Basic Japanese characters. Japanese hieroglyphs for tattoos. Meaning, translation into Russian. Beautiful ancient pictures. Japanese hieroglyphs reflecting the state of mind

Most people who start learning Japanese sooner or later also start learning Japanese characters.
The Japanese have a saying: "How you sit while writing a hieroglyph is how you write it."

That is, the posture while writing the hieroglyph must be correct: the feet are located on the floor, the hips are on a chair parallel to the floor, the back is straight.

By the way, when writing hieroglyphs, the elbows should not be located on the table, but should be gently lowered from the table. The distance between the notebook on which you are writing and your eyes should be sufficient - you do not need to lean forward too much.

In writing hieroglyphs, there are rules - they must be written in a strictly defined order, line by line.

Let's look at other rules:
1. It is very important to write hieroglyphs harmoniously, that is, all parts of the hieroglyph should be arranged so that these parts make up a single hieroglyph. A common mistake beginners to study hieroglyphs is that they write the parts that make up the hieroglyph at a fairly large distance from each other.
Hieroglyphs should be written compactly:

2. Hieroglyphs should be written from left to right or top to bottom.
Let's first look at what types of hieroglyphs are written from top to bottom.

3. follows from left to right.

From left to right, characters are written as follows:

Also, from left to right, small lines are written, following one after another at the bottom of the hieroglyphs:

4. There is a sufficient number of hieroglyphs when one line crosses the entire hieroglyph.
In such cases, this trait is written last:

5. should be written vertically.

Beginners to learn Japanese often make a common mistake - they write characters with an inclination either to the right or to the left. Of course, there are Japanese who write hieroglyphs with a slope, but still they should be written strictly vertically:

So, we have considered the basic rules for writing hieroglyphs.

I hope that they will help you write hieroglyphs correctly and beautifully!

The last and most famous aspect of Japanese writing is kanji. Kanji are Chinese characters adapted for Japanese. Most Japanese words are written in kanji, but the sounds are the same as in hiragana and katakana.

Stroke Order

From the very beginning of the study, pay attention to the correct order and direction of the lines in order to avoid bad habits. Often students don't see the point in stroke order if the result is the same. But they overlook the fact that there are thousands of characters and they are not always written as carefully as they look on print. The correct stroke order helps to recognize characters, even if you write quickly or by hand.

The simplest characters are called radicals, are often used as components of complex characters. Once you learn the stroke order of the radicals and get used to the principle, you will find that it is not difficult to guess the correct order for most kanji.

Most often, strokes are applied from the upper left corner to the lower right. This means that horizontal strokes are usually drawn from left to right, while vertical strokes are drawn from top to bottom. In any case, when in doubt about stroke order, consult a kanji dictionary.

Kanji in the lexicon

There are just over 2,000 characters in modern Japanese, and memorizing each one individually doesn't work as well as hiragana.

An effective strategy for mastering kanji is learning with new words with more context. So to fix in memory, we associate a symbol with contextual information. Kanji are used to represent actual words, so focus on the words and vocabulary rather than the characters themselves.

You'll see how kanji work by learning a few common characters and the words in this paragraph.

Kanji readings

The first kanji we'll learn is 「人」 , the character for "person". This is a simple symbol of two strokes, each of which is applied from top to bottom. You may have noticed that the character from the font does not always look like the handwritten version below. This is another important reason to check stroke order.

Kanji in Japanese have one or more readings, which fall into two categories: kun'yomi(or kun, or kunnoe reading) and on'yomi(or He, or onnoe reading). Kun'yomi is the Japanese reading of the character, while on'yomi is based on the original Chinese pronunciation.

Kun'yomi is mainly used for single character words. As an example, a word with the meaning "person":

人　【ひと】 - person

Kun'yomi is also used for native Japanese words, including most adjectives and verbs.

On'yomi is mostly used for words that come from Chinese, often with two or more kanji. For this reason, onyomi is often written in katakana. More examples will follow as you learn kanji. One very useful example of on'yomi is the addition of 「人」 to country names to describe nationality.

