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Getting a tattoo design written in a language that you don't understand is rarely a good idea. Hell, even tattoos in people's native tongues are often hilariously misspelled or misinterpreted.
Tattoos written in Hanzi and Kanji (the Chinese and Japanese character sets) became popular in the west in the late 1980s, although there was a niche among sailors who visited the Far East for many years prior. Western tattoo artists usually copy a character from a template, something that is often unreliable and can easily lead to context errors if a direct translation is attempted. For example, in 2001, Britney Spears got a Chinese tattoo inked on her bikini line. She believed that the tattoo meant 'mysterious' but later on, it is found that this tattoo means 'strange.' Combining the characters to form a phrase or idiom can lead to even worse language jokes, as meanings can change completely and you end up with a tattoo fail like "demon bird mothballs" forever inked on your skin.
So you have to ask yourself then – why do people still choose these tattoo ideas? After all, you are relying on others to get the meaning right, and it can come across as weird or even offensive to Chinese or Japanese people who feel that you might be trivializing or insulting their ancient cultures with your atrociously bad translations. So the best advice is – don't. Unless you have done scrupulous research and are fully aware and accepting of the cultural connotations!
Scroll down to see some funny words and cringe-worthy examples of people getting it completely wrong for yourself, and let us know your thoughts on these epic translation fails in the comments!
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#1
Late to party, saw a Canadian guy and asked him what he had asked the tattoo artist ”I asked him for some bad words, something really bad”. It’s said “economic recession”
RELATED:
#2
40+ year old bald white guy with Chinese characters that translated as “I’m a cute little princess” on the length of his forearm.
Had a good laugh the rest of that day.
#3
My buddy has "illiterate foreigner" in traditional Chinese characters. It's dope
#4
I saw this guy with Japanese characters that translated to “Beep Beep Lettuce”
#5
I was TDY in Japan for 90 days, and I didn't know very much Japanese at all, but the wife of a guy I worked with was fluent, and at a small command function she pointed out this complete asshat of a guy at the detachment I was with whose back tat read "child changing station". He told everyone it was something like "strength, loyalty, determination".
#6
My wife is Chinese and the best one she has personally seen was "fat dumb American" on a guys leg.
#7
I knew a girl at university who had some Chinese characters down her arm.
Came in one hot summer day and I finally saw the whole thing.
It said; Emergency exit. Do not block.
#8
Wanted a tattoo in Chinese that said "I am a vegetarian," got a tattoo that said "I am made of vegetables."
#9
I probably shouldn’t be saying this as the person who had this done to them is my best friend but...sh!t...here we go again... My best friend who we’ll call Sarah got a tattoo when she was 16 (where I live, you’re supposed to be 18) her dad passed away about 3 years ago and she wanted to get a tattoo on her wrist to remember him...instead of getting his name which would’ve been easier...she decided she wanted to get “dad” in Japanese...it’s been 2 years since then and I still haven’t told her that it says “turtle” I know that she’ll hate herself if she finds out and to be 100% honest...I kinda like it...I was actually thinking of getting it on my wrist too...my dad passed away when I was only 11 so she’d think I got a tattoo saying dad as well but I’d actually just be getting a pretty hilarious tattoo that I kinda love... I just want to add...if I suddenly go missing...blame it on my best friend
Dream Wolf 5 years ago
Well turtles can be good luck, in Chinese culture they can represent a long prosperous life. So it could be a blessing in disguise? A cute blessing from her dad.
#10
Buddy of mine got a tattoo with his friends. He wanted it to say something like "honor" or "loyalty" or some dumb s**t, but it actually says "free eggroll with combo purchase"
#11
I once saw this middle aged dude wearing "金魚佬" on his shoulder (the rough literary translation is "Goldfish Man"), which in cantonese means a sleazy older man who creeps on younger girls/children. Basically a pedo. Wonder under what circumstances he got that inked...
#12
I have 'Monkey' on my wrist because that's my Chinese zodiac. I know it's accurate because a Chinese guy asked me if I knew what it meant, and I'm sure he thought I would say 'faith' or 'love' or something, so when I said 'monkey' he looked so relieved. His friend was like 'you have GOT to stop doing that!'
#13
my friend got "translator server error" tattooed on his arm. needless to say he wasn't very happy after i told him
Human #1,232,867 5 years ago
in China, "404 translation error" is a common name for shops who copy and paste Google translate result
#14
My boyfriend got tattooed before we met and he meant to get warrior(士) tattooed on him, but the lines are wrong so it really means dirt (土). The bottom line is supposed to be shorter than the top line. His nickname in my family is now doro-chan which is basically a cute way of saying dirt boy.
