紐西蘭 / 纽西兰
nau⁵ sai¹ laan⁴, nau² sai¹ laan⁴
New Zealand in Cantonese is said as 紐西蘭 / 纽西兰 (nau⁵ sai¹ laan⁴, nau² sai¹ laan⁴) or 新西蘭 / 新西兰.
Meaning: country in Oceania (name)
Ways to say it
| Cantonese | Romanization (Wiktionary) |
|---|---|
| 紐西蘭 / 纽西兰 | nau⁵ sai¹ laan⁴, nau² sai¹ laan⁴ |
| 新西蘭 / 新西兰 | san¹ sai¹ laan⁴ |
Both forms refer to the country in Oceania.
Which one should you use?
The form 新西蘭 / 新西兰 is the formal way to refer to the country.
How do you pronounce it?
nau⁵ sai¹ laan⁴, nau² sai¹ laan⁴
Did you know?
- Because 西蘭 can also refer to the region of 'Ceylon' (Sri Lanka), context is vital to ensure a listener doesn't confuse the two distant locations.
- The character 蘭 in 紐西蘭 means 'orchid', a common choice for transliterating foreign place names to ensure the name sounds elegant and poetic.
- While the formal name 新西蘭 uses the character for 'new', the more common colloquial way to refer to the country uses the character 紐, which is a phonetic transliteration that has no semantic connection to 'new'.
Examples in context
- 我打算明年去新西蘭旅行。I plan to travel to New Zealand next year.
Sources
- Wiktionary, “new zealand” translations, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