• アメリカ人　【アメリカ・じん】 - American
• フランス人　【ふらんす・じん】 - French

Although most characters do not have many kun'yomi or on'yomi, the most common kanji, like 「人」, have many readings. Here I will only give readings that apply to the words being studied. Learning readings without context in the form of words creates unnecessary confusion, so I do not recommend learning all the readings at once.

Now that we've got the general idea out of the way, let's learn a little more words and their accompanying kanji. The red dots on stroke order diagrams show where each stroke begins.

1. 日本【に・ほん】 - Japan
2. 本【ほん】 - book

1. 高い 【たか・い】 - high; Expensive
2. 学校【がっ・こう】 - school
3. 高校 【こう・こう】 - high school (third stage of education, equivalent to 10-12 grades in our country)

1. 小さい 【ちい・さい】 - small
2. 大きい 【おお・きい】 - big
3. 小学校 【しょう・がっ・こう】 - elementary school (the first stage of education, corresponds to grades 1-6 with us)
4. 中学校 【ちゅう・がっ・こう】 - secondary school (second stage of education, grade 7–9 with us)
5. 大学 【だい・がく】 - college; university
6. 小学生 【しょう・がく・せい】 - elementary school student
7. 中学生 【ちゅう・がく・せい】 - high school student
8. 大学生 【だい・がく・せい】 - student

1. 国 【くに】 - country
2. 中国 【ちゅう・ごく】 - China
3. 中国人 【ちゅう・ごく・じん】 - Chinese

語	Meaning: language
	On'yomi: ゴ

With only 14 characters, we've learned over 25 words - from China to schoolboy! Kanji is usually perceived as a major barrier to learning, but can easily be turned into a valuable tool if studied along with words.

Okurigana and changing readings

You may have noticed that some words end in hiragana, such as 「高い」 or 「大きい」 . Since these are adjectives, the accompanying hiragana, called okurigana, needed for various transformations without affecting the kanji. Remember exactly where the kanji ends and the hiragana begins. You don't have to write 「大きい」 like 「大い」 .

You may also notice that the kanji readings individually do not match the readings in some words. For example, 「学校」 reads 「がっこう」 instead of 「がくこう」 . Readings are often so transformed to facilitate pronunciation.

Ideally, check the reading of each new word for you. Fortunately, with the help of online and electronic dictionaries, finding new kanji is not difficult.
(English)

Kanji is often used to nuance or give a different flavor to the meaning of a word. For some words, it is important to use the correct kanji in the right situation. For example, the adjective 「あつい」 - "hot" - when describing the climate is written as 「暑い」 , and when it is a hot object or person - 「熱い」 .

In other cases, although kanji are used that are valid for all meanings of the chosen word, the author is free to choose characters with a narrow meaning, according to the style. The examples in this book generally use common and simple kanji. Details on using different kanji for the same word can be found in (eng.).

Let's talk about Japanese. It is worth mentioning right away that this language is unique and its position in the system of other languages ​​is still controversial. Usually it is considered as an isolated language, but there is an opinion that Japanese should still be attributed to the Altaic languages. For example, the same language family includes Korean and Mongolian. The total number of Japanese speakers in the world is about 140 million people.

Japanese is the mother tongue of over 125 million Japanese. In its grammatical structure, it is agglutinative, that is, the language in which the main way of word formation is agglutination, that is, an abundance of various suffixes and prefixes, due to which words change form. Japanese also expresses grammatical meanings synthetically: synthetic languages ​​express grammatical meanings within the word itself through stress, internal inflection, and so on. The Russian language is also classified as a synthetic language.

Usually, when teaching Japanese to foreigners, it is called "nihongo", that is, literally "Japanese". In Japan itself, as part of its native culture, it is called "kokugo" - the national language. I will not go into the history of the origin of the Japanese language yet, this is an even more controversial and complex issue than its position in the world system of languages.