#15
I can read Chinese and I met a guy who wanted to get a tattoo that said "Hope" so i guess they looked it up in the dictionary and tattooed the first 2 characters after "hope" which were "名子“
which says "noun"
#16
This guy i saw had "circumcised Squirrel" on his arm in chinese
#17
Lemon water pork dumplings along the spine
#18
He thought it said “Love my grandson”. It translated to something like “I love fat boys”. I think it was a google translate failure of epic proportions
#19
Man flexed his tattoo to me in a supermarket claiming it said 'wisdom'. It meant 'meat'.
#20
I didn’t see it, but I went with a friend to get a piercing, and I heard a guy say, I don’t like the way that looks, can you change this line and make the ends do this. The tattoo artist said, “Yea, but that changes the word, you might be going from brave to gay woman for all I know. You can’t change kanji symbols and still have it mean the same thing.”
Dream Wolf 5 years ago
I know. The amount of times I've lost marks for this during a test. One wrong stroke...and nah. points deducted
#21
I dont speak Chinese but back in college I knew a guy who was one of those douchey guys who likes to brag about how cultured they are and stuff when really they're just an a**hole. He came back from China with some characters tattooed on him. My friend next to me (who had real bad social anxiety so would never speak in public to non-friends normally) burst out laughing. Douche-guy got kinda annoyed and said "It says Strength, Wisdom, Passion" or some other weird bs like that. My friend then reached into his bag, pulled out his phone, opened up one of those AR translators, pointed it at the guy's tattoo, and through the magic of AR, revealed it actually said "chicken with noodles". My friend then said that one of his mates in China told him that a lot of Asian tattooists will often deliberately f**k up tattoos and stuff because they get really annoyed at those douchey people coming over asking for random words to be tattooed onto them.
Dream Wolf 5 years ago
I kind of don't blame them. I mean it's strange to go in and ask for something that you won't understand (you're just opening yourself up for messing around) at least have someone who fluent in the language write the proper thing out on a sheet of paper?
#22
so this one wrestler/boxer/fighter whatever nicknamed himself the wind of pain and decided to get a Chinese tattoo based on that, so instead of using something bad ass like 痛苦之风（wind of pain)but he ended up with 痛风 which means metabolic arthritis. Yeah good luck with that
#23
I have my Chinese zodiac in Chinese letters on my arm. I worked with a guy who was from China and spoke almost no English. When he saw it his eyes lit up, pointed at my arm and said "hahaha cock!". I'm the year of the rooster...
#24
Not my story but a friend of mine.
She had a classmate in college with a kanji tattoo, confused she asked her what it meant.
“High princess”
Turns out it actually said “pig princess”
#25
A friend of mine once told me he saw a guy with something like ‘I don’t speak this language’ tattooed on his arm.
#26
I once had a roommate placed with me in the apartment our company ran for us here in Japan. He was loud, obnoxious, and I generally didn't get on well with him. But, you try to get along, so we'd go to the izakaya up the street from time to time with other friends to drink and have a good time. The owners were this wonderful old Japanese couple who loved having all these weird gaijin come and entertain the locals.
Anyway, somehow we get talking about tattoos and the roommate is showing his off. He then says that he got the kanji for "friendship" (友) and "peace" (和) tattooed on his back and lifts his shirt to show everyone. There's a bit of silence, broken by someone asking, "Who's Tomokazu?"
What Roommate didn't know, of course, was that those two kanji in that order was a man's name.
He reacted well, though, taking a beat and then announcing, "I'M TOMOKAZU!" which became a running joke while he was there.
Lenka Smetanová 5 years ago
still better thn a tatoo with a name of yor partner after three weeks of dating... He get quite cool nickname...
#27
A guy I saw in the streets had the hiragana "Unko" tatooed on his shoulder.
"Unko" meaning a turd in japanese...
#28
"Little potato". He thought it said "respect".
Dream Wolf 5 years ago
That ones actually cute. If I weren't so freaked out about needles I'd get it
#29
My friend got a tattoo that said "veni vidi vici" in chinese, well so he thought. The tattoo acutally said "three small dishes"
#30
On a womans shoulder as a tribute to her fallen brother, in Japanese but translate too "brother sex always"
What do you think ?
