Additional notes are being added below! Also, join us on Twitch :3c www.twitch.tv/ying 1) The Aeon "Fuli" of The Remembrance likely also has Chinese roots: 浮黎 as in 浮黎元始天尊, the Primordial Lord of Heaven (caught by magniloquent in the comments) 2) I was on the right track with Sushang's name but to put it together, it probably means "ordinary clothing" and implies something about how even ordinary people can make a big difference (from various commenters) 3) The "blue bird" of Qingque is most likely a reference to mahjong: the "que" from 麻雀, the traditional name of the game (from various commenters) 4) People often ask why pinyin is so unintuitive for English speakers, and it's a pretty long and complicated history but it boils down to one thing: pinyin was designed to help improve literacy for *Chinese* people, not westerners, so precision to the sounds as native speakers would pronounce it was more important than readability for a western audience (there are other phonetic romanization systems for that, e.g. Wade-Giles) I'll make a proper thumbnail later LOL thank you to everyone who requested this video from me, and thank you for your patience!!!

The cast and crew of the Godboat: • Scene kid • Suave minister • September 7th • Cloud Detainer • Vegan clothes (aka Susan!) • Twitter • Russia • Code • Air Traffic Control • Snow cloak • Edge • Red Regular

thought it'd be relevant to mention: Bailu and her race are called 'vidyadharas' and they're roughly equivalent to adepti in Genshin. While the adepti are based on the xianren of Chinese mythology, vidyadharas are based on the supernatural race of the same name in Hindu mythology; these beings are often invisible, wise, and live among the air (so in that regard they're similar to xianren). Their name literally translates to 'wisdom-holder' in Sanskrit. The pronunciation is 'veed-ya-dha-ra' with each 'a' being long like 'father' or 'art'

I'm half chinese and have been learning mandarin for more than 10 years. Whenever my friends ask about the ü sound in nü lü ju qu xu yu; I always tell them the easiest way is just say "ee" (like in "deer") but the shape of our mouth is like we're about to say "oo" (like in "boo"). I hope this makes sense and can help other people too :D

Great interpretation! I would like to add two points: 1. Qingque(青雀) not only refers to a blue bird literally, but also has a connotation in Chinese culture. In Chinese, "mahjong" is also called "sparrow tiles" or "bird tiles", and "青" may be a homophone for one of the ways to win in mahjong, called "qing yi se" (all tiles are of the same suit and color). 2. Although Xueyi (雪衣) literally means a winter coat, as a Chinese person, I have never heard this word being used to refer to clothing. When I saw this word, the first thing that came to my mind was a dessert from northeastern China called "xue yi dou sha", which is a soft, fluffy, snow-white sweet dessert. It's a very cute name, but the character is a bit cold, which creates an interesting contrast in my opinion.

My uncle's given name is Heng 恒 same as Dan Heng's, basically means permanance, lasting, perseverance, but also can mean usual or common. I think my grandparents were going for the "perseverance" meaning. Dan Heng's pretty cool and I think he matches his name pretty well. Pick up line: Yaoshi is "medicine master" but i think she's also my yaoshi to your heart!

I was scared for Ying learning about Sushang being called Susan.. I guess we can't hide it now. 😔

I was showing my grandma all these names, and she pointed out Qingque as an especially weird name. She didn't comment too much on the other ones. If I recall correctly she laughed a bit at Xueyi roughly as "snow clothing". I think she said Dan Heng and Yufei (read Dan Shu's Diary readable when you finish the lvl 34 story quest!) were fairly "normal" names, unlike all the other literary names. She is Cantonese, though, so she ended up telling me very very different pronunciations aha. I also did some digging with the CN to EN localization regarding Herta's puppets (人偶) because on Luofu, they say "puppet" again in EN to describe 机巧偃偶, a made-up word in Chinese. Above it they wrote cyborg in EN and 机械改造人. In a sidequest later (with a guy named Chengjie, iirc) they refer to aurumatons as an ingenium body 机巧之身. The delivery birds in Luofu are called cycranes in EN and 机巧鸟 in CN. Which made me realize in English is a cyborg-crane, which I thought was pretty cute. But basically, I'd be really curious to hear your interpretation of all these words/terms, especially 机巧偃偶, as it's quite different from when they said Stellaron/Cancer of Worlds earlier in the story as those were quite literal translations. Oh and one more sidenote, is in English, they talk about "jade abacuses" or little computers, and in Chinese they call them 玉兆, which my friend said is a fun play on words as it sounds similar to 预兆, which means to foretell. So a literal translation would be something like megajades, in the way we say megabytes, but they're not only used as computers, but as prediction devices, so the CN word is extremely clever.

