International Baseball Card Keyword Cheat Sheet

Below are various terms one might find useful when attempting to search for information about baseball cards in languages other than English.  Within some languages there are regional variations, This is especially true of Spanish.  I am no linguist, so these are all very much a layman's guide to these terms as I have encountered them in my web surfing.

Spanish/Español

baseball (the sport) - béisbol

baseball (the ball) - pelota

baseball player - pelotero / beisbolista

pack - paquete

card(s) - tarjeta(s) / estampa(s) / estampita(s) / cartita(s) / postalita(s) / barajita(s)

      While tarjeta is probably the most common term, there has not always been a large distinction between baseball "cards" vs baseball "stamps".  Most often, I find anything intended for pasting or sticking into an album referred to as "estampa" or "estampita".  Though the 1992 set issued by La Liga Mexicana de Beisbol was referred to as "estampas de fotos" and they were definitely baseball cards in the traditional sense, not stickers.  Postalitas seems to be the most common term used for baseball cards in the Dominican Republic, even though it seems to translate literally as "postcard".  Venezuelans seems to prefer the term "barajitas", for which I cannot even find an actual translation.  Occasionally someone will use the term "carta", but that seems to apply more commonly to credit cards or playing cards than to sports cards.  "Naipe" is another word that seems to translate to card, but it is almost exclusively used with respect to playing cards and almost never with sports cards.

sticker - calcomanía / estampa / estampita / postal

     Calcomanía translates literallly as sticker, whereas estampa translates literally as stamp.  They seem to be used almost interchangeably so your search results may vary.    Postal, or the plural postales, seems to be most commonly used in Cuba.  The sticker/stamp sets that were common in Cuba in the 1940s-50s were usually identified as postales on the albums issued for the sets.  Postales is also sometimes used interchangeably with postalitas or tarjetas.

Japanese


baseball (the sport) - 野球 (pronounced yă-kyū)

(baseball) player - 選手

card - カード

pack - パック

sticker - ステッカー

world stamp book - ワールドスタンプブック (good for finding NST stamp sets)

Korean

baseball (the sport or the ball) - 야구 (pronounced yă-gū)

(baseball) player - 선수

card - 카드

pack - 팩

sticker - 스티커

Chinese

baseball (the sport) - 棒球 (pronounced băng-chyō)

(baseball) player - 球員

card - 卡

pack - 包

sticker - 贴纸
DUTCH

baseball (the sport) - honkbal

(baseball) player - honkballer / speler

card - kaart

baseball cards - honkbalkaarten or honkbalkaartjes

pack - pakket

sticker - sluitzegel
FRENCH

baseball (the sport) - baseball

(baseball) player - joueur

card - carte

pack - paquet

sticker - autocollant

1 comment:

  1. Ryan GMonday, 29 September, 2014

    For Japanese, the following terms are also helpful when it comes to searches especially on auction sites:
    Complete ("comp"):　コンプ
    set (though it's used to indicate a lot):　セット
    quantity (of flat items like cards):　枚
    Calbee (major manufacturer):　カルビー

    Searching for 2014 Calbee Series 3, for a full set of 124 cards, would look something like this:
    "２０１４カルビー３　１２４枚". I usually leave off the quantity tag when searching Yahoo Auctions. It's helpful when looking for lots though. Most dealers don't seem to use terms like complete and set correctly in auction listings, so if you know the number of cards in the set, that's the best way to search for complete sets.

    Actually, I used some of these techniques while trying to research some Japanese non-sport sets this weekend. Anything relatively popular and recent (past 10-15 years) can be found on Yahoo Auctions, and usually it's easier to find details about a set from an auction listing than trying to find a Japanese blogger's post.

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