Tattoo a quote in a foreign language: Mistakes to avoid

A quote in a foreign language: a great classic tattoo

Lyrics, philosophy quotes or simply translations of our favorite words: tattooing in a foreign language assumes that the future tattooer knows what he is talking about… and this is not always the case. correct.

Know the vocabulary and conjugations of the target language

There's nothing wrong with getting a tattoo in a foreign language, but remember to write a meaningful sentence. Therefore, having a tattoo in English, German, Italian or Spanish requires the tattooist to know how to write correctly in the chosen language. Not every tattoo artist will be nervous about putting ink under the skin. You must know how to choose the right vocabulary to use and know the conjugations at hand. To correctly translate a Skull hoodies quote in a foreign language, don't take the first word in a dictionary without understanding what it refers to. A word can have many meanings. Also, be careful with online translators who translate roughly. Finally, it is clear that oral transcription should be avoided. Just because a word is pronounced one way does not necessarily mean that it is written as one hears it.

Tattoo in a foreign language: pay attention to the position of the word

To avoid ending up like Rihanna with the "Rebellious Flower" tattoo instead of the "Rebellion Flower" tattoo, you shouldn't just translate individual words into the target language. In Rihanna's case, the words appear to have been translated this way and joined together as is the case in English, namely, adjectives preceded by nouns. However, in French, adjectives are usually placed after the noun they modify. A mistake that could have been avoided if the male singer had consulted a local.

Please read through the quote before tattooing it

Even if there are techniques to remove it, a tattoo is theoretically indelible. It would be a pity to end up with a big mistake in the middle of the arm. The best way not to make a mistake in a tattoo is to seek the advice of one or more native speakers or an expert in the target language. It is also possible to use a sentence already in the selected language. This is the case with lyrics or some literary and poetic quotes. This avoids translation errors. Of course, it is still necessary to be able to reproduce them without making any mistakes.

Strange quotes can have different meanings

Arabic, Sanskrit, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Thai… These writing systems are certainly aesthetically pleasing but above all they have meaning. Knowing how to reproduce signs or hieroglyphs is not everything, you have to understand what is being said and also take into account the complexity of the language used. First, some Skull 3D systems are read from left to right, right to left, or top to bottom. Therefore, the position of words will vary from system to system. You must avoid "copying and pasting" a quote into another system at the risk of having a sentence unintelligible to native speakers. In addition, several signs can be linked together to form another word. This is the case of hieroglyphs that can have different meanings if they are linked with other hieroglyphs.

Tattooing a quote in imaginary language: an advantage?

To avoid being made fun of by an unfortunate spelling mistake or misplaced word in a sentence, there's a pretty tempting alternative: tattooing in an imaginary language, such as Elvish. Sure, these beautiful patterns make sense, and like any language, it would be a shame to limit them to the beauty of the written word. However, the advantage of tattooing the Elvish letter is that few people can decipher these symbols, so if there is a mistake, almost no one knows. However, don't go to the Lord of the Rings fan convention...