I really like how Dan Heng's name is probably tied with his story of being a possible escapee from the alliance on the Astral Express and how he eventually has to return there as part of a bigger scheme by the Stellaron Hunters. how both characters in his name means the exact opposite of one another, he wants to change his ways (possibly from the past he's trying tp escape from) yet he's still tied by blood as a long life species and a descendant of the ever-reincarnating Dragon species

The Luofu part is probably because of the theme of immortality that's very present in the game, there's even talk about "cultivation" and whatnot

Su Shang (素裳): Su (素) when used as a adjective to describe things, it actually means "simple / pure / ordinary / not fancy", instead of "essence" as noun in 元素(Yuan Su / element). And Shang (裳) means clothing. Su Shang just means "ordinary clothing", which is something girls wear in certain occasions in ancient China. (I can't get over Susan rofl

first step : Ying the boss give us the perfect pronunciation second step : lets share this video to everyone who don't have the perfect pronunciation thxx for the video :3

Qingque (青雀) is also known as Qingniao (青鸟）, a divine bird from Taoism mythology. It carries message for the top goddess Xiwangmu(西王母). In the HSR Qingque works for Fuxuan (a commanding character with obvious Taoism symbology) as a runner, it makes perfect sense.

I've been studying Mandarin by myself for the last year so I've had a vague understanding of how to pronounce the Xianzhou names (+I play in Chinese) but I really enjoy these pronunciation videos! The Ying humour always makes it worth it. Excitedly sent it to my partner who doesn't speak/read any Mandarin at all too because I know a lot of these names have been tripping them up a bit!

As a native Chinese I applaud you on making this video!! Even though with my basic knowledge of poems and ancient texts I can’t always pinpoint the specific literary references, the character names all look and sound hella poetic and beautiful, and that’s all I need to appreciate them😂Also, compared to Liyue characters our Salty Porridge Tofu characters got so much xianxia drip I almost cried with happiness when I saw 景元.

I absolutely love just practicing the pronunciation while doing something on the side

Thank you, queen! I wanted to make sure I said their names correctly so bad, this video helped loads!

Luo Cha / Raksha is the reference of the Otto Apocalypse from HI3, which also goes by Raksha in the game. So yeah, the more you go into mihoyo rabbit hole, the more you know

the word Lan (嵐) is literally mountain wind, just like how the character is composed, mountain and wind. In southern China the mountain wind is often very moist and dense. Mist would form around mid hill, so it is often refers to the mist around mountains when temperature differences collide.

I love how Tingyun's battle pass light cone (Carve the Moon, Weave the Clouds) fits both her name meaning and where her name pops up in the poem! I wouldnt have known that without this video so thank you! I love learning little trivia lore like this!

The bit about Luocha being derived from "Raksha" makes sense especially since Luocha's design appears to be based off his HI3 counterpart's appearance in the Shattered Swords visual novel (Sushang and Yan Qing are also characters in that side story). It nicely fits with the Hindu/Buddhist connotations of that word too. Thanks for sharing those bits with us, Ying! From what I remembered of that story, "Raksha" gets his name from desert bandits who mistake him for being a foreign merchant from a snowy northern country beyond the desert where the VN's story begins too ahah. (He also apparently had a scary aura from their first encounter too, ahah)

WE NEEDED THIS ♥️♥️♥️🥰

Proud of myself that I was very close for all of these !! Tones are still complicated but I could generally guess the sounds while waiting for your guide. The only one I wasn't quite on the money with was Tingyun, which I pronounced with a japanese u. Thank you for taking the time to educate us Ying !

im glad to know that my fellow germans might have a LITTLE easier time learning SOME of the pronunciations bc our letter "ü" is pretty similar to the sound in "yween"

I really appreciate this. Being a native speaker and playing in Chinese, it's no trouble for myself to understand but my Chinese reading is questionable. 😂😂Having your videos I can show my friends.

