Chinese Tattoo - Forever Love?

Below is a Chinese tattoo confirmation request sent from Russ:

"I was told it was eternity and love, on my shoulder by itself."

Hi Russ,

Individually, both characters are written correctly and do mean what you mentioned - "forever" and "love".

However, because most Chinese words require compound characters nowadays, the word "forever" is more often translated into the two characters shown in the link below.

For the word "love" -- it is more often translated as "to feel attached to" specifically in a romantic sense, and not, say, the love for your parents, your siblings, for your pets, or for the world, but for one single partner who you're in love with, or it could also be interpreted as the kind of love when one is "in love with oneself".

Put together, these two words do not accurately convey the meaning directly translated from English - "forever love", as Chinese grammar is very much different from that of English. The good news is, they are correctly written.. And although may attract some unwanted attention from Chinese readers for being somewhat "unauthentic", the concept could be made out.

Hope that helps!

Simplified Chinese characters for "Eternity" or "Forever" 永远: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%B0%B8%E8%BF%9C
Simplified Chinese character for "Romantic Love" 恋: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%81%8B

Chinese Tattoo Character — Longevity

Sherri sent the following Chinese tattoo confirmation request and the images of her design:

"I got this years ago and have forgotten the meaning. Can you please help me? It is on the inside right ankle."

Hi Sherry,

This looks like a buddha design plus the Chinese character below it in simplified version of the word "longevity" or "long life". Correctly written, culturally non-invasive - not a worry.

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For more information on the differences between Simplified Chinese characters and Traditional Chinese characters, please refer to http://learnchineseez.com/learning-chinese-languages/ under "If you do want to learn Chinese characters, choose the appropriate system".

Steel or Iron?

Travis sent the following with a picture of his tattoo attached:

"My tattoo is located on my arm. When I was in the store they told me the symbol means "steel". The book I got it out of says the same but I looked up the symbol for steel and its not the same symbol. This is my only tattoo."

Hi Travis,

This is the simplified Chinese character of the word "iron". By itself I would probably not stretch it as far as "steel" - as steel is a byproduct of iron, and the word "steel" consists of one more characters.

The reason you see a different character is most likely because traditional Chinese characters are more commonly used in books outside of China (simplified Chinese is used in the People's Republic of China implemented as part of the pre-revolution (around 1950's), while Taiwan, Hong Kong, and most overseas Chinese communities continue to use traditional Chinese, which dates back much longer).