The Show Off Your Tattoo Thread

jp_bl_68 said:
What's the appeal in Asian symbols? If you can't read them without the help of a translator why not get something done in a language you can read?
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Just reading the translations, it sounds and looks a lot prettier than what it would tattooed in English.

Also, BB is of asian origin herself so it quite possibly means a lot to her.
 
I have had this one for a year now, designed it more or less on my own, stealing a few ideas from different places (the head is all my own design). It took 2 sittings of 3 hours each roughly and hurt a lot, but I am really happy with it

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G.
 
jp_bl_68 said:
why not get something done in a language you can read?
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Because not everybody wants everyone to be able to read their tattoo.

Mine isn't in english and isn't anything majorly personal. But none the less it is personal to me.

If I wish to I can let people know if they ask. If you're really that curious then you can find a translation.

Tattoo's aren't necessarily for other peoples viewing pleasure:)
 
Gaijin said:
If you get one i'm telling mum.
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:(

E1T5Y said:
LOL are you seriously related??
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Not anymore if he grasses me up! :p

RimBlock said:
everything
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RB I really appreciate the time you are putting into this! Pls thank your boss and OH too.

jp_bl_68 said:
What's the appeal in Asian symbols? If you can't read them without the help of a translator why not get something done in a language you can read?
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I have asked for help because my name is Chinese and I have been using a set of characters since I knew what they were. Turns out this set of characters (even though it is the character form of my name), is not the meaning that I have been told it was throughout my life.

RB is just clarifying meanings/characters for me - it appears that if I go for the direct translation of each character, the 'whole' meaning of the two characters combined is totally different.

BB x
 
Isn't Chinese/Mandorin open to quite a lot of personal intepretation? Different regions with different dialect etc.

It just seems incredibly hard to nail a translation and when you do, there's still no guaruntee that it's going to be correct for everyone.

Glad i chose a simpler language! ;)
 
No, the writing in general is what unifies the nation. Each dialect will pronounce the characters differently but they are all the same meaning. There are exceptions of course, where one area might not use the same symbol as elsewhere, e.g. Singapore Chinese may use a character for something, Taiwan may use something else and Hong Kong something else. But the huge majority are the same everywhere. Otherwise, I daresay China would not have lasted over 5,000 years as it is and would be lots of smaller countries.
 
ic1male said:
No, the writing in general is what unifies the nation. Each dialect will pronounce the characters differently but they are all the same meaning. There are exceptions of course, where one area might not use the same symbol as elsewhere, e.g. Singapore Chinese may use a character for something, Taiwan may use something else and Hong Kong something else. But the huge majority are the same everywhere. Otherwise, I daresay China would not have lasted over 5,000 years as it is and would be lots of smaller countries.
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It is also worth noting that Mandarin is the national 'common' language although Cantinese is still favoured in sothern China and Hong Kong :D.

Taiwan uses traditional Chinese characters and Singapore / China (to my knowledge) tend to use simplified Chinese characters (my ex was Taiwanese :D).

RB
 
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DampCat said:
Isn't Chinese/Mandorin open to quite a lot of personal intepretation? Different regions with different dialect etc.

It just seems incredibly hard to nail a translation and when you do, there's still no guaruntee that it's going to be correct for everyone.

Glad i chose a simpler language! ;)
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My wife has a couple to Thai buddist tattoos on her back. Significant in placement as well as content and not usually done on women.

Now Thai is a difficult language to both write and speak ;).

RB
 
BrightonBelle said:
RB I really appreciate the time you are putting into this! Pls thank your boss and OH too.
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Np, as long as you have time I will continue digging to get to the bottom of this. I also find it interesting so no worries :D.

BrightonBelle said:
I have asked for help because my name is Chinese and I have been using a set of characters since I knew what they were. Turns out this set of characters (even though it is the character form of my name), is not the meaning that I have been told it was throughout my life.
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The second character is 'Tinkling of pendants (some say jade pendants but not all). The difficulty is that most characters do not have a direct translation and so are a discription with which we would try to match to an English word or phrase. For example Mei3Ren3Yu2 directly translates to Beautiful Human Fish which we then interpret to mean Mermaid.

Just as a FYI, my wifes name is Ai Lin(g) which she understood to mean loves bells / loves the sound of bells. She has the same Ling symbol for her name so she has just discovered that the meaning she thought was true was also not :D. We were both trawling through our English / Chinese dictonaries.

Learning is fun :p.

RB
 
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