Many people get tattoos that have meaningful messages to commemorate special moments or loved ones. The words are inked onto your body forever, which is why it’s important to get the spelling right.
One woman took to TikTok to deliver some bad news about an incorrect tattoo translation. As a sweet gesture, a man decided to get his partner’s initials tattooed in Chinese on the top of his back. In his original video, he takes off his hoodie to reveal the meaningful ink, located on the back of his neck.
Shannon, the woman who called out the incorrect translation, slammed the tattoo by revealing the actual meaning of the words he got inked on his skin. The Hong Kong resident said the three words actually meant “test,” “special” and “Buddhist nun” instead of whatever name he had originally planned for.
The video on Shannon’s caption read: “You can’t translate “qiu ke wen” to English so what make u think the reverse works well.” The breakdown of what each character translates to is different since Chinese is not a phonetic language, meaning the pronunciation of a word is not related to how it is written.
Many people in the comments of the video pointed out the man may have used Google Translate to help find his partner’s name but in reality, there is no direct translation. One person wrote: “There’s no translation for Courtney in Chinese… he just ‘spelt’ it phonetically which translates to very random words that don’t make sense.”
Another joked: “What if her name is Ms. Test Special Buddhist-Nun?”
This definitely isn’t the first time that someone has committed to a poorly translated tattoo and it certainly won’t be the last.
Source: https://www.tiktok.com/@shannon.iao/video/7115379502464781570