Often, the first part of a word might be written using a Chinese character kanji, and the second part using Hiragana.Īre there words that are written only in Hiragana? By “filler”, I mean the bits that would be the equivalent of the “ing” in eating or the “ed” in “cooked”. These are the rather more simple Japanese letters that make up all the filler parts of Japanese words. 中 ( naka, chuu) Center, middle, in-between So for example, if you combine the character Why are Chinese Characters so complex?Ĭhinese characters quickly become very complex because they are usually combinations of different “subparts”, called “radicals” in English, that tell a story that makes up the meaning.
You can still clearly see these origins in some of the characters, clearly illustrated in such characters as:īut most characters are so complex that they look very little like the original thing they were meant to portray. They are popular for tattoos because, in contrast to Western alphabets, each character is actually a little picture – or at least it was a couple of thousand years ago. These are the most popular types of Japanese lettering used in tattoos. They are called “Hanzi” in standard Chinese. Kanji is the Japanese term for Chinese characters (with the “kan” part meaning “character” and the “ji” part meaning “letter”). The first thing to note is that there are three scripts you have to choose from when using Japanese text. The Basics of Japanese tattoos with words – Start here! Types of Tattoos with Japanese Words
On this page, we’ll take you through some of the good examples, some of the bad examples, and some that would make you want to hide your body away under as much fabric as possible at all times. Don’t be one of those people featured on a Japanese website somewhere as an example of a silly foreigner with a cringey tattoo. If you do a search in Japanese on the internet for Chinese Character tattoos or Japanese letter tattoos, you get a bunch of pages dedicated to how embarrassing a lot of the words and designs that people get are. What are the most popular Japanese Kanji tattoos?.Two or more Kanji placed next to each other mean something different to two kanji independently.Don’t try and simply find a “direct equivalent” word in Japanese.Is your Japan tattoo word, or phrase, grammatically correct?.Do you know what your Japanese tattoo words really mean?.Does it even matter if Chinese and Japanese Hanzi/Kanji are written differently?.Japanese and Chinese Characters are a bit different!.
Things to look out for when getting a tattoo with Japanese words.Are there other situations where people use Hiragana?.Are there words that are written only in Hiragana?.The Basics of Japanese tattoos with words – Start here!.