Hanzi Smatter 一知半解

Camilo E.

2010-02-27T14:31:00.005-07:00

from: Camilo E.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 2:28 PM
subject: my tattoo

Hi,

My name is camilo and i write from Venezuela, i just want to know if you can help me to translate my tattoo because i think that is not what i want for my skin jajaja. I went to a tattoo store and i look the chinese and japanese letters that they offer. I ask to the guy if i can tattoo my name initials and he say YES!!!!.

Well, i send a photo of my tattoo to see if you can translate for my.

I appreciate your help.

Best regards.

CE

Gibberish font strikes again.

"max"

2010-02-27T14:27:00.002-07:00

from: Chris L.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 6:21 PM
subject: tattoo!

Hey my friend Jeff has no idea what his tattoo says... It's supposed to sound like "max" -- the name of his dog.

Any idea what it says? Oh and if it's any good feel free to post on hanzismatter.

Another sucker of the gibberish font. When will Anglophones ever learn English alphabet can't be converted letter-per-character into Chinese?

"three grasses, ha! you love lover's ear"

2010-01-10T20:39:00.004-07:00

from: Justin D.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 12:34 AM
subject: Hanzi smatter tattoo for posting

So, this guy Ryan Schnaare who I went to high school with and am friends with decided to get a tattoo in Chinese characters. He wanted to "spell" his name in Chinese. So he used the first character of the word spelled in pinyin to spell his name. The end result: "Three grasses, ha! You love lover ear."

Justin

三, three
草, grass
哈, laughter
你, you
愛, love
愛人, lover
耳, ear

It is amazing how creative (or stupid, depending on how one looks at it) some people can get. Using pinyin to phonetically match each alphabet and yet still decide to get gibberish tattooed, mind baffling.

By the way, the whole "lover ear" thing reminded me a terrible song and terrible band in that matter, Nookie by Limp Bizkit. Many have misheard part of the song and thought it said "so you can take that cookie and stick it up your ear." Actually, it was two parts and the "ear" was actually chorus sang the word "yeah". Later, a cover done by Richard Cheese was much more entertaining.

"free and easy"

2009-12-30T11:18:00.002-07:00

This young man is too "free and easy" to realize his 自由自在 was done mirrored.

http://www.bme.com/tattoo/A91216/high/jz75-untitled-image.jpg

iPhone app: Chinese Alphabet

2009-12-26T23:10:00.003-07:00

Good Characters, Inc. (oh, the irony) has launched a new application for Apple iPhones called "Chinese Alphabet".

http://goodcharacters.com/blog/blog.php?id=110

The application uses a set of random Chinese characters to correspond with 26 letters in English alphabet. The company claims this will "add mystery to your writing".

At least they are smart enough to put up this disclaimer at bottom of the page:

"The translation provided by Chinese Alphabet is intended for personal use and entertainment only. Not recommended for tattoo artists to use this to tattoo their clients, iPhone app developers to localize Chinese apps, CIA agents to communicate national secrets, or security professionals to encrypt passwords."

Split

2009-12-13T23:32:00.003-07:00

http://www.bme.com/tattoo/A91210/high/jyc7-tribals-natural.jpg

At firs, it looks like pure gibberish - mixed Japanese and Chinese characters:

厉カネ羊

But looking more carefully, perhaps the idiot started with these characters:

励祥

But then he decided to switch from horizontal to vertical writing, and then split up the characters at the wrong places, making two characters into four.

Hopeless!

By the way, what does 励祥 mean anyway?

"Me Pervert"

2009-12-09T21:23:00.003-07:00

from: Herouth M.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 1:43 AM
subject: [Fwd: Emailing: P1230294.JPG]

Hi. I'm from Israel. Love your blog.

The story goes like this: I study Japanese for several years now, and I can read about 1400 kanji more or less. One day, my co-worker approaches me with his cellphone. "Can you tell me what this says?" he asks me, showing me a photo of a piece of fabric carrying the kanji 私変態. I take a look, and reply "It's not grammatical, but it basically says "I'm a pervert".

"What?!"

"'I'm a pervert'. The first character means 'I', the other two mean 'pervert'", where did you get that from, anyway?

"It's on my 1.5 years old daughter's shirt!"

After LOLing for about 15 minutes straight, I kind of demanded that he get me a photo of the complete shirt so I can send it to Hanzi Smatter. And here is the shirt, complete with the cute, luckless 1.5 years old "hentai" herself.

