How do I find this Japanese word for a tattoo?

Kanji list at tattoo parlour

Photo credit: Angeline Evans / Used with permission.

In order to find a word for a tattoo, you need to first of all translate what you want to say into appropriate Japanese, and then get it written using good quality calligraphy. See What are the different styles of Japanese lettering? for more about the different styles of writing Japanese. This is a difficult job, so be careful, otherwise you'll end up tattooed with something inappropriate. See also How do I write my name in Japanese?

One good idea is to ask people before having your tattoo done whether the Japanese is correct or not. If you don't have any real Japanese people to ask, see Internet forums for a list of web forums you might try asking on.

Frequent problems seen with tattoos include:

Poor translations into Japanese from English, such as
- Literal translations of English phrases which don't make sense in Japanese, such as Sporty Spice's 女力, meant to be "girl power"
- Using kanji in odd ways such as to substitute for English letters.
Incomprehensible mix of Chinese and Japanese.
Poor quality writing of various kinds, including:
- Mirror-image, rotated, or upside-down versions of characters.
- Characters with missing brushstrokes, strokes mistakenly joined, or otherwise miswritten or clumsily written.
- Characters written vertically with mistaken splits of a single character into two pieces, or with two separate characters joined into one.

External links

Jim Breen's web links for people seeking tattoo translations

If you have questions, corrections, or comments, please contact Ben Bullock or use the discussion forum / Privacy policy


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