We've often written about horrendous Chinese tattoo blunders on Language Log (with a general survey here), there is a whole website dedicated to them, and now BuzzFeed offers a generous assortment of "34 Ridiculous Chinese Character Tattoos Translated". All of the photographs are great, and many of the translations are serviceable, some even inspired, but several of them are wrong or could be improved. I won't go through all 34, and indeed, I've already covered at least one of them on Language Log, but will concentrate on a few that are particularly interesting.
N.B.: for each item, I give Hanyu Pinyin romanization | Chinese characters | BuzzFeed English translation | notes and / or revised translation in parentheses.
zhūròu yóu jiān de mǐ 豬肉油煎的米 "rice fried by pork fat" (unidiomatic Chinese translation for "pork fried rice", which should be zhūròu chǎofàn 猪肉炒饭, ròusī chǎofàn 肉丝炒饭, etc.)
xiōng'è fàn shīrén 凶恶犯詩人 "meanie crime poet" (the xiōng'è fàn 凶恶犯 ["vicious criminal"] seems to be written over a preexisting shīrén 詩人["poet"])
fushǒu 夫手 "husband hands" (on the biceps of a soccer player; the English is taken straight from Google Translate, but I think that the intention may have been to write a short form of gōngfu shǒu 功夫手 ["Kung Fu skill / hand / adept"])
kěyǐ 可以 "can do / okay" (on the arm of a basketball player; a more idiomatic Chinese rendering of "can do" would be bàn dédào 辦得到 or kěyǐ zuò 可以做)
hóu 猴 "monkey" (on the arm of a ripped tennis player, but there's probably nothing wrong with this since it might be considered his zodiacal sign; Marat Safin was born on January 20, 1980, which loosely may be thought of as belonging to a monkey year, though technically, according to the Chinese lunar calendar, the monkey year of that year ran from 16 February 1980 – 4 February 1981 and January 20, 1980 belonged to a goat year)
shén xìnyòng 神信用 "god credit" (the English is taken straight from Google Translate, but I think that the intention may have been to give a Chinese version of "in God we trust", which would be better translated as wǒmen xìnyǎng / xìnfèng / xiāngxìn shàngdì 我们信仰/相信/信奉上帝)
Lesson to be learned: never get a Chinese tattoo unless you first consult a licensed Sinologist to determine that what is about to be permanently ingrained on your hide will not make you a laughingstock for the rest of your life.
[hat tip to Jamie Fisher]
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