (darling, dear)

milyj (m) + milaya (f) / милый + милая (dear but in more informal way)

kotik / котик (kitty) malysh / малыш (baby)

zajchik (m) + zajka (f) / зайчик + зайка (bunny)

ptenchik / птенчик (little bird, hatchling)

rybka moya (f) / рыбка моя (my fish)

Portuguese

Meu querido (m)/ minha querida (f) (my darling)

Meu amor (my love)

Princesa (f) (princess)

Meu docinho (my sweetheart)

Coração (heart)

Amado (m)/Amada (f) (my love)

Meu (m)/ minha (f) mais que tudo (my above overall) Meu tesouro (my treasure)

Paixão (passion)

Meu bem/ meu benzinho (my goodness)

Meu doce/meu docinho (my sweet/ my little sweet)

Brazilian Portuguese

Amor (love)

Querido (m) / Querida (f) (darling)

Bebê (baby)

Meu bem (untraslatable; something between "my dear" and "my treasure")

Meu docinho de coco (my coconut candy - really old slang, nowadays used only for fun)

Patroa (f) (it means a female boss; not ironic not aggressive, but used by men to describe their wives affectionately, eg. "I can't go today, my patroa is waiting for me at home")

Gato/gatinho (m) / gata/gatinha (f) (cat/little cat; if a person is pretty, they are called a "cat")

Minha vida (my life)

Meu xodó (my crush)

Bebê (baby)

Docinho (sweetie)

Chuchu (honey)

Fofura (cutie)

Querida (dear)

Lindinha (beautiful/cutie)

Filipino (from various local languages, all gender neutral)

Mahal, sinta (tagalog) (love)

alternatively add "ko" or "aking" to turn it into "my love" (e.g. mahal ko, sinta ko; aking mahal, aking sinta) with "aking" being used more often when talking about the one you love to a 3rd party;

or turn it into a verb (e.g. aking minamahal, kasintahan) to make it "lover"

Paraluman, irog, liyag, giliw (tagalog) (darling) these are older terms though, you won't hear or see them being used unless you're lovers with someone 🌟Extra🌟

Tangi (tagalog) (only one)

Tinatangi (tagalog) (the one i hold dear/the only one for me)

Tinadhana - fated (from the root word "tadhana" meaning fate, which in and of itself should also be a term of endearment and I stand by that)

Hinigugma (bisaya) (beloved) (very old)

Palangga/pangga/langga or "ga" for short and sometimes pagingging (ilonggo) (love) (can also be used platonically or between family members)

Kalasahan (tausug) (beloved) (this is pronounced with an emphasis in the SA syllable (as in kalaSAhan) instead of the LA like in the tagalog word LAsa (which means taste)

Jowa (filipino slang) (significant other/boyfriend/girlfriend)

Bebe, bebe ko, beh, bhe, bhie, bih (filipino slang) (babe)

Lablabs (filipino slang) (literally "love-love" in a heavy filipino accent)

Slovak

Zlato / zlatko (gold)

Láska (love)

Miláčik (bit cheesy, but means my lovely)

Indonesian

Sayang (to love/love, can be used as 'honey', doesn't have to be romantic)

Cintaku (my love, mostly used romantically)

Greek

Αγάπη /Αγάπη μου (love /my love) (the first can also be used among friends, usually between women, but both are very often used in romantic relationships)

Ψυχή μου (my soul) (mostly romantic but can be used by a parent to their kid)

Swedish

Sötnos (cute nose)

Älskling (darling)

Let me know more terms of endearment in your languages! And please correct me if I'm wrong somewhere.

心爱的、情爱的 (beloved/love)

心肝 (darling, means literally "heart and liver")

宝贝 (treasure, can be used platonically such as for children)

心肝宝贝 (see above)

老婆、老公 (wife or husband, respectively)

Trader Joe's - 缺德舅/quede jiu/"rotten uncle"

Whole Foods - 猴父子/hou fuzi/"monkey father and son"

🇺🇸Would you like your steak well done? 🇫🇷Tu voudrais ton steak bien cuit? (Would you like your steak well cooked?) 🇨🇳你想要你的牛排全熟吗 (Would you like your steak completely cooked?)

🇺🇸I would like a medium rare steak. 🇫🇷Je voudrais un steak cuit à point. (I would like a steak cooked “on point.”) 🇨🇳我想要一块熟得刚好的牛排 (I would like a steak cooked just right.)

🇺🇸I like my meat rare. 🇫🇷J'aime la viande saignante. (I like bloody meat.) 🇨🇳我喜欢带血的肉 (I like meat that comes with blood.)

.

斯 = sī 

I photographed this character by itself in Shanghai years ago and now I don’t remember which word it was a part of. Turns out, 斯 is an old character that used to mean “this”, but isn’t much used these days except for phonetic translations, where the si sound comes in handy.

