I have just ordered a Xiaomi brand phone that sounds pretty much like Show Me. For a mobile phone manufacturer this is undoubtedly an apt claim. This also applies to the company Huawei, whose name, pronounced correctly, sounds almost like "your way". Does anyone know if Chinese companies are optimizing their names for international interpretation?
I would pronounce the first "Chiaumi" and the second say "Wawei" (with the second syllable like English "way", that's it).
Huawei has been around for a long time, I've known the company since it was the maker of every single Internet stick available. Apart from the fact that "Hua" / "Wa" and "Your" do not sound the same, Huawei was founded in 1987. At the time, the company could not care much if the name was homophonic to any English term.
These are just your interpretations, in Chinese it is also pronounced something different
小米 (xiaomi) is a type of millet, in short, edible. Since you can only guess what it means, you can compare as well with Apple.
华为 (huawei) can be better guessed. It is probably derived from 华人 (hua ren), which refers to Chinese who are staying abroad. With Huawei they want to say that it is a proud Chinese product which has also made it internationally, and definitely not many do.
So it has absolutely nothing to do with how it sounds, but the meaning behind it.
No.
If you put something in there, that's your business!
"Xiaomi" literally means "millet", "Huawei" meaning "original Chinese".
"Xiao" is pronounced less like "show" but more like "sow":-)
The "similarity" to the English words is very one-sided, because there are many countries where these products are delivered, where no English is spoken.
Phonetic similarities are found in proper names: e.g. "de yi zhi" = "german" or "fu lan ke" = "Frank".