Coming from Tectone reaction vid, this was great 👍 👍

Thanks for the guide! Already saw the stream but my brain is full of holes so I forgot everything :,) time to rewatch this over and over until the names finally stick to my brain

I'm very surprised about The Hunt Eon. Because in Russian localisation the name is written like "Лань" (Lan with soft n) which literally means "fallow-deer" in Russian and I was sure that this is the meaning. Like, they have those hoofs...

Thank you so much for this, Ying! This is really helpful, since I do honestly have a hard time with the names, but I want to be respectful and say it correctly. Your videos are a lifesaver!

Guessing Dan Heng's name includes change since in the story he's gonna get some sort of transformation that will be a separate 5 star unit according to leaks. I think he was in one of the cinematics as well (his clothes are similar but he's got horns and a tail, kinda like Bailu)

Hi! I’m glad you’re making a guide since I know it helps a lot of ppl! Just wanted to point out that for 停云, in the context of the poem, it would make more sense to have the definition “still clouds” or as you mentioned in the video: “stopped clouds” rather than “cloud stopper” aka 停止的云（形容词+名词）而不是停住云（动词+名词） In this case, those two lines of poem could be translated into smth like “gloomy still clouds, misty rain” 👍

No question yet, just want to mention that you earned a new subscriber. This was very helpful for a beginner learner of mandarin. And I just love your energy.

As a native Estonian speaker, these pronounciations are surprisingly easy for me, the sudden stops and rises are common in my language as well, and we use diacritic letters pretty often, mix in a little Russian and the ch, zh, cha, xh etc sounds come out pretty easily too. English speakers tend to put too much pressure on their consonants or let too much air escape when they pronounce plosives(I always tell people to try pronouncing a plosive while holding their breath, it usually helps), and stretch out their vowels all the time. It always makes me kind of cringe when I hear native english speakers pronounce foreign names with vowels in them, they stretch out the sound too much.

These are always great insight to watch. I had more fun than allowed among my friends since I kept obliterating the names into Finnish common names. So Sushang is Susanna. Qingque - Sirkku ('sirkkuli' is actually a twittering bird). Bailu - Paula and well... Sampo is just Sampo. I actually had a hard time coming up similar sounds for the most of Xianzhou names, since I didn't know how they're meant to be pronounced.

Not sure if this was already mentioned in your comments, but Jingyuan (景元) was the era name bet. 260-264 under Cao Huan, last emperor of the Cao Wei dynasty.

According to a friend, Sushang means "above/on" and "trees", put together it could mean "on trees" or "treetops" which is fitting because her splash art is her on a tree! Not sure which dialect though, I reckon it might be Hakka.

Thank you so much for these videos!! It's so nice having someone willing to explain the pronunciation of these names for us! It really makes me stop and think how little exposure most English speaking countries have to names that aren't common in those countries. Guides like these helps me feel a little better as I try to learn more outside if my bubble and gives me more of a fighting chance to not offend people on my path of progress 😅

I love that Pela is Pelageya Sergeyevna, which is Пелагея Сергеевна in Russian, which is somewhat common name.

For 景元 Jing Yuan, it is more precise to explain Yuan 元 as nature/essense and/or union. 景 is scenery, also it can be extended as an image, either expectation in word (愿景), or simply physical scenery.

Very good video! I like to hear the names being pronounced correctly and hearing what they mean knowing who the characters are now!

Been waiting for this, I still remember and use the points I've learned back in the Liyue vid you made. Thanks as always Ying!

I love how fluent you are in switching between english and chinese- I'm bilingual, since I'm from Poland and have some family in the UK and I've spent quite a bit of time there but whenever I try to switch from english or polish or vice versa just a tad bit too fast my tongue seems to break in multiple places and the gibberish that comes outta my mouth don't sound like any human language

There's something wrong with my tongue. I think... But thank you for the video! Yay!

