How to say "Long Tail" in Japanese (and Chinese and...)

ロングテール.

Pronounced "Rongu tee-ru."

(Thanks to Kevin Kelleher for the pronunciation correction, and YF Juan for the further correction in the comments)

UPDATE: Other languages:

In Chinese it's:

长尾

Pronounced "Chaang Weei"

(Thanks to Ola Spannar)

In French, there's some debate about whether it should be:

La Longue Traîne

or

La Longue Queue

The first of those has something of the double-entendre semantics of "Tail" in English and is the cheekier option. So that's the one I prefer, of course.

In Brazilian Portuguese it's:

A Longa Cauda,

A Cauda Longa, or

A Cauda Comprida

(Thanks to Josh Bancroft; correction by André U. Manoel in the comments)

In Greek it's:

Μακριά Ουρά (Makria Oura)
Μεγάλη Ουρά (Megali Oura)

(Thanks to Yiorgos Adamopoulos)

In Dutch it's:

De Lange Staart

(Thanks to Tijmen in the comments)

In Romanian it's

Coada Lungă

(Thanks to JS Bangs)

And see the comments for Hindi, Russian, Korean and more....

Comments

[TonyLeachSF]

How about the long tail of google searches?

http://philotech.blogspot.com/2006/08/long-tail-of-google-searches.html
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060817-7532.html

[paris sortir]

Why this title !?!

[YF Juan]

Actually, the pronunciation "correction" is incorrect.

Using the Katakana writing as shown above, there is no "i" in "tei". Instead, it is a long "e" which is often expressed as "ee".

So it should be "rongu tee-ru". If you prefer to call it "tei-ru", it would require one more Katakana for "i" which should be written as a smaller character to indicate that it is part of the "te" syllable instead of being its own syllable.

But, who is checking...

Warm regards, YFJ

[Josh Bancroft]

Brazilian Portuguese:

O rabo comprido

[Yiorgos Adamopoulos]

In Greek:

Μακριά Ουρά (Makria Oura)
Μεγάλη Ουρά (Megali Oura)

[Tijmen]

In Dutch it's

"De Lange Staart".

[Thatedeguy]

Don't forget Pig Latin:

hetay onglay ailtay

sounds fun at least...

[André U. Manoel]

Please no, "O Rabo Comprido" is really really weird. It translates back to English as "The long asshole", not a very good name for a book, in my opinion.

In Brazilian Portuguese, you would prefer to have it named "a longa cauda", "a cauda longa", or "a cauda comprida".

Or maybe the other name is right and I just misunderstood what your work is all about. In that case, make sure to have age disclaimers in the cover of the book.

[royal]

hi

i am currently reading the long tail (and enjoy it very much!) and i was wondering why here in the UK (in london to be exact) the book is called "how endless choice is creating unlimited demand" different from the US title?!

[JS Bangs]

Why not? In Romanian it's coada lungă.

[Kevin Kelleher]

Let's see if I can make this thread even sillier:

There are multiple, conflicting romanizations of Japanese ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romaji ). Following YFJ, Tokyo should be spelled Tookyoo - which of course no one does.

"Tee," "Tei" or even "Te" - it's all pronounced the same. Let's call the whole thing off.

Kevin

[Nishith Prabhakar]

In Hindi it is "lambee poonchh", or "hanumaan poochh" ...

[hyokon]

Though many people won't be able to see correctly or read this.

In Korean, the translation is 긴 꼬리 . 긴 = long, 꼬리 = tail.

The transliteration of long tail is 롱(long) 테일(tail). FYI, Korean is phonetic.

For the Book Title, I think we will probably use the latter. 긴 꼬리 sounds too straightforward - animal tail.

[Netmobius]

In Russian it's:

Длинный Хвост.
Pronounced "Dlinniy Khvost"

[Mingles Tsoi]

In Traditional Chinese Character:
長尾

Since July I started learning Tai Chi and one of the beauties of this martial art is the power of very small force can move a heavy guy and resist from attack. The magic inside is the accumulation of force from the human being. The Long Tail, also reveal the fact of success from aggregator model, which is quite similar to the Tai Chi theory.

On August 9 I deliver a speech to the Rotary Club of HongKong Sunrise, introducing this interesting and controversial topic to the entrepreneurs.

[Cevdet Basacik]

Here it is in Turkish :

"Uzun Kuyruk"

Cheers !

[Kal Ström]

In Swedish: "Den långa svansen"

[Henrik Jepsen]

And in Danish it would be "Den Lange Hale"

[Itai Rabinowitz]

and in hebrew:

הזנב הארוך - "Hazanzv ha'aroch"

:)

[Antti Lindström]

In Finnish that would be: Pitkä Häntä, or Pitkähäntä. I'd use in this case Pitkähäntä, cause in this case the whole name is important, not only 'tail' (häntä).

Nice post. I wish other blogs would test their readers' nationalities this way... fun and educational (?). =)

[AfroM]

Swahili

"Mkia Refu" pronounced mmm 'keeah reh foo'

Cheers, love your book.

[Asad]

In Urdu, it would be:

Lambhee Poonchh

OR

Lambhee Dum

[Marko Kovac]

In Croatian, it would be:

dugi rep

[Karl Philip Lund]

In Norwegian: Den lange halen

[jasmina corovic]

oh, i've got one multilingual!
in serbian/croatian/bosnian it'd be
Dugi Rep

[YF Juan]

I am surprised that there is no Spanish entry which would be

la cola larga (a "general" tail)
or
el rabo largo (a "zoological" tail)

==
As for the Japanese Katakana pronunciation discussion. I think the acid test is how closely it translates back from the Romanization into the Kana because Kana is phonetic. To the extent that a third person would add an "i" when there is no "i" in the original "spelling", there is room for potential improvement.

For the example of Tokyo. The first "o" is indeed a long vowel. But, the literal romanization should be Toukyo or Tookyo because the second "o" is a short vowel. And, it is for this reason, if you read some of the older (English) text on Japan, there is that bar thing on top of the first "o" in Tokyo. Furthermore, proper names such as Tokyo has really become part of the English vocabulary which is usually treated differently.

For instance, in Japanese the only difference between a "building" (biru) and a "beer" (biiru) is the long vowel. And, naturally, it would be wise to make a clear distinction in these cases. :-)!

Anyway, it is a free world and an "i" usually does not amount to much.

Warm regards, YFJ

[Irene Hoffman]

In Slovenian it's:

dolgi rep

Pronounced 'dole-ghee rep'

[Maximilian Schich]

In German:

Der lange Schweif.

To some germans the word 'Schweif' will seem old-fashioned.
Unfortunately the obvious alternative 'Schwanz' has an ambiguous conotation.

[Arnold]

In lithuanian it's ILGA UODEGA.

[Alan Alston]

In Afrikaans (South African language) it translates as 'die lang stert'...

[Aaron]

In French the translation should actually be:

La Queue Longue

The placement of adjectives in French can be tricky but in this case as in most the adjective comes after the noun. Only in a few cases does the adjective come before the noun and that also depends on the meaning.

[Alex Bukinis]

"dlinui hvost" - in Ukrainian, but it is sound also funny in connotations, so analogy or synonims ti be used. recomendation.

[Mikel]

In basque:

"Buztan luzea"

[syawal]

In Malay:

"Ekor panjang"

[jgfhsuih]

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[Vincent]

Mandelbrot uses "Traîne épaisse" for French of Long Tail. It sounds good indeed.

[Ivan]

In Slovak:
Dlhý chvost

[pda accessories]

Given the high levels of Japanese entrepreneurship, aren't japanese also referred to as the "Jews of Asia?"