Talk:Hunan First Normal University

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Hunan First Normal University. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130901232219/http://www.hnfnu.edu.cn/NewsList.aspx?bbid=110&nid=10829 to http://www.hnfnu.edu.cn/NewsList.aspx?bbid=110&nid=10829

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 19:52, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Lost in translation

The transliteration here is clearly losing something in translation. If this is the "first normal university", English speakers will infer from this that all pre-existing universities at that time were considered abnormal. Is this nuance faithful to the native Chinese meaning of the name? If not, could someone familiar with the Chinese terminology in question please provide a more representative version of the name? Thanks. 49.195.144.171 (talk) 15:16, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

'Normal' translates 师范, which literally means 'teacher model', i.e. a college for training teachers or educators (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_school). I believe the terminology originated in France, where it is still used for example in the various 'écoles normales supérieures', which nowadays function as elite (albeit somewhat focused) higher education institutions. Many 'normal' universities in China (e.g. Shanghai Normal University) have broad curricula, and in that sense are like standard universities in the West, as opposed to institutions with a much narrower focus (e.g. 'Central University of Finance and Economics', 'Beijing University of Chemical Technology'), the creation of which I believe was based on a Soviet model and which doesn't really have a parallel in the western education system. 2607:FEA8:57E0:9C00:FDA8:14EA:1D9A:5BE7 (talk) 21:18, 1 May 2023 (UTC)