I was actually waiting for your Starrail video 😂 This is what I've been waiting for 🎉

I was waiting for your video on this! I knew it had to happen! :D

I want to be a part of the Salty Porridge Alliance!

An interesting thing to mention about Qingque also is that the second half of her name is also used in the traditional name for Mahjong, 麻雀, which given her Mahjong theming feels intentional

Was definitely hoping to learn some Star Rail names from yet another one of your great pronunciation guides, and you delivered. Thank you! Been relying solely on intuition until now & have been pretty far off on some of these lol

I just came here to find Tectone's comment here, sadly I wasn't able to find it.

Here I am, back again to learn from my teacher how to pronounce names correctly xD

Hi Ying, QingQue is actually a reference to the Mahjong that Chinese play. Que or 雀 is the tile with that bird that symbolizes 一条 or a stick. Love your content!!

i clicked to learn, subscribed for the energy levels of this video!!! this is amazing! thank you for your work!

I'm northeast Indian and when I pronounced the alphabet that you produced in my mother tongue/native dialect its actually correct at times I always tried to pronounce Chinese names in an American/British english pronunciation and it is usually wrong but now I'am actually plesently surprised

As always thank you! I, like many who came to this video, do not like to mispronounce names if I can avoid it or at least want to give my best attempt at not completely butchering it 😅 Tones are a bit tricky but practice makes perfection! (Also I am reminded once again how pretty Chinese is)

yay, I love these kinds of videos from you. I'm also loving the additional notes from the comments, gives me more things to learn about :D

Yay! Been waiting for this! Thank you for the video Ying!

I'm so sorry for the unrelated comment, but other day I was remembering you where the first person to ever call me by my chosen name aloud at stream, and I wanted to say thank you. Being very closeted, it can't happen irl so hearing it, even if not being in the same place, was very precious to me. I vanished from streams so I doubt you remember me but I just wanted you to know this is something I'll carry in my heart forever. I wish everything is going well!

Jokes on you! I'm part of the Salty Porridge Alliance!

This was my first time watching a vid of yours and I really appreciate it! Seriously so helpful for me.

Been waiting for you to make a video about this topic ever since Star Rail came out. Thanks! 😄

素裳 is probably a play on her clothing as 素 refers to the more neutral color tones, the white, the beige, and the browns 青雀 is probably the 1 of bamboo bird tile in mahjong as mahjong is big in her design

thanks for posting this video!!! also lol i think the sumeru names are tripping everyone up - all of the characters with arabic names can be pronounced very differently depending on which region they're based on lol

I really appreciate these videos. It's nice of you to do this.

thanks for the amazing guide! shared it to my star rail friends ❤ i was also super impressed with how many comments you like and reply lol that's a lot of work on top of content creation

the duality of man celestial vessel god bote.

Thank you so much for the insight on the pronunciation of those names! I played Genshin and Star Rail in Chinese just to tickle my ears, trying to figure out some sounds and now I am sure I will need an immortality elixir to learn the language. XD

super neat video i stumbled upon. I had a lot of fun following along and pronouncing the names with you. Thanks for doing this !

This help me a lot for pronouncing their names correctly. in Genshin and Star rail in like Liyue and Xianzhou Luofu are the characters could be hardly to say in full and many thanks for you Ying 🥰😍

I was looking forward to this! Also again no worries about the Sumeru names since accents and dialects makes it difficult to get accurate results since theyre all technically correct (doesnt help that Sumeru pulls inspiration from cultures with multiple languages within them)

Interestingly about Luocha, your reference to "Raksha" is on point, given Otto's reference by Li Sushang in HI3's English translation being "Raksha". This is consistent along the HI3 translations for Otto. Li Sushang refers to Otto as "rasetsujin" in Japanese and Luocha gets similar treatment (and JP voice actor!). Sushang refers to Luocha as "rasetsu". So, the terms for Luocha end up consistent if you're reading between the lines a little. Luocha (CN) = Rasetsu (JP) = Raksha (EN)