I mean, yes, I have seen intentionally-made "hentai" shirts around the web (and on Hanzi Smatter). Adults buy them and wear them for the laughs. But who in his right mind would put this on a toddler's shirt, and sell it in a children's clothing store rather than a joke shop? I can't imagine.

Yes, I suppose it *could* mean "metamorphosis", but really, outside scientific contexts, it's almost always means "pervert". Or am I wrong?

Cheers,
Herouth

Cute kid, though. The "bunny" or whatever kind of cute animal that is also on the shirt is a nice touch. We have obviously uncovered a diabolical plot to "pervert" innocent youth with inappropriate hanzi!

By the way, the T-shirt would be cuter and better if it was grammatically correct, like:

私、変態なんです。[I ... am a pervert.]

私、変態かも…[I might be a pervert...]

As it is, it sounds more like Tarzan-speak: "me - pervert." You kind of expect "you - Jane" next.

OSUKE Nutritional Supplement

2009-11-29T18:36:00.002-07:00

Remember Kinoki, the detox footpad, turned out to be a ripoff?

Alan and I present you, Osuke nutritional supplement:

For those who are interested, the product's laughable claims are detailed at its website.

However, we would like to point the readers to the five characters below OSUKE:

行迎友先天

The phrase has virtually no meaning in either Chinese or Japanese. But, using our handy-dandy Decoder Card for Gibberish English-Chinese Tattoo font, guess what 行迎友先天 corresponds?

OSUKE

After reading the product's name is complete gibberish, would anyone pay US$37.95 for a bottle of this supplement?

Another set of Gibberish English-Chinese Font

2009-11-19T21:22:00.005-07:00

Alan and I have discovered another set of gibberish English-Chinese font that many people are getting tattooed with. We have compiled this handy-dandy decoder card for those who want to be entertained deciphering gibberish tattoos:

DecoderCard.pdf

Using decoder card, this tattoo below is "SABINA", in gibberish of course:

http://www.bme.com/tattoo/A91117/high/jph9-untitled-image.jpg

Update: Nov. 22, 2009 - Alan has created an updated version of Decoder Card:

DecoderCard_v2.pdf

CSI NY / "It Happened to Me"

2009-11-05T09:48:00.006-07:00

In last night's episode of CSI NY titled "It Happened to Me", there was one scene where detectives were trying to figure out what killed their victims. At first, they thought the cause was these illegally imported insecticide chalk from China found in victim's apartment.

(Spoiler alert: No, it was not the insecticide chalk. Victim mismanaged killer's investment fund and lost all his money. Killer's wife had access to chemical from her work, and killer dumped it into victim's orange juice.)

One would assume three lines of Chinese text on the packaging below "kills cockroach and ants effectively. keep away from baby and old man" are the same information in Chinese.

That is not true. Matter of fact, they are just gibberish.

If one would look closely, the first line of text and third line are identical. Last three characters in second line are repeat of first three.

So what do they mean?

Line 1 and 3 are:

精神和奠酒酒吧

精神和奠酒 loosely translates as "spirit and libation" and 酒吧 is "bar".

Line 2 is:

新鮮的肉新鮮的

新鮮的肉 is "fresh meat" and 新鮮的 is "fresh".

What do "fresh meat" and "bar of spirit and libation" got to do with insecticide chalk?

Can everyone say CSI NY show prop fail?

"William Beloved Son"

2009-10-24T11:20:00.002-07:00

from: Haribo S.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 7:50 AM
subject: Submission

Hi there.

One of my friends posted this on Facebook and claims it says "william beloved son", is this accurate?
http://imgur.com/iU0i7.jpg
Thanks :) love the blog

This is another case of Chinese-Japanese mismatch.

威廉 is Chinese phonetic transliteration of "William", however 愛息 is translated as "love [to] rest" when read as Chinese.

While Japanese for "William" is ウィリアム and 愛息 (あいそく) is interpreted as "beloved son/cute boy".

Khaled 'Kdog' Hablas

2009-10-12T20:56:00.002-07:00

from: Anonymous
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Sun, Oct 11, 2009 at 10:02 PM
subject: Another "Asian font" tattoo

Hi there,

Some guy in Facebook is showing off his tattoo.

As an avid reader of your site, I know that this tattoo is his name ‘K-H-A-L-E-D’ in the ridiculous ‘Asian font’.

I thought you might like to see it.

