LPT: Never get a tattoo in a language that you don't understand

This is my favourite. 痔 means haemorrhoid. Presumably it was meant to say 侍, samurai.

193

Why would you presume that? Maybe they’re suffering and trying to raise awareness.

134
- Maybe he's a 痔侍, haemorrhoid samurai, bringing awareness and defending those with inflamed bottoms
  
  59
- Because their radicals are really similar.
  
  5
"The Way of the Samurai lies in devoting one's body and soul to one's anus." -Hagakure

28
mmmm sweet sweet 痔

14
Samurrhoid

5

I mean we can probably all visualize the person who had that tattoo and "foreign pervert" probably fits them perfectly.

191

straightens fedora; leans on sheathed katana like a cane, from underneath a long trenchcoat

AKSHUALLY…

49

To be fair, those kind of mean the same thing

120

And honestly a pretty hillarious phrase to tattoo when some white foreigner rolls up asking for a "Lover of Asian Beauty" tattoo.

33

Where I live, we get a number of used vehicles imported from Japan, and for a while it was trendy to have English slogans on vehicles.

They frequently made little sense, I imagine our ones look the same to them.

85

You wouldn't happen to remember any would you? For some reason I love those "Why is a mouse when it spins? The higher the fewer." type things.

39
- I have just the site for you:
  
  Engrish.com
  
  27
- Not OP but the Toyota MR2 had the following text on the rear window on some units:
  
  Mature sporty personal
  
  More innovation more adult
  
  A man in dandism
  
  Powered midship specialty
  
  17
- I'm trying to remember some of them, or find a photo. I can't remember what model of vehicle they were though.
  
  2

Wasn't a tattoo, but a motorcycle decal. This dude had a Kawasaki crotch rocket with five kanji characters on it. Posted it to a forum, and this weeb says "lol where'd you get that?" dude answers all defensively "From the mall, why?" Weeb says "It says pig bird pig lizard dog." "No dude, it says N-I-N-J-A." He thought kanji characters translated directly to the latin alphabet.

73

Damn, I kinda wanna play my English ninja wkth the Japanese word for ninja. But I do not want to end up like that.

5
Wait did the characters look like the letters for ninja or was it the (I’m assuming Japanese) equivalent of the letter n then I and so on

3
- I don't precisely remember, I'm recalling a forum post I read at least a decade ago, but I do recall that he had at least tried to literally translate the letters "NINJA" to Asian text beyond just picking some McDojo font. I don't know if he had attempted to find kanji characters that looked relatively like latin letters or if someone convinced him that "This one means N" or something.
  
  5

Not really related, but a couple of years ago in my home country, a Western bloke was actually pictured on the internet wearing a shirt that said something like "白人很笨" (white people are stupid).

73

Some of us buy those ironically though. I had a shirt that said (and I unfortunately cannot put it in kana/Kanji atm) something very close to, in full kana and kanji: "I am a stupid American. I'll buy anything."

I knee fully what it meant because the sentence was pretty easy, but I still wanted to travel to Japan wearing it.

85
- Kinda want to get one in english now.
  
  13
- I imagine you were quite first impression popular with the local vendors!
  
  3
I'd wear that

24
Well I mean it's not wrong. Everybody's stupid, it's just a matter of quantity and context.

2

There's a great website documenting this. I'm surprised no one has linked to it.

https://hanzismatter.blogspot.com/

Example:

Ariana Grande's new tattoo, 七輪.

She wanted it to promote and celebrate her latest single, 7 Rings.

Instead it is referencing to a type of Japanese charcoal cooking grill.

62

This one is great because those are literally the characters for "7" and "ring" but if you put them next to each other they mean "portable charcoal grill". Luckily it was an easy fix. An additional character was added and it now reads "7 rings" as intended.

63
- It's kinda still messed up, even with the additional characters because you read right to left with vertical writing, and technically it should have a つ after the 7.
  
  13
Oof https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%BC%AA

9

I have a friend that has Thai writing tattooed on his leg that translates to "I love chicken soup."

I think when he was drunk he went into a tattoo parlor thinking it was a restaurant.

46

Thats awesome

8

Why not? I got Vete a la Mierda tattooed on my arm when I was young and still learning Spanish. Occasionally, I've had the great opportunity to pull my sleeve up.

