hehe i really give credits to the person who translates these titles. the meaning remains there.. especially ayu-mi-x and (m) u.. :D

What's the point...Why should Chinese try to find alternate characters that "sound" like 'Hamasaki Ayumi', when 濱崎步 is her written name..? If they did that for all Japanese and Korean stars, the stars would have to sign their name differently in Chinese speaking countries than if they used the original Chinese characters which are their name.... And imagine how many words would be needed just to make up "Ha ma sa ki A yu mi". What a long name......

For non-Japanese and Koreans though, they find characters that sound like the person's name. For ex., Barack Obama, they don't translate his first name (I don't think?), but his last name is 'phonetically' translated as 奧巴馬, which is.. sort of like "ao ba ma"

Even if they did translate her first name to phonetics, it would probably end up being something like 愛玉米 which is like..Ai yu mi (Love corn) but not... (Maybe not...since people who read the newspapers would be confused...'what's this about loving corn and holding a concert..??') and what if they choose words that don't exist in Japanese...then the celebrity would have problems..or what if they choose something but it means something else in Japanese...etc.

And, with the different dialects, they would probably have to use one writing in Taiwan/Mainland, and another in HK or something. How inconvenient...

----

For the GUILTY album, they held a contest before it came out for people to make a translation for the name of the album and they would get...something free. I'm actually not sure if they do the translations in China, since China is bad at translations. China and Taiwan have different translations anyways.

Majority of the Singles are direct translations. The albums are always interesting though :)

kiwi said it all :yes

i saw that competition in the avex taiwan official site too :yes i was thinking to make one, but i have no idea what to name it :roflmao

My fren said that Ayumi Hamasaki translates to 爱玉米 河马杀鸡。 (Loves Corn, Hippo Kills Chicken).

^:laugh

for a bit add on it pronounce as "ai yu mi he ma sha ji"

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!! i'm glad she's just 浜崎步

You scared me!!!

:lmfao
This is seriously the funniest thing I've heard for this month. xD

And I notice a lot of Singaporeans are helping with the translation and explanations, since we are fluently bilingual. ;P
Go Singapore! :D

here you go
all The Meaning
(miss) understood-(step) of
MY STORY - private Khaled
Memorial Address - memorial address
A Ballads - A lyrical Featured
RAINBOW - foreshore come rainbow
I am ... - but I was asking
A Best - A Featured
Duty - to select a sound
LOVEppears - love is
A Song for XX - Song of the XX

Songs / Singles:
BLUE BIRD - Qingdao
Startin '- start
Born to Be ... - natural…
Bold & Delicious - Fangshouyibo
Pride - proud
HEAVEN - heaven
fairyland - in Wonderland
STEP you - to follow
is this LOVE? - is the love? »
CAROLS - carol
INSPIRE - stimulating
Moments - moment
No way to say - to untold
forgiveness - forgiveness
Voyage - journey
Free & Easy - free
Daybreak - dawn
Dearest - Favorites
UNITE! - Xinshouxianglian
NEVER EVER - unique
AUDIENCE - the audience
SURREAL - surrealism
SEASONS - Four Seasons
Far Away - leave
vogue - Fashion
fly high - fly
kanariya - Canary
appears - coming out