I called this post "Three Types of Japanese Writing" for a reason, because there are exactly three of them. Moreover, two of them are generally unique, and one, let's say, is not at all unique =) I'll start a little from afar. It is often argued in which direction the Japanese write. It's simple: there is a traditional way, borrowed from the Chinese - characters are written from top to bottom, and columns go from right to left. This method is still used in newspapers and fiction.

Things are different in scientific sources: there you often have to use Western terms, so the characters are written in the usual way for us - from left to right, in lines. In general, horizontal writing was officially adopted only in 1959, and is now used everywhere. It sometimes happens that the symbols go horizontally, but from right to left - a rare case used on signs and slogans, but in fact in this case just each column consists of one character. That's all, today the Japanese for the most part write like us.

Now, actually, to the topic of this post. The first part of Japanese writing, which I will talk about, is called "kanji" - these are hieroglyphs borrowed from China. This term literally translates as "Han letters", this is one of the Chinese dynasties. An example kanji is 武士道 (literally "", the first two characters mean "warrior", the last one means "way").

Presumably, this type of writing came to Japan in the 5th century AD along with Buddhist monks. Each hieroglyph represents a certain meaning or its abstract expression, that is, one character can be either a whole word or meaning, or part of a word. Today, kanji are used to write the stems of nouns, adjectives, and verbs, and their number has been reduced to two thousand. Showing all the kanji here would be a bit of an odd act, so I'm only showing a group of characters that require 18 hand movements to write.

In those days when Chinese characters got into, the country did not have its own script. Then, to record Japanese words, the writing system “Manyogana” was created, its essence is that words are written in Chinese characters not in meaning, but in sound. Further, the man'yōgana, written in italics, is converted into "hiragana" - a writing system for women.

In ancient Japan, higher education was not available to them and the study of kanji was closed to them. In parallel with hiragana, "katakana" arose - the most simplified man'yogana. As a result, these two alphabets turned into modern katakana and hiragana, the first types of writing studied in the elementary grades of Japanese schools. In these alphabets, each character is a syllable, since the Japanese language has a clear syllabic structure.

Based on the 46 basic hiragana characters and a few additional icons, you can write anything in Japanese. Katakana is commonly used to write foreign words, terms, names, and so on. Hiragana, on the other hand, I write down native Japanese words. For example, let's take the same phrase - the Way of the Warrior. In Japanese it is read as "Bushido". In hiragana, it looks like this - ぶしどう. And in katakana it's ブシドイ. Below are two character tables with readings, first hiragana, below katakana.

The symbols of syllabic alphabets are more often used to write those same suffixes and prefixes. As for kanji, compared to the Chinese "hanzi", they have a lot of purely Japanese additions: some hieroglyphs were invented in Japan ("kokuji"), some have changed their meaning ("kokkun"). There is also an old and a new way of writing the same thing - "kyūjitai" and "shinjitai" respectively.

In general, this topic is very extensive, and I have not written much here, but I think there is no point in closing the topic for the time being.

Various characters, especially Japanese ones, are among the most popular tattoo designs in many countries. They are characterized by mystery and originality, because the meaning of this pattern is not known to anyone except the owner of the tattoo. And under the image of an elegant hieroglyph, both deep meaning and strong energy, as well as ridiculous nonsense, can be hidden.

Japanese hieroglyphs for tattoos in Russia have spread relatively recently. They have become quite popular due to the rich history and original culture of Japan. Such a painting on the body is unusually beautiful, and with the help of skillfully applied signs, you can tell a lot about yourself.

Experienced masters make sure that a tattoo in the form of a hieroglyph is not just a beautiful picture, but carries a deep meaning. The meaning of such drawings is so diverse that almost anyone can choose an image that is suitable for him.

such tattoos are popular due to the fact that they look harmonious and stylish on any part of the body and in different sizes - from large to small.

How to understand the meaning of a tattoo?

Such tattoos theoretically belong to the category of "inscriptions". But if we consider the hieroglyph by analogy with the letters of the alphabet, then it does not have such a specific meaning.