25

What does that mean

12
- "Fuck off"
  
  Literally "Go to the shit"
  
  41
- It means “Fuck You” and maybe some other things depending on context.
  
  19

A French women got an English tattoo. The two sentences were full of your/you're and it's/its mistakes.

23

That's typically more of a native speaker error, but I guess it could happen.

10
That's pretty slopppy

3

I saw a pic that supposedly said "egg fried rice". I wouldn't even be mad

23

A friend of mine wanted a tattoo in french, she speaks it but not fluently, I found a quote for her that she loved, she transcribed it to paper to bring it to the tattoo artist... I think she transcribed it from memory because she made a mistake in the text and I never had the heart to tell her (small word missing or something like that)... And it's a very long quote in a straight line on her vertebral column, so it's not easy to hide if she wears something more revealing...

19

When I was a kid I remember a clothing store getting in trouble because it was selling underpants with an artistic Arabic lettering design. They hadn't checked what it said, but it turned out to say "There is no god but God and Mohammed is his prophet." Having this on underpants didn't please anyone.

11

Obligatory do not go to a tattoo parlor and ask them to tattoo something derogatory in their native language as a joke. At worst you'll severely offend them and at best they'll be extremely reluctant to do it because it could get them in serious trouble and thrash their reputation. I promise you it's nowhere near as funny as the internet would have you believe and it won't be taken well by a vast majority of tattoo artists.

8

1 man with menstruation tattooed on his neck

7

How many Chinese people and places have mistranslated a word into English as "fuck?" I can't remember which word it is, some kind of food. So ya'know, glass houses and all that.

7

Reminds me of XiaomaNYC intentionally getting chicken noodle soup to make the folks in china town crack up

5

The Chinese characters / text is 变態外人

(romanized "biàn tài wàirén")

Interestingly, Japanese uses the same characters for hentai, 変態. Tai is notably pronounced the same / similarly, while biàn / hen are different.

3

How about ‘never get a tattoo’. Full stop.

-68

I will likely never get a tattoo. But I know there are lots of reasons to get tattoos, and it seems to me that the vast majority of people not only don't regret but feel good about the tattoos they get. So I dunno, sleep on it, but go ahead and get a tattoo if you really want.

48
- I've only got one on my inner wrist but it makes me so happy when I see it.
  
  11
That's a very odd thing to get tattooed..I love it! heads straight to the local tattoo shop

46
Why? Are you allergic to fun or something?

29
- It's so weird, for over 30 years it didn't make sense to me, until all of a sudden I knew what I wanted and it just clicked? One thigh and calf piece later and I'm addicted. I get nothing but compliments during shorts season and the Leo in me lives for that shit.
  
  15
- If you live in Japan you might want to avoid tattoos unless you want to be banned from all water parks and most hotsprings.
  
  10
Permanently Deleted

10
You do you. I have none myself and am unlikely to ever get one. But I'm pro-choice on it. For adults. Kids should stick with ruining their hair, because it's a non-permanent way to experience regret. Could probably lead to better choices about tattoos later. Piercings, too.

9
- I have never gotten a tat because I am too afraid of regrets. I admire a good ink job and whenever I see someone with a fresh one I will talk to them about it. But like you it isn't a thing I would want.
  
  Also agree about hair and clothes. Unless it is totally inappropriate for weather or the situation (yes kids you are dressing up for the wedding we were invited to) I let my kids work it out for themselves. My parents were strict about clothing and I won't put my children through that.
  
  7
- My personal rule is that I can get any tattoo that I want, provided I still want to get it a decade later.
  
  6
I think this is very much an 'each to their own' thing.

I have a Loth Cat from Star Wars on my arm I got at Star Wars Celebration 2019 and so I get warm fuzziness and memories of that time when I see it there. It was a fun experience I got to have with my family... and a very cute little critter too.

Admittedly I've been asked many times if it was a Pokémon LOL

8
Lol all of the mid 20’s to mid 30’s hipster chicks with arm sleeves are down voting you.

I have a couple of tats I got with my squad in Iraq when I was in the Army. Explaining those tats to those same younger hipster gals never seems to go over well.

1