Electronics Terms Wanted

Language Learning Chinese
1

Hi all,
I’m looking for the Chinese names of some basic electronic components:

Capacitor
resistor
fuse
switch
co-axial cable
potentiometer
vacuum tube
socket
power transformer
output transformer

I’m also looking for the Chinese names of the units used to measure electrical properties:

resistance… ohms
capacitance…farads (microfarads, picofarads, etc.)
potential… volts
current…amperes
power…watts
frequency…hertz

bo po mo or pinyin, dou1key3yi3
Thanks,
-Sal :slight_smile:

2

Can’t help you with the translation but I think that the units are spelled without the ‘s’ at the end since they are based on names, though it’s often [wrongly] written with an ‘s’ when the plural is used. I.e. correct is 1 ampere, 2 ampere, 20 kiloampere …, not 1 ampere, 2 amperes, 20 kiloamperes …

3

I don’t think so, but let me look around a bit before I completely disagree with you. You’re wrong about volts in any case… hey! wait a minute!.. this is a request for Chinese help!

4

[quote=“http://www.exeter.ac.uk/cimt/dictunit/dictunit.htm”]

  • Any unit may take only ONE prefix. For example ‘millimillimetre’ is incorrect and should be written as ‘micrometre’.
    • Most prefixes which make a unit bigger are written in capital letters (M G T etc.), but when they make a unit smaller then lower case (m n p etc.) is used. Exceptions to this are the kilo [k] to avoid any possible confusion with kelvin [K]; hecto [h]; and deca [da] or [dk]
    • It will be noted that many units are eponymous, that is they are named after persons. This is always someone who was prominent in the early work done within the field in which the unit is used. Such a unit is written all in lower case (newton, volt, pascal etc.) when named in full, but starting with a capital letter (N V Pa etc.) when abbreviated. An exception to this rule is the litre which, if written as a lower case ‘l’ could be mistaken for a ‘1’ (one) and so a capital ‘L’ is allowed as an alternative. It is intended that a single letter will be decided upon some time in the future when it becomes clear which letter is being favoured most in use.
    • [b]Units written in abbreviated form are NEVER pluralised. So ‘m’ could always be either ‘metre’ or ‘metres’. ‘ms’ would represent ‘millisecond’.
    • An abbreviation (such as J N g Pa etc.) is NEVER followed by a full-stop unless it is the end of a [/b]sentence.
    • To make numbers easier to read they may be divided into groups of 3 separated by spaces (or half-spaces) but NOT commas.
    • The SI preferred way of showing a decimal fraction is to use a comma (123,456) to separate the whole number from its fractional part. The practice of using a point, as is common in English-speaking countries, is acceptable providing only that the point is placed ON the line of the bottom edge of the numbers (123.456) and NOT in the middle.[/quote]
      Note that it says nothing about the plural of non-abbreviated terms here.
5

The SI documents don’t mention any units with ‘s’ at the end: The International System of Units (SI)

About being wrong I guess you mean because his name was Volta!? Well, exception to the rule (though I think it’s still spelled without the ‘s’) … :wink:

6

Don’t want to come across as TOO hostile here, but most of the terms you list in the first half of your query should be in any comprehensive or technical dictionary, widely available in Taiwan. Have you tried to look them up? You might have more problems with “coaxial cable” and other two-word phrases, but things like “fuse” are definitely in the dictionary.

To find other terms, go to Google, set your language preferences to return pages in Traditional Chinese, then search for the following:

“coaxial cable” 是 的 [and, optimally, another Chinese character you figure would come out on a page written in Chinese that would be talking about coaxial cables: I’d probably go with 電, maybe]

This should return pages written in Chinese where the author has thoughtfully inserted the English term after the Chinese for “coaxial cable”. You’ll have to sift through a bit, but 99% of the time you can find terms this way.

And so you see: first hit on Google (even without the 電 as I was too lazy to copy it in):
同轴电缆- Wikipedia一条普通的同轴电缆(Radio-grade flexible coaxial cable) A:最外层的绝缘物料B:导电 层C:线中的电介质(绝缘体) D:中心的铜线. 导线是设计用作传送高频和宽频信号, …
zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/同轴电缆 - 47k - Cached - Similar pages

Just trying to give a man a fish, etc. etc.

The other thing you can do, since you’re looking for electronics terms specifically, is to Google something like "coaxial cable antenna fuse resistor capacitor English Chinese 電 ". What you’re doing is trying to scare up a word list or glossary online. And sure enough the second hit is:

廈門英語角Xiamen English Corner - 文本MP3資料Text and MP3 - 通信 … - [ Translate this page ][ 簡體 ]SMA同軸中繼自環電纜SMA Coaxial Trunk Self-loop cable SMT膠SMT Glue … 電容器Capacitor 電容性Capacitive load 電聲器件Electric Acoustic Devices …
www.xmenglishcorner.com/viewthread.php?tid=1289 - 203k - Supplemental Result -

I didn’t open the page, but you can see there are many terms listed there. It is from Xiamen, so there may be slight differences to Taiwan usage, but generally tech terms are not all that different. (Generally, I say.) :smiley:

7

chinese characters and bo po mo

(一)

  1. 電容器 or 蓄電器 ㄉㄧㄢˋ ㄖㄨㄥˊ ㄑㄧˋ or ㄒㄩˋ ㄉㄧㄢˋ ㄑㄧˋ
  2. 電阻器 ㄉㄧㄢˋ ㄗㄨˇ ㄑㄧˋ
  3. 保險絲 ㄅㄠˇ ㄒㄧㄢˇ ㄙ
  4. (電)開關 (ㄉㄧㄢˋ) ㄎㄞ ㄍㄨㄢ
  5. 同軸電纜 ㄊㄨㄥˊ ㄓㄡˊ ㄉㄧㄢˋ ㄌㄢˇ
  6. 電位計 or 分壓器 ㄉㄧㄢˋ ㄨㄟˋ ㄐㄧˋ or ㄈㄣ ㄧ丫 ㄑㄧˋ
  7. 真空管 ㄓㄣ ㄎㄨㄥ ㄍㄨㄢˇ
  8. 插座 ㄔㄚ ㄗㄨㄛˋ
  9. 變壓器 ㄅㄧㄢˋ ㄧㄚ ㄑㄧˋ

(二)

  1. 歐姆 ㄡ ㄇㄨˇ
  2. 法拉 ㄈㄚˇ ㄌㄚ
  3. 伏特 ㄈㄨˊ ㄊㄜˋ
  4. 安培 ㄢ ㄆㄟˊ
  5. 瓦特 ㄨㄚˇ ㄊㄜˋ
  6. 赫 ㄏㄜˋ
8

Power transformer: 電力變壓器
Output transformer: 輸出變壓器

For resistors and capacitors, the ending 器 is often omitted when used in a sentence, especially if the device is preceeded with an adjective (e.g. load resistor, input capacitor). Try checking journals or trade papers for how these terms are deployed in actual usage.

Note that technical terms often differ among Taiwan, HongKong and the mainland, sometimes quite significantly (e.g. silicon, analog, digital, load, network, etc.). So be sure to know your audience.

9

I’m quoting the following sentence from SI’s own website:
[ul][color=blue]It follows that the magnetic constant, mu0, also known as the permeability of free space, is exactly 4 x 10–7 henries per metre, mu0 = 4 x 10–7 H/m.[/color][/ul]
Apparently, the plural form is allowed (henries).