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Thinking of getting a kanji tattoo or kanji jewelry? Then arm yourself with this information before
you buy anything. It may be the difference between being cool and national humiliation.
What? National humiliation? Well OK, national humiliation is an unlikely outcome, but an article
in the March 1st, 2005 Washington Post Express shows that the possibility is there. "Lost in Translation" looked at
the real dangers facing the unwary consumers who get kanji tattoos.
I am not joking when I say “real dangers”. But neither am I referring to unhygenic tattooing practices.
What I am talking about is toe-curling appalling linguistic blunders.
Specifically, I mean kanji combinations like these:
- Extremely Military Affairs Stopping
- Crazy Diarrhea
- Weird (tattooed on one B. Spears)
Yes, these are phrases that real people (yes, Britney Spears is a real person) actually
have had tattooed into their skin.
To be honest, I am not entirely surprised at these and other errors. After all, I have seen many
reversed images of kanji being offered for tattoos, and kanji jewelry that simply did not mean
anything like it was supposed to.
One necklace, I remember, had the kanji for “road” on it - although the poor owner had been told it
meant love. I guess her love hit the road and didn't come back no more, no more, no more,
no more....
As Tian Tang puts it in the Post:
"People ask, 'I got the tattoo, can you tell me what this means? And I'm like, 'Why didn't you do
this before you got that tattoo?'"
Yes, you would think that would be the obvious thing to do – especially if you are getting something
permanent like a kanji tattoo. So how can you make sure you don’t end up a national laughingstock?
First of all, make sure you know something about the Japanese language. Check out the copious
information at sites like japanese.about.com and in five minutes you will know more about kanji,
hiragana and katakana than most of the people already walking around with it tattooed into their skin.
Next, remember that there is often no such thing as an exact translation. Basic nouns are one
thing – a table is a table is a table, after all. But abstract concepts, like Semper Fidelis (the
motto of the US Marine Corps), can be notoriously difficult to translate well.
So what can you do if your tattoo artist doesn’t know his kanji from his katakana? How do you go
about getting the kanji yourself?
Well if you are confident in your new-found kanji knowledge, then there are a number of online
dictionaries that can help.
Otherwise I would recommend getting a translation from - Japanese-Name-Translation.com A good
translator will be able to offer you a number of different options as well as explaining the
exact meaning and pronunciation of the different kanji. They should also be able to offer you
a number of different styles, from basic kanji calligraphy fonts to genuine Japanese s
hodo calligraphy.
At the end of the day, how you decide to go about getting your kanji tattoo is up to you.
Just remember that preparation is the key to making sure your kanji tattoo doesn’t get “Lost in Translation”.
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Article Source: Stephen Munday
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This site was last updated 10/20/08