Have you ever wondered what your name would look like when translated into Chinese? Chinese calligraphy is by it's nature very artistic, and with the various scripts available, translated English language and names can make a very appealing tattoo.
Did you know that to sit down and confidently read a Chinese daily newspaper or magazine, you would need to know at least 3000 Chinese characters? Even a brief study of Chinese calligraphy will leave you in no doubt that the actual process of creating a Chinese character with single brushstrokes is most definitely an art form. Brushstrokes per character can range anything from the word "one", which is a single stroke of the brush, up to the character which denotes the word "talkative", which contains sixty four strokes!
If you are looking for a Chinese tattoo translation you will soon realise that there is more to it than at first meets the eye. Modern Chinese language is what is known as logo-syllabic, which means that each character denotes one syllable. Each individual character has its own meaning, although many are only used with a combination of other characters. It therefore goes without saying that to properly translate a word or phrase from English to either modern or traditional Chinese (there are are two forms of Chinese in use today) that a reliable translation is going to be hard to come by.If you are serious about getting a Chinese character tattoo there are many places offering a quick translation, but as is sadly becoming more common, these translations are often vague, and more often than not, incorrect. ( By Richard Genber )