Love is Blind or Blindness
My associates and I are trying to figure out if this tattoo means "love is blind" or "love is blindness".
愛 = love, be fond of, like
是 = indeed, yes, right; to be; demonstrative pronoun, this, that
盲 = blind; unperceptive, shortsighted
目 = eye; look, see; division, topic
also according to the Japanese section of 盲,
盲目 means "blindness", and 盲目的 means "blind/devotion".
Brendan has commented that:
"I had the impression that 盲目 was generally used as an adjective. Seems like this one could really be either; I'd incline toward 'love is blind,' though I suppose it depends on how much U2 the person listens to."
Aaron Batty from English Language Institute at Kanda University of International Studies has emailed this:
"Well, my wife and I think it would indeed translate better as 'love is blindness,' but basically it's not very Japanese. It's kind of half and half, I think. The second character is 'kore,' which means 'this.' But no one actually uses the character; they spell it out in hiragana since it's a grammatical word (as opposed to lexical). So it kinda says 'Love (n.) this (pronoun) blindness (n.)' Grammatically, it's nonsense."
What is your call?
posted by tian at
11:29 AM
16 Comments:
"愛是盲目的" is the standard, common way of saying "love is blind". (the "的" seems to be omitted... but that's not that big of a problem)
I have no clue how to read either Japanese or Chinese, but I just wanted to say that I love your blog!
Even if a tattoo (or shirt or whatever) is clearly meant to be one thing in Japanese, and it turns out to mean something completely different or funny in Chinese (or vice versa)... well, that's interesting to know!
And if the Chinese characters for "making a telephone call" turn out to be literally translated as "smack lightning speech" (as someone else suggested) well that's interesting to know too.
So basically I enjoy hearing about the tattoos from all the angles.
I asked my Japanese wife what her take on this was, without telling her what the site's translation was and she responded: "Ai wa momoku, love is blind". However, she also pointed out that it was written in Chinese, not Japanese.
duaaagiii - you're dead right. I totally missed the missing 的. Can 盲目 be used as a noun? Also, you native speakers out there - wouldn't this sound better with 情 added, as in "爱情是盲目的?"
If the tattoo was done as Chinese, 爱情是盲目的 would be better.
Yeah, that one is not even close to correct Japanese. The 是 (in chinese Copula position, no less!) is a dead giveaway. Like your informant said, it's hardly ever used in Japanese any more (and when it is, it's usually part of a quotation from a much older text), and it's used for the demonstrative "kore" or to mean "correct".
Just in case anyone's interested, 盲目 in Japanese can be either a noun or an adjective depending on context.
While 盲目 can be used as a noun (you can even look at it as a noun phrase of adj+n), it is unusual to come across such a phrase as "x是盲目". That said, even in English the phrase "love is blindness" is not all that common; really, there is only the U2 song, which uses it as a cynical commentary on the usual "Love is blind".
Heck, here's a lyrics page for the U2 song entitled 《愛是盲目》.
Not to pick nits, but changing this to 爱情 would change the meaning from a more general love to a specifically romantic love. Given the 11,800 pages Google returns for "愛是盲目" (versus the 913 for "爱情是盲目"), I'd say he's on safe ground on that count.
I agree with zhwj. Changing 爱 to 爱情 would change the meaning. I'm not sure what kind of "love" we are refering to. Just love in general? Or love between a man and a woman?
Personally, I don't have a big problem with dropping the 的. I know it's not correctly grammatically, but I can understand what this tattoo. However, my sister has just told me that she would have a problem without the 的!
as a semi-native speaker, i have to say that the missing 的 makes it sound a little peculiar when you verbalize it (like you said, it sounds like "love is blindness"), but as written chinese (this is definitely not japanese), it doesn't read so badly. perhaps it would have sounded more poetic to use 為 (making it like just another 4 syllable 成語 (pronoun)).
by the way, love the blog. the ones with backwards or upside-down characters are my favorite.
Interesting. As a Japanese speaking person who also knows a bit about Chinese, this seems an okay Chinese sentence meaning; Love is blind. If this should sound funny to Chinese speaking people, that's interesting to know for me. "愛は盲目" is a pefect Japanese sentence, by the way.
Here's something totally off the topic, but some may find it interesting.
Although 盲目 is still okay to use, 視覚障害者(visually disabled people) is much prefered these days since it appears politically more correct. I wouldn't be surprised if some Japanese insist that it is too offensive and you are not supposed to use the word 盲目 in any case. Decades ago, there were also words like, めくら(mekura) or めしい（meshii;盲） meaning blind people, however, my alphabet-kanji conversion system never translates these two discriminatory words any more.
We have lost a simple way to refer to a blind.
Love is visually disabled. Fabulous!
My impression of the English expression "love is blind" is that it refers to romantic love. Thus, if I had to translate for clarity I would pick 爱情. But if translating for impact (for a tattoo or tshirt, for instance) wouldn't 爱 be acceptable?
I would NOT translate it back to love is blindness, because 盲目 as a phrase is not used this way. In my view, 盲目 as a noun is a more incorrect analysis than as an adjective in this gramatical context. An example of 盲目 correctly used as a noun would be 你的盲目使这事失败了: Your blindness caused this job to fail.
"愛是盲目的" is, of course, much better than "愛是盲目" but the latter is passable as "Love is blind" in my humble opinion. However, the correct usage of 盲目 as an adjective without that 的 would be in an adverbial complement (after a 得) rather than in a predicative, example: 您这事做得有些盲目: This job (of yours) was done a little blind(ly).
I agree with duaaagiii, "愛是盲目的" sounds more "correct," but there is nothing significantly wrong with just "愛是盲目"
"Love is Blindness" is the name of a bittersweet U2 song, the most moving song of their "Achtung Baby" album. Neither the band nor the song has any real Chinese or Japanese association, though.
Perhaps the combination of the song and the language has a personal meaning to the wearer.
Ken seems right on on this one, but Hanzi aside, there's one major thing to point out about this tattoo: The phrase "love is blind" here does not necessarily carry its positive meaning in English! It can mean that love clouds people's better judgement.
Hey guys. I had a heated debate with my friend about this phrase
愛情是盲目的(Love is blind,盲 is the verb,目 is the noun. "blind eye", if 盲 is used by itself, it is an adjective, say ...是盲 means ... is actually blind(cannot see), it won't be used in 愛情是盲, because it sounded weird, love can't really see, so it can't really be blind, only animal or human who has sight can be blind. ), however I am not arguing about the rearrangement or any or those thing. 愛情是盲目的 is the right grammatical and common used phrase.(I am native Chinese speaking dude) What we are arguing is this phrase is not the original phrase that the Chinese people invented or uses. 愛情是麻木的 is what is the original Chinese invented phrase, which means similar to 愛情是盲目. 愛情是麻木 means love is numb.
愛情是盲目, in my opinion is a translated phrase which is from English, invented by Shakespeare.
From Shakespeare's The Merchant Of Venice.
JESSICA: Here, catch this casket; it is worth the pains.
I am glad 'tis night, you do not look on me,
For I am much ashamed of my exchange:
But love is blind and lovers cannot see
The pretty follies that themselves commit;
For if they could, Cupid himself would blush
To see me thus transformed to a boy.
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/238400.html
Any thoughts?
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home