Hans 5 years ago
Frankly...how can you get something that is permanent and not check out what it is? I am simply unable to comprehend this, in the literate meaning of comprehend.
Daria B 5 years ago
That's the problem. Most of them DO check, but they think a quick Google Translate will be enough.
Load More Replies...
Herb Eaversmells 5 years ago
Can we all at least agree its a pretty s****y things to do; to deliberately tatoo someone with the wrong words as a joke?
Marina 5 years ago
I think it's horrible. I can't believe how many photos this thread has, it's something tattoo artists often do apparently and I can't understand why... Wth
Load More Replies...
Christine Blackburne-Kowal 5 years ago
I had a roommate in college who was of partial Chinese decent. Her sister got a tattoo that she thought said "Strong Independent Woman". When she showed it to her Chinese grandmother, she laughed and told her it said "House Wife"
Andres Tejeda 5 years ago
My cousin who is deeply homophobic, got a Chinese tattoo on his arm. We are Mexican and he was showing it off saying that it means honor, family, and faith or something to that degree. Well I brought my Chinese friend over who is from Xiamen, to translate his tattoo. I told about his views of gays and he with out skipping a beat told my cousin that his tattoo meant: I love young men. My cousin denied it and was livid but we convinced him that that's what it meant. To this day he keeps it covered.
The Cappy 5 years ago
The comments here are very interesting. Most of these seem to be examples of Chinese or Japanese tattoo artists deliberately inking something other than they agreed, and something they knew would one day upset the client. It's hard to imagine any motive other than malice to these "mistakes." To the extent people are recognizing this, they're largely blaming the victims. I'm not someone who thinks blaming the victim is inappropriate. Often victims did something unwise leading up to their injury. But... if Americans routinely f'd with Asians by deliberately putting the wrong thing on a tattoo, we'd be livid. Such double standards we have.
Renee Gauthier 5 years ago
Maybe they were rude. And the tattooists figured they wouldn't be back back the time they discovered it. There are much worse things in life. Buyer beware.
Load More Replies... Dave P 5 years ago
I mean I dont understand why you would get a tattoo without checking out what it really means first (I mean get a temporary tat done in the henna ink style to see if it looks good first, and get it checked out to make sure what it means), at the same time a lot of these sound like a*****e tattoo artists harming innocent (in case dangerously so) because they dont like foreigners getting tats in their language, which to me is disgusting and shows a lack of professionalism and human decency on the side of the tattoo artist
Miklós Nagy 5 years ago
Tattooing the name of your favorite dishes before you'r visiting an asian country should be a lifehack!
Jenica Thomas 5 years ago
Moral of the story... If you don't speak the language fluently yourself, do not tattoo it on your body!
Leo Domitrix 5 years ago
In my mom's native language "little frog" is an endearment. Google Translate turns it into "tadpole" in English. "Kitten" is another one to beware of in several languages. Basically, this is why my only tat is a discreet little heart with my spouse's name in it!
Demi Zwaan 5 years ago
I don't understand why you'd get a tattoo in a language you don't speak, from a culture or country you have no connection to, just because the squiggly lines look nice. It's a definite recipe for failure.
Loki’s Lil Butter Knife 5 years ago
For those of you who love language and poorly researched tattoos, “Hanzi Smatter” is a wonderful blog where a native speaker provides the hilarious translations of some really horrible kanji tattoos. People send pictures of their tattoos in thinking they mean wonderful things like strength only to learn that they really say things like “chicken noodle soup” or “monkey queen.” http://hanzismatter.blogspot.com/?m=1
just a hamilfan (hufflepuff) 3 years ago
I would purposefully have mine say "湯圓" or "soup dumplings" because I love Chinese soup dumplings
Willajune B 4 years ago
Someday, I'm gonna get a tattoo in Chinese that translates to "hermit potato" so that people think I made a mistake and then I can explain this to them. :D
David Christian 4 years ago
Could some of these be intentional on the patrons part? I can see someone getting "I don't speak this language" as a joke on themselves for instance. Other than that, some are probably artists who try to spell things out without knowing the language themselves.