So you might see it in foreign words like Einstein 爱因斯坦 (Àiyīnsītǎn), Slovenia 斯洛文尼亚 (Sīluòwénníyǎ), Oscar 奥斯卡 (Àosīkǎ) or Guinness 吉尼斯 (Jínísī).

my impression, from having briefly learnt Mandarin as a child and watching a fair amount of Chinese media in Mandarin, is that it's not really done to refer to someone by a one-syllable name? Like, for Chi Cheng, no one would call him just 'Chi' or just 'Cheng'. You might add a suffix or double a syllable (like he does with Weiwei for Suowei), but you wouldn't use one syllable to refer to someone.

however, this is not what I see reflected in fanfic/fandom, and I'm wondering if i'm mistaken? (if you feel comfortable answering publically, i'd love to be able to reblog, but obviously no pressure!)

You are absolutely correct! Calling someone with a two character Chinese name, like Chi Cheng from Revenged Love for example, just Cheng feels...insane to the Chinese ear. Like I'm not saying there's absolutely zero precedent for in the entire span of Chinese-speaking history, but it makes my balls itch and my brain confused.

To your point, you'd double the actual name character, not family name. So it'd be Cheng-Cheng (only if you are trying to get stabbed I guess), or Cheng'er (if you're his mom or grandmother), xiao-Cheng (if you're a male family member or close family friend who is older than he is), Cheng-ge (if you're a male friend, or sometimes with an older/more senior work friend if you're already close), Cheng-gege (if you are Wu Suowei and you've done something Bad and you're trying to head off the fight by acting like a slutty dancing girl at a brothel), or like whatever -- there are a million suffixes and prefixes etc.

For people who are calling someone just a single character in text on the Chinese-speaking internet, if they're calling them by the family name, we're getting into the murky waters of netspeak. The same way that newspaper Chinese is dramatically different than spoken or normally written Chinese, netspeak is a whole other kettle of fish and designed for speed over grammar or traditional construction, so they might be just referring to a character as Chi, for example. Even then, this is relatively infrequent, since calling him something like Chi-shao, which would mean "Young Master Chi" in short form, is only one additional character. Similar to the above example, people would not be referring to them with their given name, no family name, as a single character without doing some other transformation.

As for why this is showing up in English speaking spaces or fandom spaces, my best guess is that non-Chinese speakers don't know any better. It might sound like a way to introduce a pet name or something more casual, but Chinese is not a casual language, and it's immediately jarring when you see it in use.

started posting like six months ago, already has 70 videos! still working thru her catalogue, but seems quite good!

whiteboard comprehensible input, has complete beginner to high beginner!!

vlogs with subtitles, some translations. only two videos so far!!!

It's been a week since I moved to Taipei (!!) for language school and it still feels like a dream. I've been studying Mandarin for half my life at this point and it's exciting to have so many chances to use what I've learned on a daily basis.

I've walked past this cafe the last three days on my way home and today I finally built up the confidence to go inside and order something 🥹

Hello!! This is a good question, and one that a lot of people have! I'm gonna take some time to answer this both in the context of "naming a character/oc/something fictional" and in the context of "finding a kanji reading for my real name"!

In terms of more abstractly answering the question of how kanji naming works, I'll try and be quick and not get super deep in the weeds or the history of naming conventions in Japan. As is typical of names across cultures, there are two parts of a name: the surname and the given name. Remember that in Japanese, the surname comes before the given name. The surname (or last name) is gonna be the family name, which I usually see a lot less interest in from a character creation standpoint, so I'll be prioritizing given names in my explanations. However, you can use a lot of the same methods I'll talk about later on to find or create surnames!

Generally speaking, seeing a name written in kanji gives you virtually no information about how it is actually pronounced. This is because, in the context of names, kanji can have tons more readings than they have in normal contexts. Many kanji have a larger number of potential readings when used in names, and you also have the trend of kirakira names (キラキラネーム), which are names that use unique readings (or I think even invented readings in some cases??? I don't know that for certain though) of kanji to make that name even more unique. This is part of why business card exchanges are such a big thing in Japan! You can see how the name is written in kanji and see the furigana showing you how to pronounce it so you don't mess either of those two things up in future correspondences.

Basically, all of this to say that finding kanji for a name can be a pretty open process, and you can exercise some creative muscles when looking for good kanji to use! Even in real life, outside of places like novels or anime where characters are very intentionally named, people will choose kanji combinations based on how good they sound, the meanings of the kanji, and how visually pleasant they look together, so you can absolutely let those things factor into picking a name!

Speaking of how characters are named in media, I will add one more thing: the kanji used for names in a lot of pop culture media is pun- or wordplay-based. If you look at the names of characters in a lot of popular anime, manga, and video games, you see that a lot of their name kanji's meanings will be somehow referential to a characters personality, or powers, or role in the story. When naming your own characters and picking out kanji, you can absolutely lean into this because it's a huge part of the creative process of naming characters in lots of pop culture media!

