VOA标准英语2012--Chinese Symbols Prove Popular in US汉字在美国大受欢迎

Chinese Symbols Prove Popular in US
汉字在美国大受欢迎

From the moment Spaniards - or Vikings, some would say - first dropped anchor and encountered the natives whom the Spanish called “Indians” because they thought they had arrived in India - the land now known as “America” has been a multicultural¹ place.
And of course it’s much more so today. Just check out our faces and dialects and music.
Our signs are getting more multicultural, too. We see them in English, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, and more. Well, maybe it’s Chinese.
Mandarin² Chinese characters, called “Hanzi,” are hot right now. They’re a popular decoration on clothing and artwork and tattoos⁴.
Just ask Tian Tang, a 35-year-old Chinese-American engineer, who works for an Arizona company that makes electrical semiconductors⁵. Since his graduate-school days, he has maintained a website showing that an awful lot of the Chinese characters we see across America are just plain wrong.
Some are not even Chinese at all, but pretty little ink strokes that sort of look Chinese.
One of Tang’s postings shows a colorful shirt decorated with a powerful, leaping tiger. Next to the beast are nine Chinese characters. But they translate into gibberish - words such as “unicorn” and “chicken.” Not one of the characters has anything to do with tigers, or even cats.
Other Hanzi, delicately tattooed⁶ onto a woman’s back, translate as “crazy diarrhea.” Surely this wasn’t what she ordered from the tattoo³ artist.
So, America is a multicultural melting pot. But reading the signs doesn’t always tell you who you’re melting with.
“If people would stop making fools of themselves, my site would dry up,” Tang says.

1 multicultural   

adj.融合多种文化的，多种文化的

参考例句：

• Children growing up in a multicultural society.在多元文化社会中长大的孩子们。
• The school has been attempting to bring a multicultural perspective to its curriculum.这所学校已经在尝试将一种多元文化视角引入其课程。

2 Mandarin   

n.中国官话，国语，满清官吏；adj.华丽辞藻的

参考例句：

• Just over one billion people speak Mandarin as their native tongue.大约有十亿以上的人口以华语为母语。
• Mandarin will be the new official language of the European Union.普通话会变成欧盟新的官方语言。

3 tattoo   

n.纹身，(皮肤上的)刺花纹；vt.刺花纹于

参考例句：

• I've decided to get my tattoo removed.我已经决定去掉我身上的纹身。
• He had a tattoo on the back of his hand.他手背上刺有花纹。

4 tattoos   

n.文身( tattoo的名词复数 )；归营鼓；军队夜间表演操；连续有节奏的敲击声v.刺青，文身( tattoo的第三人称单数 )；连续有节奏地敲击；作连续有节奏的敲击

参考例句：

• His arms were covered in tattoos. 他的胳膊上刺满了花纹。
• His arms were covered in tattoos. 他的双臂刺满了纹身。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 semiconductors   

n.半导体( semiconductor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Crystals may be insulators, semiconductors, or conductors. 晶体可以是绝缘体，半导体，或导体。 来自辞典例句
• Semiconductors containing such impurities are called p-type semiconductors. 含有这类杂质的半导体叫做P型半导体。 来自辞典例句

6 tattooed   

v.刺青，文身( tattoo的过去式和过去分词 )；连续有节奏地敲击；作连续有节奏的敲击

参考例句：

• He had tattooed his wife's name on his upper arm. 他把妻子的名字刺在上臂上。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The sailor had a heart tattooed on his arm. 那水兵在手臂上刺上一颗心。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》