The Value of Reading Marvel Comics in Chinese

Last month my friend Zach Franklin and I spent a half-hour in a recording studio talking about reading Marvel graphic novels as a way to practice Chinese. Not sure how often I’ll do this kind of recording, but hopefully you Chinese learners will find it interesting!

The last interview I did of Zach was all text, for the 2010 interview post The Value of a Master’s in Chinese Economics. Now you get to hear his voice and learn a bit more about how he uses his Chinese for less serious endeavors.

The book we talk about (aside from Harry Potter) is Marvel’s Infinity, or 无限 in Chinese (in Zach’s hands above).

Audio Highlights

Here are a few markers for the audio, as well as some of the Chinese mentioned in our conversation:

• 03:00: 2000 AD, Judge Dredd and Spawn discussion
• 03:48 : Harry Potter discussion begins
• 04:50: 4 Privet Drive = 女贞路4号
• 05:38: Buying James Bond 连环画 books in Xujiahui
• 09:16: to answer this question, Spawn (再生侠) has still not been officially translated for the Chinese market
• 10:20: Beijing 潘家园 Market, 星球大战（上、中、下）
• 11:41: my “Vader didn’t get a lot of screen time” comment was a reference to this YouTube video
• 12:51: Discussion of Marvel Comics in Chinese, and the experiece of tackling them for the first time
• 15:10: Discussion of the graphic novel Infinity
• 17:49: Why Zach is a hypocrite (when it comes to study methods)
• 19:12: Character names in Chinese discussed: 钢铁侠 (Iron Man)、雷神／托尔／索尔 (Thor)、鹰眼 (Hawkeye)、黑寡妇 (Black Widow)
• 21:09: Calling out Pleco for lack of Marvel character name vocab
• 21:28: 灭霸 (Thanos)、黑色兄弟会 (the Black Order) / 杀戮黑曜石 (lit. “Slaughter Obsidian”)、黑矮星 (Black Dwarf / Cull Obsidian)、超巨星 (Supergiant)、亡刃将军 (Corvus Glaive)、比灵星午夜／暗夜比邻星 (Proxima Midnight)、
• 25:10: “Infinity” is not the same as “Infinity War” at all
• 26:38: Is reading translated comics in Chinese a good idea for other learners as well??
• 27:44: “Cultural depth” of Marvel comics and Star Wars in Chinese society
• 29:06: The value of studying material you’re actually interested in

Images from Infinity (Chinese Version)

The front of the book has a list of all the Marvel characters’ Chinese names, and here are the sections that relate to this podcast (apologies for the quality; it’s a photo of a physical book!):

Here we can see the members of the Black Order more clearly:

And, just for balance, here are a few shots where the Chinese used is actually really easy to read:

Finally, a few cases where apparently translation was not really an option (or maybe just too much trouble):

(Take that, 灭霸!)

If anyone has a question for Zach, please leave a comment on this blog post, and I’ll gleefully harass him until he answers!