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In Chinese, Macintosh is described as 苹果的电脑, and MacBook series are described as 苹果的笔记本电脑. However, I don't know how to differentiate MacBook Air from MacBook Pro.

Apple's Chinese page doesn't describe it, either; it's just spelled as MacBook Pro.

Also, even if you can spell it in Chinese, such as 苹果的笔记本电脑空 (just the illustration purpose's only), should I spell it just as MacBook Air? In Japanese, when you type it in Japanese instead of MacBook Air, you give an impression that you're a dumb, and hence the most people just describe it as what Apple does.

So which one should I take in Chinese?

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  • MacBook Pro and MacBook Air will work as is.
    – Mou某 ♦
    Sep 21, 2014 at 15:56

2 Answers 2

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It is okay to say Macbook Air in between Chinese, or you can say 苹果的Air电脑 or 苹果的Air系列电脑 if you must. More info:

  1. It seems that mainland Chinese are adapting 电脑, but I want to point out both 電腦(traditional Chinese) and 计算机(simplified Chinese) means "computer". 電腦 is used everywhere while 计算机 is only for formal use in mainland China. (計算機/计算机 can mean "calculator" in other scenario, so 电子计算机/电脑 is used to differentiate.) (referecne)

  2. Macintosh = 麦金塔电脑 or simply 麦金塔 in Mainland China. In HK, we called it Mac機. (reference) 苹果的电脑 only means computer from Apple.

  3. Japanese have Katakana , but Chinese don't.

  4. As you may know, in Chinese we say a laptop/notebook computer 筆記本電腦/笔记本电脑 but we do not translate the Air into 空

  5. I don't know any nicknames for Macbook Air yet like iphone 爱疯 though.

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  • As to #2, your reference link is on MAC address, which is not Macintosh. And my question is, which one is better between the English and Chinese when it comes to describing those terms? Most Japanese don't use Japanese words in this situation, despite the fact that it is possible to use katakana to mean it.
    – Blaszard
    Sep 20, 2014 at 13:48
  • Corrected the link. I should have checked :P For MAC you can use 麦金塔/Mac機, but for other Apple products English would be better as there is no official Chinese names for them.
    – Pete C.
    Sep 20, 2014 at 20:53
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    we call calculator 计算器，computer 计算机 formally,电脑 orally,macbook 苹果笔记本,Macintosh computer 苹果电脑。no 苹果计算机，that‘s weird to combine formal and informal word together.
    – sfy
    Sep 21, 2014 at 3:57
  • Edited. Every day you learn something new. Thanks Jacob :)
    – Pete C.
    Sep 22, 2014 at 11:20
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In general,we say XXX系列 such as “MacBook 家族的air系列” but in most cases,for digital products ，we straight call it in English or transliterate it.For example,we some people call or write iphone 爱疯

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