How to read my Chinese name in Japanese?

Hello. My name is Kevin and I study Chinese. I plan to pursue a Ph.D. and so would need to know Japanese. This is a silly question, but I was wondering if my Chinese name would actually be a good Japanese name. I have found sights that say that my surname and name are both actual names. However, I don't know how to pronounce them. I have gathered that my surname, 柏, is pronounced as kashiwa, but I don't know about my name. It is 凱文. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

-柏凱文

Mainly, we transcript western names into katakana. In china, naturally they transcript the western name into chinese letters. In Japan, all you need is to write your surname, middle name and first name into katakana.

凱文 is unheard of in Japanese name, but I would pronounce it "Gai Bun" if I were pressed. Seems very positive name though!

Well, I knew that about the katakana and my friend's mom gave me a name when I was in third grade which I still remember, but just for kicks, I want to know what my name would sound like. I noticed that the characters didn't show up in my previous post. My surname is Bo2, meaning cypress tree. My name is Kai3wen2. Kai3 meaning triumphant (the left side has mountain on top, doufu de dou on bottom, right side is simplified for of ji meaning how many) and wen2 is zhongwen de wen. Of course this only means anything if you know Chinese.

Thanks.

-Bo Kaiwen

I think I understand what Kevin is saying. Since your name is Chinese, it would commonly be written as 柏凱文 in Japan and be read Haku Gaibun.

But if you insist on having it read in a more Japanese way, you can have your sir name be read as Kashiwa. It would be a very rare name, although I did have one Japanese male friend whose first name was Kashiwa.

凱文 obviously looks Chinese, but an alternative Japanese-sounding reading is Yoshifumi (yoshi for 凱 and fumi for 文).

Kashiwa Yoshifumu, pretty cool.

Your surname is generally pronounced Haku, not Kashiwa if it was a Chinese name.

Then, you will be called Haku Gaibun-san by Japanese people. Honestly, your Chinese full name sounds very beautiful to a Japanese guy like me.

Generally, on Japanese grammar, any Chinese character or Kanji is pronounced in 2ways and more. The pronunciation, Kashiwa, comes from the direct Japanese translation to that original Chinese character, while the pronunciation, Haku, comes from the old Chinese original pronunciation when the character came from the ancient China to Japanese islands.

I have a chinese name, of cos in chinese characters, would japanese prefer to call it by the way it should be read in chinese(like japanese-ish chinese-in katakana) or like to look at the kanji and totally interprete it as the way it should be read in japanese kanji?

which is more meaningful?

It's like this.

Foreign people are free to have their name read in whatever way they want.

Koreans today tend to prefer their name read true to the Korean pronunciation. For example, the sirname 金 would be called "Kim" (in katakana, "Ki-mu キム").

Chinese today tend to prefer (or at least think it's okay to have) their name read in the way the Japanese call "kun-yomi", which is a China-oriented Japanese style. For example, 金 would be called "Kin" not "Kim".

In a more Japanese way of reading (we call this "on-yomi"), 金 would be called "Kane". But this is not really a good example, because I've never heard of a sirname called "Kane".

Hope this helps.

i want to know how to spell friendship in chinese latters

Friendship is 友情(yuujou) in Japanese.

Note that "spell in Chinese (language)" and "spell in (Japanese language using) Chinese letters" can be totally different.
I don't know how it is spelled in Chinese language.

This is friendship in Chinese.
友誼 youyi
OR
友情 youqing

was wonderin how my chinse name is read... it's huang2 xian2 liang2...

Could you write that in Chinese characters? Without seeing the characters, it is probably not possible to say how it would be read in Japanese.

I don't know standard chinese characters for chinese names very much, but kou ken ryou, or 黄 賢良 is my answer. If the characters of your last name consist of the characters with its meanings, "wise" and "goodness", it might be the right answer.

It would be much better if you'll post your name in Chinese again.

Yeah... it's ｻﾆﾏﾍﾁｼ.... hey and what about ﾖ｣ﾊ醫ﾄ and 齔ｼﾑｺﾀ...? thanks a lot yeah....

can someone help me figure out how to read my name in japanese....? it's in the previous post... thanks...

Hi,Cameron

Can I please have your characters again?
My computer doesn`t show them properly.

I`d like yo know the characters.

Try changing the Encoding setting on your browser. If you've got Japanese Internet Explorer, go to 侮ｦ, エンコード, then select one of the 中国語 font settings.

I tried it, now I can see the Chinese characters, but I cannot figure them out :(

Is it cause there's no such word in japanese or somethin...?

Don't sigh, Cameron! I could see the three kanji characters alright, it's just that I'm not confident of the pronunciation I could somehow manage to guess... I hope somone comes along... otherwise I'll delve into my big fat kanji dictionary :)