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Ink, needles, and tattoos oh my.


zeus777

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So being a Japanese, I've seen TONS of strange Japanese tattoos that made me go "Does the person really know what that means?"|
I get the feeling this happens a lot in different languages too. 

I've seen a guy with the word "women's body" on his arm (maybe he appreciates the beauty of a women's body),
I've seen a girl with "obnoxious" on the back of her neck (I wonder if she has any friends)
My friend saw a dude with the word "kitchen" on his arm (maybe he likes to cook), etc etc.

The other day I was asked to translate a certain word, and I told the person I'd be glad to help.
When he placed the order he added a message saying "I know what the word means already but just wanted to be 100% sure. I'm gonna get a tattoo."

The moment I saw the word "tattoo" in the message I sensed trouble.

I looked at the word, I translated the word for him, and delivered the order along with a long message telling him that he should NOT get the tattoo.
He replied telling me that he thought it was a completely different word.

Well, I'm glad I was able to save him from an embarrassment of a lifetime. 

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14 minutes ago, aarontgladiator said:

what was the word?

Maybe "Fiverr" in Japanese katakana, only that it said "Fiber"? 😉

 

Dᵢₛ𝒸ₗₐᵢₘₑᵣ: ⱼᵤₛₜ ₐ ⱼₒₖₑ ₐₗₗ ᵢₙ 𝓰ₒₒ𝒹 𝒻ₐᵢₜₕ, ₙₒₜ ₘₐₖᵢₙ𝓰 𝒻ᵤₙ ₒ𝒻 ₚₑₒₚₗₑ 𝓌ₕₒ 𝓰ₑₜ ₜₐₜₜₒₒₛ, ₒᵣ ₜₕₑᵢᵣ ₜₐₜₜₒₒ 𝒸ₕₒᵢ𝒸ₑₛ, ᵢ ₕₐᵥₑ ₛₒₘₑ ₘᵧₛₑₗ𝒻.

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Tattoos has always been an interesting subject to me. I have a few myself and I love seeing beautiful tattoos made by professional artists.

However, more often than not, people tend to cheap out on tattoos. They wake up one day, decide they want huge angel wings on their back and go to the cheapest tattoo artist they can find, who has no license, no qualifications and no regards for sterile instruments.

I always tell people that they should think about their tattoos for some time and save up before they decide to get it. Tattoos are not cheap and if they are, they will probably get a lot more expensive when one decides to remove or cover them up after looking in the mirror.

I remember, when I got my first tattoo, I was waiting in the waiting room and a woman came to reception asking to book an appointment with. After a lengthy conversation, the tattoo artist did not agree to book an appointment as he deemed the tattoo idea to be unprofessional. I was pleasantly surprised, and at that point I knew for sure that I was in good hands with my tattoo. I think that's how it should be. Yes, you can argue that it's client's money and they can do whatever they want with it, but I think that as a professional tattoo artist, one has certain responsibilities when it comes to modifying other people's bodies.

yryur.png

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2 hours ago, aarontgladiator said:

what was the word?

The word he WANTED was 花鳥風月, which says flower, bird, wind, moon.
Basically it means "all the beautiful things in nature."

The word he sent me was 四字熟語 which means "4 character idioms."


There are tons of these " 4 character idioms" in Japan, another example is 一石二鳥, and the characters means "one, stone, two, bird."
Yup you guessed it, it's the Japanese version of "killing two birds with one stone."
So flower, bird, wind, moon is a type of 4 character idiom, and that's what he wanted as a tattoo, but the word he sent me was "4 character idiom."

So what I told him was that if wanted a tattoo of a PARTICULAR  4 character idiom that's great, and that I can check that idiom for him.
However IF he was planning on getting the WORD " 4 character idiom," it will look dumb as hell.

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I never understood why someone would want a language they can't read tattooed on their body. At least do tons of research first. Very good idea to ask a translator!

When something will be with you for life, you'd think people would take special care.

 

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I always loved how in attempt to make the lettering look Cyrillic, people would invert the "R". Because they think that "Я" also reads as "R", it's just turned the other way. And it's actually reads "ya" so that "яesist" across your bicep doesn't really work, my dear comrade. 

Edited by lenasemenkova
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 5 months later...