Olivia K P 5 years ago
I wish more of the submissions showed what it was supposed to be and what it actually was, like 14 Did
SirPatTheCat 5 years ago
I want to get a tattoo that says "Chicken nuggets" in katakana so that if someone is like what does that mean I can say "something very special to me" with no further explanation, but if someone actually comes up to me who knows what it says I can say "something very special to me" and they're like oh this poor dumb kid And then I'm like "...chicken nuggets"
DrJohnFZoidberg 5 years ago
Cousin tattooed “knowledge is freedom” on his arm. I took some Japanese classes in college and asked to see it one day and noticed right away that it was spelled wrong. Didn’t have the heart to tell him, years later he told me he showed it to a bunch of Japanese students and they rolled on the floor laughing. I confessed that I knew, he was cool with it.
Trash Panda 5 years ago
I used to work with a guy who spent many years working in Japan and was well versed in the language. We were out one night and ran into a guy who had a tattoo of Japanese characters and told us it said, "Deep, calm waters". My friend told me that, to the best of his understanding, it actually said something along the lines of "flat mule" or donkey. He didn't share that with the tattoo owner.
Alexander Brior 5 years ago
I’m thinking of getting a tattoo, which one should I get? Circumcised squirrel, or beep beep lettuce?
Jackie Wacky 5 years ago
It’s the same with Arabic. I remember someone at work years ago proudly wearing a necklace which she thought was her name in Arabic... it actually said (I’m being polite here) ‘lady’s private part’.
D. Pitbull 5 years ago
What gets me... is the apparently "lack of belief" stories... the ones where the person with the tattoo outright *refuses* to believe the individual who is telling them what it says... and of all things "You obviously don't know how to read Chinese/Kanji/Japanese words" - oh... really... and you do? What the heck.
RoseTheMad 5 years ago
A friend of a friend has "鱼娘" meaning "Fish Girl" she actually wanted "Mermaid" but she couldn't explain what she meant in Chinese, so she was saying "fish girl, half fish half girl" to try explain it. The tattoo she should have is "美人鱼" iirc. But she sees the humor in the mistake, at least. However, iirc "娘" is Daughter in Japanese. :)
Bettye McKee 5 years ago
In my opinion, they get what they deserve. You should never get a permanent marking when you don't have a clue what it means. Why not get Brave passionate warrior in English?
Loki 5 years ago
I got (un)lost and a picture of the album cover that song is on (the album is called American candy and it's from the Maine) and it's actually good? maybe you spend too much time looking/reading at/about bad tattoos
Load More Replies... Hans 5 years ago
Frankly...how can you get something that is permanent and not check out what it is? I am simply unable to comprehend this, in the literate meaning of comprehend.
Daria B 5 years ago
That's the problem. Most of them DO check, but they think a quick Google Translate will be enough.
Load More Replies... Herb Eaversmells 5 years ago
Can we all at least agree its a pretty s****y things to do; to deliberately tatoo someone with the wrong words as a joke?
Marina 5 years ago
I think it's horrible. I can't believe how many photos this thread has, it's something tattoo artists often do apparently and I can't understand why... Wth
Load More Replies... Christine Blackburne-Kowal 5 years ago
I had a roommate in college who was of partial Chinese decent. Her sister got a tattoo that she thought said "Strong Independent Woman". When she showed it to her Chinese grandmother, she laughed and told her it said "House Wife"
Andres Tejeda 5 years ago
My cousin who is deeply homophobic, got a Chinese tattoo on his arm. We are Mexican and he was showing it off saying that it means honor, family, and faith or something to that degree. Well I brought my Chinese friend over who is from Xiamen, to translate his tattoo. I told about his views of gays and he with out skipping a beat told my cousin that his tattoo meant: I love young men. My cousin denied it and was livid but we convinced him that that's what it meant. To this day he keeps it covered.
The Cappy 5 years ago
The comments here are very interesting. Most of these seem to be examples of Chinese or Japanese tattoo artists deliberately inking something other than they agreed, and something they knew would one day upset the client. It's hard to imagine any motive other than malice to these "mistakes." To the extent people are recognizing this, they're largely blaming the victims. I'm not someone who thinks blaming the victim is inappropriate. Often victims did something unwise leading up to their injury. But... if Americans routinely f'd with Asians by deliberately putting the wrong thing on a tattoo, we'd be livid. Such double standards we have.
Renee Gauthier 5 years ago
Maybe they were rude. And the tattooists figured they wouldn't be back back the time they discovered it. There are much worse things in life. Buyer beware.
