We have moved to hanzismatter.blogspot.com

Hello everyone,

We have moved to a new location:

http://hanzismatter.blogspot.com

This is because Blogger will no longer support FTP publishing after May, 1st, 2010. I don't have the time to move everything over. All old entries will still be available here at www.hanzismatter.com.

See you there,


Tian

Henna tattoos at Six Flags

from: DeKalb D.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Sun, Mar 14, 2010 at 3:24 PM
subject: Henna tattoos at Six Flags

Hi Tian :)

I was walking through Six Flags over Georgia today and came across this in a henna tattoo booth.

What really confuses me is that while most of the descriptions are accurate, ALL of them are backwards except one - 愛 is labeled as "lovers" but 愛 backwards is labeled as "love"!

First thing I thought of was of sending it to Hanzi Smatter and letting the world see it :)

DeKalb :)

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.

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?

"William Beloved Son"

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".