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news Tokyo Olympics, medals and domains: A Chinese and Japanese language lesson

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Words in one language can mean something in other languages, too - Kassey Lee

After living in Japan for so long, I oftentimes see domains on the drop list that I can easily recognize and understand. While some may see a bunch of jibberish, I can read it as it's become a part of my vernacular.

Sometimes, though, the words make sense in Japanese, but make even more sense in Chinese, from a marketing perspective.

Kassey Lee demonstrates this with gold, silver, and bronze Olympic medals.
Olympic medals are good examples. Gold, silver, and bronze are pronounced as Kin (金), Gin (銀), and Dou (銅) in Japanese. In Chinese, they become Jin (金), Yin (银), and Tong (铜).

While he goes on and states:
Some domains may be meaningful in multiple cultures, which means more selling opportunities. Research is key to discovering such potential.
I would have expanded that some domains have different meanings in both Japanese and Chinese as well when written in the Roman alphabet.

Things only have a specific meaning when in their alphabet and when spoken in context.

Take kin for example. If you write it in the Roman alphabet, you could imply that it alone would be Gold. However, things get fun when you use Kanji.

In Japanese, you can stick 金 (kin) with 曜日 (youbi) and make Friday. Or, you can change the first kanji to 緊 (kin) and stick it with 急 (kyuu) to get emergency.

Things get complicated.
 
I speak Chinese. But I don't know much about Japanese.

I'd like to share some information.

For example, a single Chinese Pinyin domain bao.com which was sold $172,984 USD last year.

In Chinese, Bao is a highly versatile word that can mean many things based on the character. There are many more than the ones listed below, however, these are the most common and valuable characters with the "bao" sound and pinyin spelling :

包 - bag, purse, package, bun (food)
宝 - treasure, jewel, precious, baby
爆 - burst, explode
保 - protect, insurance, ensure
抱 - hug
报 - report, newspaper
饱 - full, satisfied

In Japanese, they will become different characters.
 
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