"Stupid American"

2009-09-27T15:34:00.004-07:00

from: trellz
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 12:13 PM
subject: tatoo submission

Should say stupid American, or stupid foreign person.

美国人 is Chinese for "American".

However 阿呆 (or あほ) is a localize dialect for "fool, jackass" in Japan's Kansai region. Where most Japanese would use 馬鹿 as "stupid". Also, 米囯人 is Japanese for "American".

愚蠢 is correct Chinese for "stupid".

Wired Magazine: 17.10

2009-09-27T15:04:00.004-07:00

In the latest issue of Wired magazine, there was a piece titled "10 Best Things We'll Say to Our Grandkids".

According to the magazine, English translation for #6 is:

"English used to be the dominant language. Crazy, huh?"

Dr. Mair and I both noticed the printed Chinese is not correct.

统治语言 (dominate language), is two English phrases spliced together with an odd sense of colonialism. 官方語言 (official language) or 國際語言 (international language) would be better fitting.

疯狂 does not have the same contextual meaning as "crazy", rather "frenzied, unbridled; insane". In this case, a better phrase would be "傻不傻", or "isn't that silly?"

Perhaps this is a nod to Firefly, where mixture of Chinese Mandarin phrases were added into the show's dialogue.

Related: http://www.tian.cc/2007/08/wired-magazine-does-anyone-here-speak.html

M. A. D. by Marquis Antoine Daniels

2009-09-12T12:49:00.003-07:00

from: Victor H. Mair
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com,
date: Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 12:00 PM
subject: tattoo

Hi Tian,

Perhaps you can post this for me on HANZISMATTER.

Victor

======

The attached picture, sent to me by Jonathan Smith, shows a basketball player's "Chinese" tattoos. They read 康女宀 from top to bottom: KANG1 ("peace, vigor") NÜ3 ("woman") MIAN2 ("shelter, thatch"). Yet the proud owner claims that they are "my initials in Chinese, M.A.D."

My best guess as to how this may have happened is that the basketball player approached a tattooist who was minimally literate (or illiterate) in Chinese or English (or both) and showed him / her his initials, requesting the tattooist to "write them in Chinese symbols / characters / ideographs / hieroglyphs / pictographs / whatever." The initials may have been more or less ornately written, with the result that the tattooist came up with these three HANZI as his / her best representation of what he / she was seeing. For example, if you twist 女 around in different orientations, you can sort of see an "A" there. Ditto for the other two HANZI.

=======

victor

--

Victor H. Mair, Professor of Chinese Language and Literature
Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations
University of Pennsylvania

Alexander Ovechkin's Fresh Ink

2009-09-01T09:56:00.002-07:00

Hello hockey fans, thank you all for bombarding my inbox about Alexander Ovechkin's new tattoo.

According to Puck Daddy, Ovechkin was reluctant to reveal what his tattoo meant during an interview early this summer.

Although the tattoo is only partially exposed, it appears to be 一家 (one family) on the left and 命 (life) on the right.

Semicolon on Her Back

2009-08-27T09:03:00.004-07:00

Peter has forward me this interesting story about a woman's tattoo experience.

"I have four Japanese symbols across my back, gleaned from a Japanese-English dictionary.

...

Yes, it would seem that in our haste, nobody took the semicolon from the dictionary entry out of the design and it now lives for eternity on my skin."

http://ittybiz.com/moral-of-the-story-topless-edition-with-photos/

Peter and I are shaking our heads regarding:

She is apparently more upset that there's a semicolon attached to her tattoo than by the fact that the tattoo itself is terribly done.

According to the tattoo's owner, Naomi Dunford, "It was supposed to say 'Mother Daughter Sister Wife'. Then wife was a pain in the ass and it was supposed to say 'beauty.' Who the hell knows what it means at this point?"

Kids! Be the First on Your Block Not to Get a Tattoo

2009-08-26T10:01:00.004-07:00

From Engrish & HanziSmatter

The September 2009 issue of GQ magazine had a piece regarding the overwhelming number of people getting cliche tattoos.

(full article)

"Strength"

2009-08-16T17:59:00.004-07:00

from: Amilcar C.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Wed, Jul 22, 2009 at 8:08 AM

Hello,

Congrats for the cool blog.

A colleague has this tattoo done a couple of years ago and she was told it is suppose to mean “strength”.

Does it really mean that or anything else at all?

Thanks,

Amilcar C.

