Of course finding a similar word with a nice meaning is not entirely easy to do and does require a fair amount of research, prior knowledge can also be useful.
For example if your name is Hannah you couldn’t write that in Japanese, but you could use the kanji 花, this is read ‘hana’, so sounds very similar when spoken but actually translates as flower. There is no way of writing a typical English name in Kanji or Hanzi, though there are sometimes options that are similar. This was most commonly used to spell out names or words but had no real bearing on the meanings of the characters, most of which do in fact have real meanings in body Japanese and Chinese, but appear as nothing more than gibberish when put together.įor one thing names don’t get translated into other languages. The ‘Asian’ font or ‘gibberish’ font as it is sometimes called is something that was distributed through tattoo studios and American tattoo parlours during the early 80s when the Asian character tattoos first became more popular. Everyone hears the horror stories of foreign language tattoos, the sort where people actually end up with part of a Chinese takeaway menu tattooed down their back and in most cases what you end up with is actually just gibberish. Also I speak French so it’s not as obnoxious as you think.One thing that you should know before going to get your new tattoo, is that your tattoo artist is probably not a linguistics expert they don’t just know every hanzí and kanji and they probably don’t have any reason to learn them, if you want to use them you should do the research yourself, but do so carefully and thoroughly to avoid making mistakes. This tattoo is not a reminder of lovey-dovey relationships that people would assume that I have experienced it’s a reminder of what may or may not even come my way. Weird thing is, I want to experience it so badly, I’ve just never felt the spark, but I want to so badly. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve broken a few hearts along the way. It’s kinda weird because with the past few guys I’ve dated, I always ended things after a bit because I just never felt that emotionally invested in them. I chose this word, which is heart in French, because I’ve never really experienced romantic love. So I got the tattoo this February, right out of the blue, but I was thinking about getting a tattoo for the past year. It’s my birthday in binary (May 19, 1996) because I’m a big ol’ nerd. It’s a daily reminder, not only of the life-changing experiences I had on the “red island,” but also of the fact that I am, in many ways, so very blessed. I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Madagascar and after my service ended I got the Malagasy word “sambatra,” meaning happy or blessed, on my forearm. My partner and I got these Nordic runes that would put the fear into one’s enemy because that was the most romantic thing we could think of ?. Having these words in Gaelic on my arm feels like a permanent link to my ancestors. I chose the language as a nod to my 100 percent Irish heritage. I chose the phrase because I have been through some experiences that seemed to want to break me, and each time I only ended up stronger.
I got it while I was living in Manchester, England. Also, just as a fun fact, I got this tattoo about a week before the 2016 presidential election. My mom’s mother is probably where I got most of my Yiddish from, and I hold those few words and phrases from my culture very dear to me. I decided to get “oy vey” on my forearm for many reasons, one being the fact that I say this Yiddish phrase quite frequently, and also due to my Ashkenazi Jewish heritage. Six Foreign Language Tattoos And Their Stories As you’ll see, people don’t always pick the languages you might expect. We asked six people what foreign language tattoos they have, and why they decided to get it. People tend to choose things that have a deep connection to their identity or their cultural heritage. As commitments go, tattoos are a pretty big one.