How to translate Shaoxing Huangjiu

There are many translations of [". At the very beginning, [" was translated as Shaoxing Yellow Wine or Shaoxing Rice Wine. And it was translated as Shaoxing chiew in the menu of Hong Kong. How to translate ["? We learned that the new national standard of Huangjiu stipulated that [" should be translated as Shaoxing Huangjiu.

It is understood that the national standard of Huangjiu (GB/T13662) was formulated in 1992 and has been revised in 2000, 2008 and 2018. The new version of the national standard of Huangjiu which was released on September 17^th, 2018, was officially implemented on April 1^st, 2019.

In the 2008 edition, [" was translated as Chinese rice wine. However, in Oxford Dictionary, [wine" refers to an alcoholic drink made from the juice of grapes that has been left to ferment, an alcohol drink made from plants or fruits other than grapes, or a dark red color. And [rice" refers to short, narrow white or brown grain grown on wet land in hot countries as food, or the plant that produces this grain. Therefore, the translation "Chinese rice wine" is not very proper. Therefore, [" was transliterated as [Huangjiu" in the 2018 edition.

In this regard, the author also consulted translation experts. And they also agreed that [" should be transliterated as Huangjiu. However, they thought that we should publicize the new translation aboard as far as possible. The restaurant in Hong Kong translates [" as Shaoxing chiew according to English pronunciation. Compared with "Jiu", [Chiew" is easier to be pronounced by foreigners.

It is understood that there are precedents for this kind of translation method. For example, [" is transliterated as [Baijiu" and [" is transliterated as [sake". In addition, "beer", "brandy" and "whiskey" are transliterated as [", [", [" respectively.