How OrientLore writes Chinese terms in English

Explain it on first use

Introduce a culturally specific term with a concise English explanation the first time it appears. Include Chinese characters and pinyin when they help the reader recognise, pronounce, or search for the term. After that, use the clearest stable form.

Do not make a reader wait for a glossary to understand the sentence, and do not turn every repeated term into a parenthetical lesson.

Use pinyin as pronunciation, not decoration

When we give Mandarin pronunciation, we use Hanyu Pinyin with tone marks: chūnjié, not chunjie or numerical chunjie1. Preserve the apostrophe where it prevents a syllable boundary from being misread, as in Xī’ān.

Capitalize pinyin like ordinary English prose. Sentence starts, personal names, and place names take capitals; common terms do not. Familiar English forms such as Beijing may stay unmarked unless pronunciation itself is under discussion.

A standalone pronunciation label begins with a capital; common words stay lowercase within a sentence. Named festivals retain their name capitals, as in Zhōngqiū Jié. We use curly apostrophes in our display text, while accepting straight apostrophes in searches and preserving a source’s spelling in its title.

Pinyin represents Standard Mandarin pronunciation. We label Cantonese, Hokkien, or another romanization separately rather than presenting pinyin as the sound of every Chinese language.

Keep the person’s name in its chosen order

For Chinese names conventionally written in pinyin, retain the Chinese order—family name first—and write the whole name without a comma. If a general reader may not know which part is the family name, explain it on first use.

Respect the form a living person uses in English, including a Western order, an English given name, or an established spelling. Do not silently reverse a historical name to imitate an English naming pattern.

Simplified and traditional characters carry context

Use the script form appropriate to the subject, source, place, and period. For a general modern term without a stronger contextual reason, OrientLore gives simplified characters first and may add the traditional form when the difference helps identification: 龙 / 龍.

Keep quotations, inscriptions, artwork, personal names, and publication titles in their documented form. Do not mechanically convert a source. When both forms appear, label them as simplified and traditional; neither is described as the translation of the other.

In our general article headings and glossary labels, a pair such as 莲花 / 蓮花 gives the simplified form first and the traditional form second. A slash separates script forms here, not two different pronunciations. Source inscriptions keep the form documented on the object.

Translation and established names

Prefer the established English name when it is clear and respectful, then add pinyin or characters when they improve identification. Use one preferred term consistently within a page, while acknowledging useful variants rather than pretending they are mistakes.

A translation should explain the concept in context, not replace it with the nearest familiar Western category. We do not turn 气 (qì) into a single universal English equivalent, or treat every use of 福 (fú) as a promise of “good luck.”

Where English usage genuinely varies—Goat, Sheep, or Ram for 羊, for example—we name the variation and explain what the Chinese term does and does not specify.

Keep useful distinctions visible: Chinese New Year names a Chinese festival context, while Lunar New Year can refer to celebrations in several cultures. “Five phases” is our explanatory label for 五行; “five elements” remains a useful search expression and a phrase readers may meet in sources. A fenghuang, a Western phoenix and a zodiac animal need their own context.

When discussing luck, identify the wish, the speaker, or the specific artistic or traditional setting. An auspicious motif can express a hope; a calendar classification can record a convention. Neither establishes what will happen to a reader. Search phrases and quoted catalogue titles preserve their wording and lead to an explanation.

Dynasties, lunar dates, and years

Give a dynasty’s date range on first substantial mention: Tang dynasty (618–907). Use “dynasty” in lowercase running text and avoid forcing uncertain historical boundaries into false precision.

Spell out Gregorian dates in prose—September 13, 2026—to avoid numeric ambiguity. Write a traditional date as the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, not “August 15.” If a Gregorian equivalent matters, state its year because the corresponding date changes.

“Lunar calendar” is acceptable when the contrast is enough for the reader; “traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar” is more precise when explaining how the system works. Never silently convert one calendar into the other.