Tattoo Translations

There has to be some good advice to be dispensed here. We have no particular experts to recommend and there are lots of supposed 'expert translators' out there for all manner of languages - be careful - get a translation checked by more than one person and take heed!!

Chinese character tattoos are tattoos consisting of Chinese characters (hanzi or kanji) otherwise known as kanji tattoos. Despite allegedly being based on the Chinese or Japanese writing system, these tattoos are almost unheard of in China and Japan, instead being a relatively recent phenomenon originating in Western countries which do not use Chinese characters.

Many kanji tattoos are unreadable or nonsense in the original language, and the forms of the Chinese characters are also often mistaken. The online blog Hanzi Smatter gives many examples of the mistaken use of Chinese characters in tattoos.

You so often get what you pay for in life (like a good tattoo) but if you get your 'Translation' done for free by a waiter at the local takeaway, on a forum / messageboard or by a friend of a friend, be prepared for the worse. Much better to at least pay a professional (i.e. a linguist not neccessarily a 'tattoo translator') - most make a truly reasonable charge and get it checked elsewhere.

Don't, i repeat don't, use online free translators - they are free for a reson - they're crap!!!

"This text was translated once, and then back again"

English to Spanish gives;

"Este texto una vez y después fue traducido detrás otra vez"

Then translating that back into English gives;

"This text once and later was translated behind again"

Okay, you could argue that it's vaguely right, but would you want that degree of accuracy being tattooed onto you forever - i think not.

Whether you are going for Latin, Russian, Spanish, Portugese, Old English, Welsh, French, German, Kanji, Chinese or Japanese, please use your common sense and either do it properly, or don't do it at all.

Remember, booking is always advisable - for tattoo work and consultations.