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I want to write a short story and I want to give it both an English and a Chinese title. I can read a little bit of Chinese, but unfortunately I was unable to properly translate the title myself.

The English title would be "The Ghost Town's Beauty" - referring to the town's beauty (not a beauty, as in beautiful woman).

Would "鬼城美" be a correct translation? If not, how could you translate the title? It would be fine if it ends up sounding a little like a world play - so that it isn't obvious whether its referring to the town's beauty or a beautiful person.

Thank you in advance.

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  • 鬼城之美 sounds good but a better translation of ghost town would be 死城, so altogether you've got: 死城之美
    – Mou某 ♦
    Mar 30, 2015 at 10:52
  • thank you! I have one more question though! 死 means death, right? In the story the main character travels to a town full of spirits - so they are supernatural, but not necessarily dead. Is there a character that denotes 'spirit', rather than 'dead'?
    – Lila
    Mar 30, 2015 at 10:58
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    haha you literally mean ghost town...and not town that's empty...鬼 is better here then
    – Mou某 ♦
    Mar 30, 2015 at 10:59
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    I'd prefer 美丽的幽灵镇 since 鬼 often considered scary and hostile. I know the one I proposed twists the meaning a bit but titles constructed this way are quite common for this like 美丽的桂林 and 幽灵镇之美 feels little bit awkward to me.
    – user1228520
    Apr 2, 2015 at 6:28
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    Or simply "幽村" (taking advantage of multiple meanings of "幽")
    – Henry HO
    Apr 2, 2015 at 6:33

4 Answers 4

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How about 空城幽影。

I think it is more artistic。 鬼城美 sounds like a Japanese name,there are many expressions like 鬼**，**美 in Japanese using Kanji,but **之美 is China-esque.

Other names for fun:

空城血泪

鬼镇丽人

鬼镇美（word play：鬼真美）

情陷鬼城

幽灵小镇的美学研究

欲海死城

幽灵小镇的美学研究 is my favourite。 ：）

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鬼镇风光 / 鬼镇美景

Gost town : 鬼镇

By beauty, I suppose you mean good view of the town.

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'spirit' : 精灵，鬼魂

'ghost': 鬼

If the 'beauty' in your title refers a person, the best title I can figure out is "鬼城美人";

If you are refer to a beautiful town, I think "鬼城之美" is better. BTW, 'death' is a not proper word for the title, it means really death, kind of terrific.

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鬼城之美

Chinese language attach great importance to the symmetry of the number of words and sentences. They think words with even number characters is more beautiful, also a sentence with two sub-sentences with the same number of characters is more beautiful than a long single sentence.

your own translation is good enough but as the flexibility of the forms of Chinese (the nouns and adjectives look just the same), your translation can also be comprehended as a sentence (The Ghost Town is Beautiful). So add a 之 can also make it clear that this is a noun phase

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