to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 2:58 AM
subject: tattoo translation help please...
Hi There
I have enjoyed reading through your blog a few times and this weekend talking to my girlfriends sister, I felt need to ask you for help. She was showing me her tattoo, that she had a few years back which is supposed to be Heavenly Girl in Chinese. Having looked at the characters, I recognised the first as being the Japanese Kanji for Heaven, Im not sure it means the same in Hanzi or not, but I could not recognise the last two characters as anything related to girl or woman. Although I can recognise the first character as 天 - (sky, heaven) and the last character which I think is 吏 - (government official, official), the middle character is awkward. I think it is 丁- (leaf, block, cake), giving 天丁吏, which I don't know how this would work combined, but all these are Japanese translations anyway. Any chance you can shed a little more light on this?
Thanks very much for your time
John
It is 天使 or "angel" with 使 not clearly written.
John needs to learn how to read Chinese before he give someone advise. Does he not know what radicals are?
ReplyDeleteNo I don't, hence the reason I ASKED for advise, from someone who does, instead of giving advise. In also said in me message that my attempts were based on my very limited Japanese not Chinese.
ReplyDeleteOh and thanks for the help Tian.
ReplyDeleteActually, there's one more problem: the top line in the first character. Angel is 天使, but I see 夫便 (husband-convenience?)
ReplyDelete@Amadan:
ReplyDeleteI think it's just you. The vertical stroke does NOT stick up above the horizontal (first) stroke and the character is therefore 天. 天使 means angel in Chinese.
(Chinese American in Taiwan, capable of reading Chinese)