For some reason I'm getting a good number of requests recently to translate short sentences/phrases, and each time I get those my spider senses start to tingle.
I ask the buyer if it's for a tattoo, and in most cases they say yes. They are usually surprised and impressed 😅
Just the other day I got another request, and the person sent me this short sentence. I asked him the same-old-same question and he said yes, Dang, I knew it.
I told him that I can indeed translate it, but also added that it would be better if I "tweak" the translation a little rather than just translating it directly.
The buyer was confused and asked me why, and I told him that just because the translation itself is correct doesn't mean it will work as a tattoo.
In other words, if I translated it directly and he had that slapped onto his arm or back, it will look stupid as HELL. 
Correct grammar / sentence structure doesn't automatically make the tattoo look cool.
Just because it sounds cool in one language doesn't mean it sounds equally cool in other languages.


I added that if he doesn't mind a Japanese person laughing inside their heads when they saw the tattoo, I'll go ahead and work on the direct translated version.
I also gave him an example that "flying monkey" sounds cool in Japanese and is often used for ninja-like hero names, but it CAN sound rather silly in English, especially for people who has seen the movie Wizard of Oz. He thought "flying monkey" was a lame hero name, so good, I think I got my point across. (Believe me, it does sound cool in Japanese though!!)

He asked me if I would laugh if I saw a person with that directly-translated tattoo. I said abso-freaking-lutely yes.
I did say that if he is 100000% sure that he will never encounter a Japanese or a person who understands Japanese at a native level, he'd be OK. It was up to him.

We decided to go with the slightly tweaked version.
I'm very, very glad.

 

 

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27 minutes ago, zeus777 said:

In other words, if I translated it directly and he had that slapped onto his arm or back, it will look stupid as HELL. 

Yeah, you would not want to do anything that makes you look dumb, while getting a tattoo. 😉

 

Edited by newsmike
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7 minutes ago, zeus777 said:

I came across this video a while, it's quite entertaining.
I'm sure there is a similar video in ALL languages though!

 

P*ss Factory was my favorite from that video.  There truly is no better way to impress your friends than taking a quote you don't understand, from a book you never read, and having it injected on your ass, in a language you don't speak.   

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This post makes me laugh! I have two younger sisters. One saw a pretty design with kanji on an arare snack package and had that tattooed onto her left shoulder. And it was my other younger sister, an artist, who was dating a tattooist and borrowed his tools to tattoo the design herself. It was her first time using the tools. 

That was many years ago. Now my sister keeps her tattoo covered because she works as a lawyer and my other sister went on to become an architect (she did marry the tattooist, though).

@zeus777, I'm glad your clients are listening to you! 😊

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Languageing is definitely hard! Hungarian is a fairly rare language so I often get asked what x and y is in it (NOT for tattoo reasons, luckily) by people I meet - it's always so hard to find the 'right' fit (that doesn't sound dumb but means the same.) For a while, I wanted my first tattoo (if I ever get it) to be the title of one of my favourite songs - in English it's basicaly Fxxck it, but in Korean it's not 100% the same (at least from what tiny bit I understand.) If I ever get it, I'll make sure I'm getting the right version haha. 

 

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This post has officially taken me out of lurk mode.

Out here doing god's kanji work, Zeus! XD Glad you were able to come to an agreement on the slightly tweaked version.

Reminds me of a painting a friend of mine did years back. They did a portrait of a fictional gal with a Japanese tattoo on her bicep, flexing. The top of the painting read, "It means strong!" (in English...) ~ but the tattoo was 臭い (which means smelly/stinky (I know Zeus knows, but for anyone who was curious!)).

Ohhhhh the irony (alas, it was the point of the painting, altogether).

I'm also curious about the arare snack package kanji 😅



 

Edited by lunacubed
oops I wrote arere instead of arare ~ (typo)
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20 minutes ago, zeus777 said:

OH MY GOD HAHAHAHAHAHA
The correct word will be 強い, not even close!!
funny-animals-cat.gif

Haha, exactly! Gladly her painting was commentary on the poorly chosen Japanese often featured in kanji tattoos, rather than her lack of knowing 強い XD 

Thank goodness there isn't anyone with that tattooed (or at least we haven't found them yet! Perhaps someone has it on their *behind* - hidden from the normal world. I suppose we'd never know in that case...)

P.S. I didn't mention it in my original comment, but I thoroughly enjoy your thread title ^^

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10 hours ago, zeus777 said:

I am quite curious...WHAT WAS the kanji!!??

