Japanese tattoos are great. But if a personal translator is out of your league, how can you avoid becoming a victim of kanji fad and getting stuck with a tattoo that you will truly regret?

1. Know the difference: hiragana, katakana and kanji

Before talking to your tattoo artist, make sure you know what he is talking about. You say you want a Japanese tattoo, but what do you know about Japanese characters? You need a short period in the Japanese training camp of 2 minutes.

First of all, let’s clarify that there is no such thing as a Japanese “alphabet”. There are three sets of Japanese characters: hiragana, katakana, and kanji, and each group has its own story, function, and style. Understand these facts and you will already know more than 99% of the people who walk with Japanese tattoos right now:

Hiragana – These simple, rounded characters represent sounds, but do not have an independent meaning. They were developed by women in the Heian period and are still considered feminine by the Japanese.

Katakana – Developed by Buddhist monks around the same time as the hiragana, these are simple, angular characters that also represent sounds and have no meaning of their own. You saw them cascading down the screen in the Matrix (they were upside down though!)

Kanji – Originally from China, these characters are like images, representing a meaning and also several different sounds depending on the situation.

Just reading this has probably given you an idea of ​​what style you would like for your tattoo, but don’t stop just yet! Now that you know what kind of Japanese characters there are, let’s move on to …

2. Writing styles

Come a little closer. Lean toward the screen. That’s how it is. Now look at the words in front of you. Take a good look at the shapes of these letters. OKAY? Now tell me honestly: Do you want a Times New Roman tattoo? How about Tahoma? What’s that? Don’t want a Canon or Epson tattoo? Surely not. And in the same way, you don’t want your Japanese tattoo to look like a print copy either!

So now we move on to the writing styles. Just like there are three types of Japanese characters, there are also three ways they can be written. Do not worry. This is easy! I know, you’re thinking that you can’t even read Japanese, so how the hell are you going to be able to recognize these different styles? Well, try this:

Kaisho – Printed letters. You learned to write your alphabet this way, and Japanese children learn to write their characters the same way: like a Volvo, square but good.

Gyousho – Cursive letters. You went to high school and learned that you could write faster by letting the parts of some letters flow into the next. Yes, you guessed it: the Japanese do the same and call it gyousho.

Sousho – Supercursive letters. Have you ever seen a prescription from a doctor? So you know what sousho is in Japanese: sure, the writer or some other trained person can (probably) read it, but no one else has any idea what it says!

Do you understand the image? If you want it to look like a computer printout, then be my guest and go for the kaisho style. That is your choice. But I think you probably want to use gyousho or sousho for your tattoo. My personal preference would be gyousho – it’s classy, ​​but won’t leave native speakers fazed.

3. Real or fake?

Do you remember I mentioned Mel C at the beginning? Well guess what kanji he got tattooed on his arm? That’s right – “Girl Power”: Great in English, but show this kanji combination to most Japanese and you’ll get a blank stare at best. Do you want a worse example? Try “big daddy.” You know what it means in English, but put it in kanji and you’ll end up with “big daddy”! It just doesn’t work.

I’m sure you remember that kanji are the only characters that have meaning other than sound. And their beauty means that they are what most people want for their tattoos. But beware: in addition to being popular, they can also be the most dangerous!

Let’s see if we can find a pattern here: Take a good look at the previous examples. What are they communicating: concrete concepts or abstract ideas? Can you see the difficulty the translators had? The kanji for “dragon”, “samurai”, “love” or any other specific idea are quite easy to figure out. But go for anything with an idiomatic meaning and whoever is trying to help you translate it will have a huge headache!

Just an idea, but how about this suggestion? Rather than trying to shove a round English peg into a square Japanese hole, why not find an actual Japanese phrase you like and get it instead? Bushidou (the way of the warrior) and Ninjutsu (the art of stealth) are two good examples of actual Japanese terms that would make great tattoos.

4. Your name in Japanese

As I am sure you will remember from the 2 minute Japanese training camp, katakana are the characters that are generally used to write foreign words and names. So if you want to get a tattoo of your name, technically these would be the characters you would choose. But I guess like most people you want your name to be written in kanji.

Do a quick Google search and you can find several sites that specialize in translating names into Kanji. There are basically two different methods these sites use, so let’s take a look at them here.

Translating the meaning

This method involves finding out the original meaning of the name in English and then researching the kanji equivalent.

For example, my name has its origin in Greek and means “crowned”. The crowned is the king, so I could translate my name into kanji for king and call me ohsama. (Perhaps a bit pretentious, and eerily similar to Mr. Bin Laden’s first name!)

Translating the sound

This is much more difficult! Flip through a dictionary and you will find plenty of kanji that can be combined to sound like your name. But sound is not everything: remember that kanji also have meaning. In fact, it is even more complex than this! Be sure to verify each of the following factors with anyone who translates your name using this method:

one. Dream – Does it sound like your name or not? I have seen my name “translated” on certain websites to make it sound like Stefan. It’s a shame that my name (Stephen) is said the same as Steven!

two. On-yomi and kun-yomi – Yes, more technical words! But don’t panic, they are easy to understand: Basically, kanji have two types of reading. One type, on-yomi, is its original Chinese sound. The other, kun-yomi, is their Japanese-only sound. The thing to see is that (like oil and water) on-yomi and kun-yomi don’t mix. Use all of the on-yomi readings or all of the kun-yomi readings to make your name sound.

3. Meaning – Do the kanji have a good meaning together? Now it can be very difficult to find kanji that sound good and have a good meaning, so you may need to compromise a bit with one of these.

Four. Male or female – I guess this is more like a subcategory of meaning, but it’s something you should check out to avoid embarrassment. For example, while “Asian Beauty” can be a great match for a woman, I have a feeling that most men wouldn’t be too happy to have that permanently written on their skin!

5. When in doubt, check it out!

First, use your newfound knowledge of Japanese to ask your tattoo artist or kanji “specialist” some tough questions. If you feel like they don’t know what they’re talking about, you probably want to look elsewhere.

Then before you do anything permanent, use an online dictionary to check if Japanese really means what you want. You may not be able to enter Japanese yourself, but you can copy and paste characters from an email or web page and see what they mean.

Finally, if you are lucky enough to meet one, ask a Japanese what he thinks. His confused expression may tell you that you’ve created another “big daddy”!

Follow this advice and you will avoid the most dangerous traps of Japanese tattoos and you will get a kanji tattoo that you can be proud of.