From reader "Rae S.":
"Hi, great site! You probably get a ton of email requests... but I was wondering if you would take a look at this tattoo. My little sister got it this summer and she says it means "love hurts" I tried to look it up but haven't found any results. Thank you."
First of all, the extra strokes on the right side is not needed.
Secondly, the two characters are indeed "love" and "pain". Except the context is wrong. Instead of saying "love hurts", it says "loves the pain", as in sadism and masochism context.
Lastly, the character for "love" is simplified version. It would be much better if it was done in Traditional version, which would add more elegance:
恋 (traditional version: 戀) = love; long for, yearn for; love
痛 = pain, ache; sorry, sad; bitter
On the good side, it does not say "donkey butt".
Update: I have got an email from Jim Simpson, a Japan-Born-American, which offered his service to be in the "translator pool". Jim has also posted his debut comment under this posting stating that the tattoo above translates "love hurts" in Japanese.
I would also like to re-emphasize on the fact that one thing many people don't realize the Japanese share same Kanji (or Hanzi, Chinese characters) with Chinese, except with slightly different meanings.
Often someone would get a Kanji tattoo with Japanese translation would have complete different meaning if it was read as Chinese. Vice versa.
Hello, Tian.
ReplyDeleteThe tattoo is Japanese in nature: it reads "koi itai", which would mean "love hurts." The extra two lines after "pain" read as "i" in Japanese. To be grammatically correct, it should probably have "ha" between "koi" and "itai" ("as for love, it hurts"), but who really wants a sentence on their bum anyway?
Dear Anonymous, thanks for the insight.
ReplyDeleteThere is one thing many people don't realize is that the Japanese share same Kanji (or Hanzi, Chinese characters) with Chinese, except with slightly different meanings.
Often someone would get a Kanji tattoo with Japanese translation would have complete different meaning if it was read as Chinese. Vice versa.
It must be based on Japanese, then; 恋痛 strikes me as sounding weird in Chinese, though it's not like I'm a native speaker. I can't think of what would sound more natural, though.
ReplyDeleteregarless of the meaning, the tattoo looks really good.
ReplyDeleteUserID: Kamikazesamurai
ReplyDeleteThe hiragana い after 痛 is all scrunched up and not all that well done, I think. It doesn't translate all that well in any case.
It wouldn't be "love the pain" or sadomasochism in Japanese. It might make more sense with the characters reversed, though I still don't think it's very natural-sounding:
ReplyDelete痛い恋
itai-koi (painful love)
Type this into Google and you get 2600 results vs 33 for 恋痛い
It looks to me like the tattoo artist didn't realize that he was writing three separate characters and he tried to fit the two strokes of the hiragana 'i' into the side of the second kanji.
ReplyDelete"Lastly, the character for "love" is simplified version. It would be much better if it was done in Traditional version, which would add more elegance:"
Considering this is a Japanese and not Chinese tattoo, I don't know about that. I don't think that this is one of the kanji that most (young) Japanese would recognize in its traditional form.
for it to read "love hurts" 恋は痛い would be more appropriate (は adds the necessary verb. currently, it is very "you, Tarzan. me Jane."), but i think that would still sound somewhat unnatural in Japanese. and yes, the last い is all scrunched up.
ReplyDeleteRoy's right. The comment
ReplyDeleteLastly, the character for "love" is simplified version. It would be much better if it was done in Traditional version, which would add more elegance
might apply for Chinese, but not for Japanese. The "traditional" version of the character given isn't understood by modern Japanese speakers.
How Does Love Hurts Look In Japanese Or Chinese
ReplyDeleteThere is one thing many people don't realize is that the Japanese share same Kanji (or Hanzi, Chinese characters) with Chinese, except with slightly different meanings.
ReplyDeleteEven if that is true, the hiragana 'i' should be dead give-away for the use of japanese.
Serously, get someone who understands Japanese, because the hiragana is a dead giveaway.
ReplyDeleteThe kanji itai almost certainly comes from a flash. The exact same kanji can be seen on the following horrible example of a "Japanese" tattoo. It has the same scrunched up, too close, weirdly angled hiragana i and the same boxy kanji.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.rankmytattoos.com/f/uploads/chinese-tattoo-11469598945556.jpg