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jtotheulie5 -

Hi I am here to ask for some help with chinese characters

i want a tatoo that says either

live easy or life is good

i dont want to be like every other stupid american with a character on their body that doesn't
mean what they think it means.

it would be greatly appreciated if you could help thank you



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malinuo -

I'm a little surprised you don't have any replies yet, but it may be because the expressions are a
little vague. "Live easy" I think I understand, but I don't know how to translate it to a catchy
phrase in any other language. It means "don't take things you encounter in your daily life too
seriously", right? If I try to translate it to for example German, it comes out literally as
"einfach leben", but that can also mean that you take life very seriously, but you do not allow
yourself any excess luxury, and I guess that's not what you want to say? Same thing for French
"simplement vivre" or "vivre simplement". In Swedish a close translation may be "simma lugnt",
which literally means "swim calmly", but the sense is more or less "live easy". Catchy Chinese
translation? Beats me.

For "life is good", it also depends on what you want to say. I think it generally can be
translated well to phrases in other European languages. "Жизнь Прекрасна"
(beautiful), "das Leben ist schön" (comfortable), "livet är underbart" (wonderful) and so on.
The Italian film "Life is beautiful" was translated to Chinese as 美丽人生, which doesn't
literally mean "Life is beautiful" but "beautiful life". However, my Chinese is not good enough to
tell if the Chinese audience perceived that as "this is a life of someone surrounded by visual
beauty" or "this is a comfortable life". In Japan I think they kept the English (!) title.

My point is that a catchy phrase in one language cannot always be translated to an equally catchy
phrase in another language.










jtotheulie5 -

i want it to say live easy in the sense of not taking things to seriously but also to enjoy the
things that are around you and not let dreams and aspirations take over your life to the point
where you don't live. To enjoy what you got and what you need.

maybe i should say a phrase like: take time to enjoy the simpler things in life


something that means somewhere around that it doesn't need to mean live easy just on that idea.

i just want to make sure i dont have the the characters from the forest on my body my whole life
thinking it means something along the lines of live easy

this website gave me this character for the phrase
http://chineseculture.about.com/libr...c_liveeasy.htm
but i am not sure what it really means










mr.stinky -

why?










kudra -

even if you know what the character means, you are still at the mercy of the "tatoo artist"

check this site and see if you don't reconsider the whole thing....

http://www.hanzismatter.com/2006/06/...with-love.html










adrianlondon -

我 很 懒

Which, in essence, means you take life easy and aren't stressed.

Although in case you rush off and actually get it done then sue me, it really means "I'm rather
lazy".










dradra -

As native Chinese speaker, I recommend 一生平安 according to what you want. The "direct"
translation of it is the whole life (一生) happiness/peachful (平安). It is a most well-known
greeting words in Chinese. It is not unusual to see Chinese decorate their houses or cars with
handicrafts with this words.

From years of learning English, I realise that the advanced translation is much more than "direct
translation of a single word". Translation is to transport meaning of the whole sentence,
paragraph or article.

Wish it helpful.










seesaw -

My recommendations are
别太累
享受生活
哥们，看开点










Josh-J -

You might want to check whether the characters you eventually choose are the simplified or
traditional versions (if there's a difference). Depends if it makes any difference to you










jtotheulie5 -

一生平安, i think i am going to get this one as a tattoo.

any opinions on this?












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