Alvetjarn Report post Posted March 28, 2013 It's popular to use Kenji and Japaneese signs in the patterns and I found a little translation tool online which might be interesting for carving: http://kanji.saiohgama.com/ Tips: Change the font color to #000000 to get better contrast. Attached an example of the word "Dragon" Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shooter55 Report post Posted March 30, 2013 Be careful. I've seen sites like this (especially free ones) that do not translate what you put in. Check it out. It could say "girly man" for all we know. Just a little caveat . Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Yetiusmc Report post Posted May 11, 2013 Shooter is correct. I lived in Japan for 3 years, and this was a common problem. We would get a lot of laughs at people who had kanji tattoos that were done in the states, only to find the translation a bit off. It does work both ways however. We saw many shirts that said things like "Rainbows sound softly". Sure kanji characters can go together fine, but add in the masculine or feminine connotation, and characters also have individual contexts when used in combination with other characters. My humble opinion, only use them (or any language for that mater) when written or looked at by someone who is literate in it! Just my 2 cents! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lwm803 Report post Posted May 24, 2013 (edited) The second example in the original post is actually Katakana rather than Kanji. There are actually less than 50 Katakana characters, each represents a 1 or 2 letter syllable so is really not that difficult to learn. The Japanese word for dragon is actually Ryuu or Tatsu (as shown above beside the Kanji character. The Katakana is the word "dragon" spelled out phonetically; do-ra-go-n. I got the impression, during my 5 year stay in Japan courtesy of the USAF, that Katakana was generally used to sound out words that are not native to the Japanese language. The bonus being that once you learn to read Katakana, chances are you will know the meaning of the word as chances are good it is English (but can be any language). I have to constantly remind myself when I make statements about Japan that my impression is frozen in the late 60's to mid 70's. Thus many of my impressions are outdated these days. Edited May 24, 2013 by lwm803 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