小畜 originated from the book of I Ching, meaning "small accumulating". Other variations include "the taming power of the small" and "small harvest". I don't see the connection between that and "strength", unless there is some kind of six degrees of ~~Kevin Bacon~~ I Ching I didn't know about.

SHEA, another sucker of the gibberish font

2009-07-19T16:18:00.004-07:00

from: Aaron G.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 4:35 PM
subject: Uncertain About Name Translation

I have a friend who has a tattoo on her lower back which is supposed to say her nickname. But considering the fact that the second kanji is used for stopping traffic in japanese I got very concerned and felt that you should have a look a this.

It was supposed to say "SHEA", but what does it really say? I'm sorry about the crappy pictures, and thanks for your time.

She is another sucker of the gibberish font, just like these people.

"Julia"

2009-07-19T16:08:00.002-07:00

from: Kama
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 12:51 AM
subject: tattoo request

HanziSmatter site is amazing, great idea :) I love reading it. Chinese and Japanese characters looks great, but I still don't understand why people are tattooing their names in those languages, when they come from German, England or Poland, like me.

I guess they want to look cool, like my friend, who is 100% sure that he has "Julia" tattoo on his left hand.

Is he? Please, help me to translate it right (if it's not ok) because he is playing so smart, that would be a pleasure to prove him wrong ;)

Greetings from Poland,

Kama

珠丽娅 is an acceptable phonetic Chinese translation for Julia, however all characters were done mirrored.

Arrivals Sign at Stockholm Arlanda Airport

2009-07-19T15:57:00.002-07:00

from: Johan
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 9:41 PM
subject: Look at this Arrivals sign from Sweden

This is from Arlanda, Stockholm's international airport. They have a lot of these signs.

In Sweden, we pride ourselves on being way better than everybody else, by the way.

Johan, Sweden

It appears manufacturer of the sign did not have correct language and fonts pack installed. Instead of displaying 到達 (arrivals), the second character showed up as a rectangular box.

Help with translation - Faith, Hope and Love!

2009-07-13T10:32:00.003-07:00

from: Erik F.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 9:32 AM
subject: Help with translation - Faith, Hope and Love!

Hey there!

My friend went to Turkey and got himself a tattoo in chinese or japanese. According to him it says "Faith, hope and love", but being the sceptical person I am, I thought I should send a picture to you to verify.

Does it really say that, or is this another case of "Prepaid Public Transportation Card"? (A part of me is hoping it is!)

Thanks for your time!

sincerely,

Erik

To one that is only familiar with Chinese or Japanese, this tattoo would be gibberish.

A quick look via Google Translator, I soon realized this is Chinese phonetic translation of Turkish, where Faith is "inanc" (伊南), Hope is "umut" (乌穆特), and Love is "ask" (阿士克).

The irony is with current situation in Xinjiang, China, were most ethnic Turks reside, Chinese and Turks are not on the best of terms.

Why would anyone stupid enough to get a Turkish phrase to be phonetically translated & tattooed in Chinese? It's like begging to be the Lucky Pierre in middle of an ethnic conflict.

"Raul"

2009-07-04T17:23:00.004-07:00

from: samantha l.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 5:53 AM

Hi there, my friend got a tattoo and when the artist asked her if she wanted the writing that came with it, she said sure why not. The problem is, she didn't even bother asking what it meant!! She doesn't even know what language it is. So, I'm trying to help her find out where this writing came from and what it could possibly mean.

I saw your site, and thought you might be able to help. Maybe you'd recognize the writing, or something, either way, anything would be helpful. Thanks!

It says ラウル [rauru], which is the Japanese equivalent of the Spanish name, Raul.

The bad news is that, if she is not named Raul and she doesn't have a significant person in her life named Raul, Japanese people seeing the tattoo might wonder why she has a tattoo that says "Raul".

Just how did ラウル became part of the flash? One theory we have is that tattoo was first designed for someone had a connection with Raul, and the tattooist or shop just kept the design in their stash.

Who knows, maybe that Raul guy might be happy to see all these women out there with his name tattooed on them.

Almost like that one lucky guy at sperm bank, but without having to worry about child support hassle.

Sergey

2009-06-29T14:23:00.002-07:00

from: Sergey B.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 8:51 AM
subject: Chinese tattoo

Hello.
I would like to know that it means a tattoo that I did.
This is my name in Chinese >> Sergey
I'm not sure if it is correct or not.
Thanks for your help!!!!

Chinese translation for "Sergey" is 瑟盖, however the vertical order of characters is reversed.