Thank you so much, ying! you have no idea how much this helps, i truly am very grateful for it 🙏

her explanation is great and the way she guides you is amazing

Im vietnamese and when people pronounce nguyen it sounds so goofy. When they ask me how I pronounce the guyen part, I never know how to actually respond to that. The way you pronounced yuan actually reminded me of that

I saw an absolutely wild theory that Luocha actually has a Russian name, because at one point he says that Luocha is his nickname, as his full name is too difficult to pronounce (full, formal) Alexei => (shortened, informa, diminuitive) Lyosha => (a phonetic approximation???) Luocha As to why the shortened diminuitive form of Alexei is Lyosha - heck if I know. It's probably on par with Richard => Dick or Edward => Ned.

I'm really glad that I actually was really close or correct with my guesses! I didn't even think about videos like this existing until now! I'm really glad this exists

I found you through your Genshin pronunciation video, and seeing you making a similar kind of video for HSR makes me very happy 💜 No joke, you could make videos on Chinese pronunciation for random things, not even necessarily gaming related, and I'd absolutely love to watch them. You have a wonderful personality and it's always so fun watching you explain things!

This is actually so helpful. I hate it when I butcher names.

Xuey = *YEET* 👌😂 But jokes aside, thank you for this educational pronunciation lesson. I'm a scholar in languages and I respect pronouncing the words as closely as possible and how it should be pronounced. Thank you for that 🙏

First time watching one of your videos. Very informative and entertaining. You have a great sense of humor. Thanks!

Beautiful guide Ying!!! Very simple, easy and fun way to teach others how to pronounce these names!!

can't wait to just play this every time i forget a pronunciation lol

I use en dub in honkai star rail and I always crack up everytime I hear those NPC in Xianzhou (i forgot the exact place) with their heavy british accent 😭

This is super helpful! When I said Dan Heng with the correct pronounciation that is shown in this guide the first few times I played, then I just slowly took on the way the characters said the name the most common way. Jing Yuan was the name I could never get right or remember. Same for Yanqing. Thank you for this guide! Sharing in my discord server later for friends. :3

Luocha罗刹：Luocha originally referred to a man-eating demon (Rākşasī) in Indian culture, which was transliterated into Chinese. Later on, Luocha was thought to refer to Russians, possibly because the pronunciation of "Russia" and "Luocha" are similar. Later still, the term came to refer to blonde white skin Europeans who came from the north. (Nowadays, nobody uses this term to refer to Europeans in this way.)

18 minutes of me realizing I could never speak Mandarin. So much respect for people who do!

WAS WAITING FOR THIS THANK YOU QUEEN 🙏🏻

Lesssgo! Been waiting for the video since the stream XD

大部分加上姓之后是可以作为普通人名字的，像“李彦卿”、“张景元”、“赵停云”等等，不常见但也不是很出奇。

0:07 "don't want to get my family disappeared" thats straight up propaganda man, i am dissapointed

Thank you! This was really helpful and interesting to learn about the history and deeper meanings behind the name💙

thank you. i just love hearing the pronunciations so much. that's why i play with chinese voiceover. though i'm not really good at saying it anyway.

I am studying chinese so I know how to pronouce properly. And you don’t know how many content creators don’t know how to pronounce « Qingque » and they just call her QQ😂 They should definitely see this

Hey Ying love all your content because of the release of star rail (and I just wanted to get into it someday) I'm in a Honkai phase and I saw that you played through a lot of it but I see some of the chapters are missing is there anyway else to watch it like a Twitch vod or am I just missing something?

enjoyed this video quite a bit!! learning about the origins and meanings of the names was especially interesting

First time viewing one of your video's, really enjoyed it and I hope to see more Honkai content :D

So... About Tingyun name... 👀

This video is so helpful and informative! I want to make sure I'm saying these names correctly. Thank you so much.

Great video!! I don't have any plans on playing Honkai but this was very informative, thanks for uploading it!

I'm from India and I still can't pronounce Sumeru names....

False. Dan heng name is can be interpreted as a play in perseverance because the devs know he will have to deal with march 7th bullshit