Camilo E.

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"

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"

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"

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

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

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"

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

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

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"

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?