In terms of finding a way of writing a non-Japanese name in kanji, the process is honestly pretty similar! A lot of people I know have had Japanese friends give them suggestions/bestow upon them a kanji writing of their name, but in general there are two methods: get a kanji combination that sounds, roughly, like your name (basically taking the katakana pronunciation of your name and finding how you could construct it using kanji) or find a kanji compound that matches the meaning of your name/matches your vibes, even if it isn't necessarily read in a way that sounds like your name (but, similar to kirakira names, you can put your name reading as the furigana for the kanji compound).

You can find information on the first option by searching up "ateji", which are characters that are used for their sound with little regard for meaning. The kanji that are used to construct the "fancy kanji spellings" of country names are a good example of this! The meanings aren't taken into consideration nearly as much as the sounds are. There are also native Japanese words that are like this, because they weren't originally written using kanji and were just assigned some based on sound! But this is getting off-topic.

The second option I see far more frequently in the "bestowed upon you by a native speaker" category, but basically involves taking information about your name's meaning, your personality, interests, career, and other details about you, and looking for kanji that align with some aspect of you. Generally people are gonna make an effort to make the compound read as similarly to your name as possible, but like I said above they won't necessarily, and I know a couple of people whose kanji names wouldn't be intuitively be read in a way that sounds like their names.

Your second question, about how to go about finding a writing for a specific name, is gonna be a little bit different than just the abstract discussion of how it works. A lot of my friends have asked me the same thing, so I've got a couple of methods that I can recommend. However, I am obviously learning Japanese as a second language, so I'm sure there's some methods/information I'm missing in this answer! I'll mention some things specific to character-naming here, but the resources themselves can generally be used for both finding a kanji transliteration of your own name and naming a character!

Alright!! Now to offer the resources that I will usually recommend and use:

Use baby name finder/character name generator websites,

Baby name sites, in my experience, are pretty popular for finding character names in general, so I'm guessing a decent amount of people are familiar with the method! Character name generators are also pretty popular in my experience, and can be a good backup if you don't have anything specific in mind. You can use either baby name sites or character name generator sites the same way you'd use them for other character names that aren't written in kanji! The difference here is obviously that you'll be looking at which specific kanji the name is made of, but a lot of name sites will provide multiple possible kanji combinations for one name.

If you know enough Japanese to navigate a website, you can use some Japanese baby name sites like these:

https://b-name.jp/

https://sp.babynames.jp/

Which can provide both lists of baby names based on popularity and provide name searches/name generation based on search terms you put in. These, and other sites like them, often let you search for specific kana sounds, then provide some kanji compounds that align with what you're searching for (either starting with, ending with, or including the sound/sound combination you've put in). You can also find kana sound searches that allow you to sort based on the kana the name starts with, as in the second site I've linked. These are more helpful if you have a first sound in mind, but nothing else, and they can take a long time to scroll through because they'll provide pretty much all of the popular kanji combinations for each given name. If you like just scrolling through names for fun/inspiration/etc., it'd probably still be a pretty good time! These are basically the same as using an English baby name search site, so if you know some rudimentary Japanese and can read kana + some kanji you can use this method for some great results!

If you don't know any Japanese, that's totally fine-- some English-based name search sites, for example https://www.behindthename.com/ , provide the kanji for Japanese names they have in their databases. I'd say these are probably the next best thing! You have to be a little more conscious of where they're sourcing the name so you know if you're referencing an existing fictional character with the name, since fictional characters are usually a part of user submitted name lists (although I would say be aware of this finding any names through resources that allow user submissions, not just names written using kanji). On sites like these, you can search for the sounds you want the same way you'd search for them in any other language, and just limit the results to Japanese names.

In terms of character name generators, my top suggestion would be both the Japanese- and English-based versions of the Super Japanese Name Generator, found at https://namegen.jp/ and https://namegen.jp/en respectively! Friends of mine have told me they've had luck using both versions, and it provides lots of good information for each name it generates! It also generates both surnames and given names, which can be useful!

If you can read/understand some basic Japanese, you can find lots of other options by looking up search terms like "キャラクター名前メーカー"; I think you could probably find some English-language generators too, but I've had way less success finding English-based generators that actually provide kanji for the names.

2. Use a dictionary

https://jisho.org/ is a really popular online Japanese dictionary, and it has a whole subset of name-related tags you can add to your searches to specifically try and find names that begin with, end with, or contain the sounds you want. In my experience, I've had more success when typing the sounds out in kana, but in most cases you can still get a lot of results even if you don't! This is probably gonna be one of your best options if you don't speak any Japanese, because the navigation for the site is all in English, and you can click on the details of the individual kanji to see their English meanings.

There are some other sites out there which are name-focused catalogues, however the only ones I know of are entirely in Japanese (https://myoji-yurai.net/ is the main one I can think of off the top of my head), but generally these are more beneficial for pulling up the readings of a kanji you already have identified, not so much for finding kanji for sounds you have in mind.