the diverse translation business
Mark Spahn
http://www.freetattoodesigns.org/translate/japanese_translation.php
-- Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY)
Aaron Isgar
in kanji. It was so absurd that my brain refuses to remember the exact
English phrase. I suggested that the person find a native Japanese
tattoo "artist" (some art and some art not deserving of the term) and
have a good heart-to-heart about their tattooing goal.
The main problem with tattoos in "Japanese" is that many are so
abominably executed because neither tattooer or tattooed really knows
how kanji should look. It's like having a spelling error branded on
the body.
Aaron
who is considering having the word "translater" tattooed on his
muscular mousing arm
Alan Siegrist
> Somebody has found a new angle in the translation business:
> http://www.freetattoodesigns.org/translate/japanese_translation.php
Interesting find. But what is bothering me is this: Can anyone read the top
character in the tattoo gracing the lovely neck of the lady at left? It
looks something like the left side of 効 combined with the right side of 新.
The top left part looks more like 大 than 六, though. Is this a real
character? What does it mean?
And in the tattoo on the muscular gentleman at right, the top character
looks like it is supposed to be 英, but the long leftward stroke does not go
all the way through in the center of the 央 part.
Or am I just lacking sufficient imagination to read the characters properly?
Or are these not Japanese characters as advertised on the site?
If someone is advertising their services as a tattoo translator, one would
think that they would want to use prime examples of their art to do so, but
I am not sure that they have succeeded in this. Or maybe the clients don't
care.
Puzzled,
Alan Siegrist
Carmel, CA, USA
Marc Adler
Or maybe the clients don't
care.
The clients don't *know*.
--
Marc Adler
www.adlerpacific.com
nirebloga.wordpress.com
mudawwanatii.wordpress.com
blogsheli.wordpress.com
Carl Freire
>Interesting find. But what is bothering me is this: Can anyone read the top
What, for that matter, is 父母魂友 supposed to mean? I see there are
plenty of made and sold in Japan T-shirts that carry the phrase 父母魂
, so I suppose it's conceivably not too far off and I am merely
ignorant on this matter of parental spirit. Given the Japanese
contexts in which I am finding it, the three-character domestic
version sounds like the Japanese variant of "Proud Parent of a Bantam
League Shortstop!" and the like. But this beast?
Trying to find the answer to one of life's less persistent questions,
Carl
--
**********
Carl Freire
cfreire /[@]* ix.netcom.com
Tokyo, Japan
Alan Siegrist
> What, for that matter, is 父母魂友 supposed to mean?
Indeed. Do you think 魂友 is supposed to be something along the lines of the
popular phrase "soul mate"? Or perhaps "soul friend"?
Oddly enough, there seems to be a Japanese company that calls itself:
株式会社そうるふれんど（魂友）
http://www.mapion.co.jp/phonebook/M09010/27213/22730879756/
They even have a telephone number (toll free, too!), so someone can check
them out if they want, but something seems a bit fishy about the services
offered...
Regards,
Alan Siegrist @ not in need of any soul friends
Carmel, CA, USA
S Zaveloff
> What, for that matter, is 父母魂友 supposed to mean?
That reminds me of the time I went to the dentist and the tech
proudly showed me the tattoo she had recently had etched on the
back of her neck. She said that the tattoo artist had told her
it was spirit (魂) but she was much less pleased when I told her
that he had left off the hen and what her neck actually said was
"demon" ( 鬼 )!
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven H. Zaveloff gua...@gmail.com
P.O. Box 200203 Tel: (512)219-7142
Austin, Texas 78720-0203 Fax: (512)233-2770
http://members.capmac.org/~stevenzaveloff/
Thus shall you think of this fleeting world:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream;
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud;
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.
-Diamond Sutra
Alan Siegrist
> Somebody has found a new angle in the translation business:
> http://www.freetattoodesigns.org/translate/japanese_translation.php
I happened to wander over to the "Chinese translation" version of that same
web site:
http://www.freetattoodesigns.org/translate/chinese_translation.php
And what do you know but the tattoo in the picture on the left has 実 which
is of course the Japanese simplified form of the character. The traditional
Chinese form is 實. The modern PRC simplified form looks considerably
different as seen here:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%AE%9E
Chinese? Japanese? Whatever...
I wonder what the customer will get for their $17.95.
Regards,
Ray Roman
David Farnsworth
This happened to me just yesterday, at the gym, when I complimented a muscular middle-aged former Marine type on his katakana rendering on his upper arm. It said (to me, anyway) カオ (ka-o). He denied that it was Japanese, saying that it was actually Chinese, meaning “strength and wisdom” （ 力才）, but then added that a Chinese friend of his thought it said ka-o, too, but had been (triumphantly) proved wrong. I backtracked, and said you are absolutely right, my mistake, smiled, and called it very nice indeed.
But it still looked like カオ rather than 力才. (sigh)
He had many OTHER tattoos, too. A veritable work of art.
David Farnsworth
Tigard OR 97224
Mark Spahn
>> What, for that matter, is 父母魂友 supposed to mean?
Well, notice the list of languages they offer.
They can always say, "That's a Chinese-dialect version."
-- Mark Spahn, thinking of getting a tattoo in Arabic
with Muhammad's dictum, "Tattoos are haraam".
I'll be a big hit among the ironists at the mosque.