Topic: Tattoo; Japanese Kanji Translation (Read 2309 times)

While similar, there are subtle differences between how the Japanese and Chinese form Kanji/Chinese character groupings.
Some characters are also written differently, and there are some characters unique to Japanese only and some to Chinese only.

Japanese Kanji? lol, wouldn't it be easier if you just said Chinese? since Japanese Kanji is entirely derived from Chinese.

+1 to Hyperwyrm.

I would recommend 尊敬心 instead of 尊敬.

be very careful.  A group of people from my town all got japanese kanjis on the front of their necks.  about 15 people total all got the same tattoo which they believed to say or mean "family"

Years later one of the guys ran into someone who was fluent.....since there was a little extra line added to the kanji...instead of meaning "family"    it says "pig farmer"   

what a big difference a line can make.

Thanks hyperwyrm!

.10 sent to 1GzREz4VF3fSyo9QKqmcYYMyW3M1oGq5QV

This is at least enough for me play with some layouts.  The advice on finding a fluent Kanji artist sounds like a good project to research.

Also to clarify on the definition i'm trying to convey with

Charity: that is impulsive to see virtues in a brother and slow to reprove his faults

Esteem: That is respectful to the honest convictions of others and that refrains from treading upon that which is sacred to spirit and conscience.

-kaji

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愛 is good for "love". It is read ai (see wiki article on Japanese phonology if you're unfamiliar, or there are many other learning sites out there...).

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For "charity", I suggest
慈善 jizen
(or perhaps 慈善心 jizenshin, charitable spirit / benevolence).

This is not a word that I knew off the top of my head, but I am not a native speaker, and it is marked as "common" in EDICT, so I would expect it to be understood.

The two kanji of 慈善 carry the senses of
慈: "affectionate" or "mercy" (this kanji is well-known but only present in a few words in common use, all of them positive)
善: "(morally) good"
"Jizen" as a reading doesn't seem to imply anything bad either.

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For "esteem"... hm. First I have to understand the English nuance of the word ._. I do mostly encounter it in the phrase "self-esteem". In fact, wikipedia redirects "esteem" to "self-esteem". If you don't think that's the right interpretation, though, Google seems to say that "respect and admiration" is what we're going for here... so perhaps you want the meaning "holding due respect and admiration for others".

In that case I would suggest 尊敬 sonkei or 尊重 sonchou.
It is worth deliberating over the difference between these words.

The common kanji is 尊, carrying the sense of "honor". It is used both in words like 自尊心 (self-respect; pride) as well as 尊ぶ (to revere), so it can be for the self or others.
The difference between the two words can be seen in the last kanji.

敬 carries the meaning "respect for others" and is used in words like 敬老 (respect for the aged), 敬語 (honorific language, language used to respect others), 敬具 (Yours Respectfully), etc.
If you look up 尊敬 on Space Alc, which lists "esteem" as one of the meanings, and page through the examples, you'll see that they involve holding other people in esteem. You cannot generally 尊敬 yourself, or at least, most people would not think this was the intended meaning upon reading 尊敬.

重 is the kanji for "heavy" or "weight" and therefore 尊重 is neutral in meaning. You could say it means "value highly". Here's the Space Alc definitions. You'll find that 尊重 can apply to the self, or to others, and often is applied to abstract concepts -- so if you are talking about holding values, or opinions, or ideas in esteem, you use 尊重.

These are both very common words and would be instantly recognized whichever you went for. They are the most common words for their pronunciation too so there's nothing to worry about there.

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I would make a point about presentation... If they're all going to be in a single column, make sure they don't run too close together. Either insert a separator dot ・ between them (in the center of the column, with a moderate amount of space between the kanji above and below it) or leave a fullwidth space (that is a space that's the same size as the kanji).

I would suggest finding a tattooist who knows Japanese to do the tattoo (well, you know the pronunciations, so this should be easy to check...). It is very easy to draw kanji in such a way that the proportions look completely wrong to a native eye if you are not familiar with the language, and naturally fonts don't look great either (consider tattoos done in Times New Roman or Arial).

Finally, a disclaimer - I am not a native speaker and although I've done this with the best of intentions and careful research, I take no responsibility if there is any hidden meaning that I am somehow ignorant of, or if there are more appropriate words etc... I doubt there are any problems with these but I would run them by a native speaker to be sure. They say you should always translate into your native language, and I normally focus on Japanese to English translation, but I couldn't pass up the chance for more bitcoins, haha.

1GzREz4VF3fSyo9QKqmcYYMyW3M1oGq5QV

Yes, Love was easy to find . Thanks for the response.  When I looked up Charity and Esteem the Kanji characters I found where used for other words than just those.  Like the 2 characters i found for Esteem where more for self-esteem or virtue. So part of what my contest is; is to entice someone who has experiences on the topic to give me insight.

-kaji

The only one of those I know is love  ( 愛 ). Many words are written without Kanji. They also use Katakana and Hiragana.  Keep your money. I did it for  愛 .

here is what you need. http://translate.google.com/

So I've been wanting a Tattoo my whole life. I have a few ideas of what I would like to do but for my first I have just the idea. In college I was in the Fraternity TKE. One of our 3 principals of brother hood is Love, Charity, and Esteem.  I would like to have Japanese Kaji characters going top the top down almost to my elbow on my left arm. So the reason i'm posting this here is I don't want to be some random dick who gets a foreign characters on their body that don't convey the correct message. I would like for those who are experts on the topic to send me the kanji characters that would convey the 3 principals if translated to Japanese the same as it was in English. If your up for it message me directly with a pic of how it would look.  I want to get a few confirmations from various people to confirm what i'm seeing is correct. Everyone who contributes will be rewarded with BTC0.10 Who ever is the first to respond with what I confirm to be correct and what i finally decide to use as the work i get done will receive BTC2.5 as a 'grand prize'.  I will not except more than 1 entry per person.  And limit the BTC.10 reward for only the first 10 submissions.  Please include your wallet address for the coins. If you're way off (like it looks like nothing compared to a majority of the submissions) i'll have to assume your trolling and you will be denied any payment.

Thanks,
kaji