It always has a certain verbal meaning:

• Love;
• health;
• happiness;
• life;
• family.

One hieroglyph can represent a symbol or a whole sentence. To minimize the chance of mistakes and unpleasant situations, it is recommended to choose well-known and popular characters that will not have a negative meaning in any spelling.

An important point is the arrangement of strokes above the HIEROGLYPH - Depending on their location, the same signs acquire a different meaning.

How to choose a sketch

For a tattoo, you need an idea for its implementation, and not every person has a specific idea of ​​\u200b\u200bhis future tattoo. And the selection of a sketch of a Japanese character needs to be done even more carefully, since this is not an arbitrary combination of lines, but a symbol with a great semantic load.

1. Decide which character pattern you would like on your skin. To do this, you can look at different images on the Internet and print the ones you like the most before meeting with the master - a good example will best explain your wishes and preferences.
2. You should clearly and specifically talk about what kind of hieroglyph you need to perform, having previously found out its meaning and possible nuances of its application.
3. It is necessary to take into account the size and location on the body. For a small tattoo, it is better to choose a simple hieroglyph with thin lines and without busting with too small strokes.

Since after some time the patterns on the skin lose their brightness and clarity of lines, it is better to choose signs printed in black.

Location of the tattoo

Hieroglyphic signs need not only the correct definition of their content, but also a careful selection of the place of application. Despite the fact that they look good almost everywhere, you should clearly consider the composition of the desired symbols on the skin.

The most popular for this are:

• neck, back of the head;
• back (along the spine);
• hands (wrists, forearms, shoulders);
• hips.

The most difficult to draw a picture on the following parts of the body:

• face;
• fingers;
• ribs;
• Feet;
• genitals.

Composition and color scheme

Japanese hieroglyphs for tattoos are usually done in black. But there are also symbols using 5 primary colors, each of which carries a certain meaning.

Color	Meaning
blue green	In Japan, this is one color, which is denoted by the word "aoi". It represents the wind and is considered the most fickle element, which can embody both the calmness of the sky and trees, and the destructive power of a hurricane.
Red	Symbolizes fire, sun, energy and development. According to the Japanese, this color protects from evil and brings joy, peace, good luck to the house.
Yellow	Associated with earth, gold, constancy and prosperity.
White	The most controversial in the Japanese color scheme. It simultaneously personifies both mourning and a talisman from the other world.

In tattoos, the aforementioned shades are used to give more expressiveness and energy. For example, to increase its favorable meaning, the hieroglyph is surrounded by a red line. You can make the tattoo unusual and original by carefully inscribing the symbol into any pattern or image.

For example, decorate a hieroglyph in different colors or draw it in three-dimensional form.

Things to remember before applying

The key point before applying a hieroglyph to the body is to carefully study its meaning and combination with other signs. Incorrect use of a symbol can lead to its opposite meaning. or leave the tattoo owner with a silly or indecent inscription.

Therefore, before contacting the master, you need to consider the desired drawing in detail and clarify its content in specialized literature or from people who know Japanese calligraphy. You should not shift the entire responsibility for the concept of such a tattoo to the tattoo artist.

The master is responsible only for the technique and aesthetics of execution, knowledge of all unusual symbols is not his responsibility.

Features of applying tattoos in the form of hieroglyphs

Before performing a tattoo, you need to provide the master with a sketch and determine the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe skin for its implementation. When everything you need is selected, preparation for the process begins.

It consists of the following:

1. Removal of unwanted hair from the skin, if necessary
2. Applying an anesthetic gel or spray.
3. Treatment of the skin with an antiseptic.
4. Transferring the pattern to the skin using special paper or a regular pen.
5. Driving ink into an image using a needle from a special tattoo machine.

Video about what you need to know before applying a tattoo:

It is important to remember that a tattoo is done for life, so before performing a tattoo in the form of a hieroglyph, you need to study and weigh all the pros and cons. Also, a sketch on paper will always differ from the original, so this must be discussed with the master in advance in order to avoid disputes and unpleasant situations.