Load More Replies... Dave P 5 years ago
I mean I dont understand why you would get a tattoo without checking out what it really means first (I mean get a temporary tat done in the henna ink style to see if it looks good first, and get it checked out to make sure what it means), at the same time a lot of these sound like a*****e tattoo artists harming innocent (in case dangerously so) because they dont like foreigners getting tats in their language, which to me is disgusting and shows a lack of professionalism and human decency on the side of the tattoo artist
Miklós Nagy 5 years ago
Tattooing the name of your favorite dishes before you'r visiting an asian country should be a lifehack!
Jenica Thomas 5 years ago
Moral of the story... If you don't speak the language fluently yourself, do not tattoo it on your body!
Leo Domitrix 5 years ago
In my mom's native language "little frog" is an endearment. Google Translate turns it into "tadpole" in English. "Kitten" is another one to beware of in several languages. Basically, this is why my only tat is a discreet little heart with my spouse's name in it!
Demi Zwaan 5 years ago
I don't understand why you'd get a tattoo in a language you don't speak, from a culture or country you have no connection to, just because the squiggly lines look nice. It's a definite recipe for failure.
Loki’s Lil Butter Knife 5 years ago
For those of you who love language and poorly researched tattoos, “Hanzi Smatter” is a wonderful blog where a native speaker provides the hilarious translations of some really horrible kanji tattoos. People send pictures of their tattoos in thinking they mean wonderful things like strength only to learn that they really say things like “chicken noodle soup” or “monkey queen.” http://hanzismatter.blogspot.com/?m=1
just a hamilfan (hufflepuff) 3 years ago
I would purposefully have mine say "湯圓" or "soup dumplings" because I love Chinese soup dumplings
Willajune B 4 years ago
Someday, I'm gonna get a tattoo in Chinese that translates to "hermit potato" so that people think I made a mistake and then I can explain this to them. :D
David Christian 4 years ago
Could some of these be intentional on the patrons part? I can see someone getting "I don't speak this language" as a joke on themselves for instance. Other than that, some are probably artists who try to spell things out without knowing the language themselves.
Olivia K P 5 years ago
I wish more of the submissions showed what it was supposed to be and what it actually was, like 14 Did
SirPatTheCat 5 years ago
I want to get a tattoo that says "Chicken nuggets" in katakana so that if someone is like what does that mean I can say "something very special to me" with no further explanation, but if someone actually comes up to me who knows what it says I can say "something very special to me" and they're like oh this poor dumb kid And then I'm like "...chicken nuggets"
DrJohnFZoidberg 5 years ago
Cousin tattooed “knowledge is freedom” on his arm. I took some Japanese classes in college and asked to see it one day and noticed right away that it was spelled wrong. Didn’t have the heart to tell him, years later he told me he showed it to a bunch of Japanese students and they rolled on the floor laughing. I confessed that I knew, he was cool with it.
Trash Panda 5 years ago
I used to work with a guy who spent many years working in Japan and was well versed in the language. We were out one night and ran into a guy who had a tattoo of Japanese characters and told us it said, "Deep, calm waters". My friend told me that, to the best of his understanding, it actually said something along the lines of "flat mule" or donkey. He didn't share that with the tattoo owner.
Alexander Brior 5 years ago
I’m thinking of getting a tattoo, which one should I get? Circumcised squirrel, or beep beep lettuce?
Jackie Wacky 5 years ago
It’s the same with Arabic. I remember someone at work years ago proudly wearing a necklace which she thought was her name in Arabic... it actually said (I’m being polite here) ‘lady’s private part’.
D. Pitbull 5 years ago
What gets me... is the apparently "lack of belief" stories... the ones where the person with the tattoo outright *refuses* to believe the individual who is telling them what it says... and of all things "You obviously don't know how to read Chinese/Kanji/Japanese words" - oh... really... and you do? What the heck.
RoseTheMad 5 years ago
A friend of a friend has "鱼娘" meaning "Fish Girl" she actually wanted "Mermaid" but she couldn't explain what she meant in Chinese, so she was saying "fish girl, half fish half girl" to try explain it. The tattoo she should have is "美人鱼" iirc. But she sees the humor in the mistake, at least. However, iirc "娘" is Daughter in Japanese. :)
Bettye McKee 5 years ago
In my opinion, they get what they deserve. You should never get a permanent marking when you don't have a clue what it means. Why not get Brave passionate warrior in English?
Loki 5 years ago
I got (un)lost and a picture of the album cover that song is on (the album is called American candy and it's from the Maine) and it's actually good? maybe you spend too much time looking/reading at/about bad tattoos
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