6 hours ago, lunacubed said:

I'm also curious about the arare snack package kanji 😅

We love nori maki arare! 🤣 This isn't the exact brand, but this is the kanji that was used, along with a Japanese crest that was on the package. Both of my sisters thought it looked pretty cool and didn't really care about the meaning. 

image.png.f68645deb7ff1c9f6f5905c9d2bbf08f.png

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  • 6 months later...

So as translator, I get a lot of gigs asking for translations of phrases/quotes so they can get a tattoo. In Japanese.

Look, there's nothing wrong with getting a tattoo in a foreign language, but I do have a hard time understanding this..
IF you have been to Japan, lived in Japan, understand the language and culture, or have some kind of an emotional connection with the country, fine, I get it. 
If you are an anime nerd, I get that too. I've had a lot of people contacting me because they wanted a famous quote of an anime character tattooed on their bodies.

Having that said, there are people who just gets a tattoo in a foreign language "because it's kinda cool."
Or they think it is.

If you really, really, reaaaaaaally wanted a tattoo, sure, go ahead. BUT YOU GOT TO DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH!!!!!!
Be sure to ask a native level person to check your tattoo. Also be sure you can TRUST THAT PERSON!!!
Once you decide to get the tattoo, show your idea/design to that person!!!!

Just the other day I was sent this photo of a tattoo. Yes, the tattoo had already been applied, so in a way it's too late (unless you decided to remove it or cover it).
I looked at the photo, and the good news was, it WAS Japanese. It was correct.

I...was able to read it. Somehow. 
The problem was, it looked like it was hand-written and it SUCKED. Pardon my language, but it SUCKED. BIG TIME.
YES, I could still read it, but it took me 3 seconds because it looked so bad. 

If I took 10 shots of vodka and blindfolded myself, holding a crayon in my left hand (I'm right handed btw) and tried scribbling the letter while someone
kept violently shaking my shoulders, IT WILL STILL LOOK BETTER THAN THE TATTOO.

Guys, be careful. Seriously.

 

 

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I've been thinking about getting a tattoo (I don't want to have one before we go to Tokyo sometime in the near future because I'd be paranoid about not being able to go to onsens even with it covered up) and at some point, I legit considered something stupid in mandarin (think Chicken noodle soup or something like that.) but I would KNOW what I'm getting, and it'd be on purpose. (is it dumb? Yes, but also kind of funny.) That being said, I think I'll stick to something that makes sense at first, mostly because I never know where I'll end up in the future. 

I've thought about the title of my favourite Korean song as well (in Korean) but I'm not 100% sure on how appropriate that one is, so I'll see. I'd definitely have to get drunk for that one to happen lol

I think the main issue is that people often trust google a bit too much - and especially when it comes to Japanese/Chinese/etc. you NEED to know your artist 1. knows what they are doing, 2. won't mess it up. 

When I write characters (in mandarin, I think more simple than kanji(?), I have the WORST memory when it comes to stroke order, and my chicken scratches are almost unrecognizable (mind me, I can SPEAK and text OK up to my level (3/4), just not write. If I WERE to get something in hanzi, I would need to make sure I wasn't the one to write it down. 

(picture down there is unrelated, I just wanted to show off the current seasonal craze here in Sweden. It's called semla, and I think my blood is slowly turning into the almond cream from it. We found two bakeries (one near, one far from us) that have the BEST fresh goodies) so suddenly, my 'immersion' into the culture here has gotten a lot 'deeper' 😛 pic)  is from google, just a screenshot, but I've had ones that looked even tastier with extra cream.)

image.png.041a122c473aa2629e3a6e1b513190ca.png

 

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26 minutes ago, katakatica said:

I would KNOW what I'm getting, and it'd be on purpose. (is it dumb? Yes, but also kind of funny.)

That's that thing, if you know it and if you think it's funny, that's perfectly fine!!
I once saw this guy wearing a shirt that basically said "super s*x machine man" in Japanese, I asked him if knew what it said, and he replied
"It means my girl friend is super lucky" with a smile. Hey, if you know and you're happy with it, that's cool!
Trusting Google is so dangerous, because it can't tell the difference between certain things. If you try to translate "Mercury" in Google,
you might get the planet Mercury or the element mercury, and they are both different kanjis in Japanese. 
You just need to be veeeeeeeeeeeery careful. 😅
If you ever feel like getting a tattoo in Japanese, please contact me first!! 🤣

Also, I've never heard of semla before but that looks awesome. 
More cream you say? The more the merrier! 😍

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