Popular Japanese characters

Few know that most of the Japanese characters are taken from the Chinese script. Now there are those that were invented in the country of the Rising Sun. They differ from Chinese characters in greater simplicity and conciseness.

Japanese hieroglyphs for tattoos are not just drawings on the body, but real philosophical symbols that can become talismans for their carriers. Most of them contain a positive meaning, which has become another reason for their popularity.

For example:

• Happiness- this sign denotes harmony, awakening inner strength, openness. It should be applied in an oriental style, using traditional Japanese symbols.
• Double Happiness- one of the most popular signs. Known as a strong talisman for the fulfillment of the most cherished desires. It is recommended to fill it for happiness and understanding with your loved one.
• Love- most often means mutual tender feelings. It also helps to resolve external and internal contradictions, so it is recommended to fill the sign in the heart area.
• Luck- such a hieroglyph really brings luck and positive changes in life. Many use this tattoo as a personal wearable amulet.
• Eternity. The literal translation of this symbol is: "Joy and happiness will be eternal."
• Force- strengthens physical strength and spiritual energy, also suitable for improving relationships in marriage and family.
• Fire- the sign schematically depicts a fire with flames. Since ancient times, people have feared and respected this element, so the application of such a hieroglyph should be treated thoughtfully and carefully.
• Water- a strong key sign, vaguely resembling a forked river.
• Air- for the Japanese, it is, first of all, an energy flow of thoughts and information. The meaning of this hieroglyph is multifaceted, and it will embody various meanings - air, steam, wind, mood, state of mind.
• Earth- has some resemblance to a cross and resembles a hill or mountain.

More you can get a tattoo with a Japanese proverb or quote, but about this, you should consult the master in detail, and not independently compose sentences from hieroglyphs.

Japanese characters for men

The representatives of the stronger sex like tattoos that evoke associations with strength and courage.

Therefore, the following Japanese characters are a common choice for tattoos among men:

• fire;
• wind;
• victory;
• force;
• samurai;
• warrior;
• courage;
• honor;
• independence.

Also, guys are often attracted to signs that evoke associations with animal strength, courage and courage.

Such as:

• the Dragon;
• tiger;
• bear;
• wolf.

Usually men do not hide their tattoos. On the contrary, they often demonstrate them by stuffing them on prominent parts of the body - on the arms and neck.

Japanese characters for women

Japanese hieroglyphs for tattoos are of great interest to women as well. These images are the best. After all, it is not common for girls to apply too large and noticeable tattoos, and such symbols look beautiful and stylish both on open areas of the body and closed from prying eyes.

Most often, women choose hieroglyphs for tattoos with positive feelings and positive characteristics.

For example:

• Love;
• family, home;
• loyalty;
• soul;
• eternity;
• dream;
• happiness;
• beauty;
• sea.

Even among the fair sex, signs symbolizing the constellations of the zodiac, seasons, various flowers and plants are popular.

Animal designation

Representatives of both sexes often apply hieroglyphic drawings denoting animals on the body. In Japan, such signs have a sacred meaning., therefore, they should also be stuffed deliberately, and not as a tribute to fashion. Some representatives of the animal world have gained special love and popularity in tattooing in the form of Japanese characters.

• The Dragon is one of the most popular Japanese characters. Denotes ancient wisdom, nobility, power and courage. In the land of the Rising Sun, this mythological creature is a harbinger of happiness and good luck. After all, the dragon is full of frantic vitality, activity and fire, he is not capable of meanness and duplicity.
• Tiger- symbolizes leadership, courage and steadfastness. In ancient times, it was revered by the Japanese as one of the sacred animals along with the dragon.
• Wolf- is considered a magical beast and personifies justice, freedom and fearlessness. He is also the embodiment of devotion to his family, as he is faithful only to the she-wolf he has chosen.
• Cat- in Japan, this animal is especially revered, both in ancient times and in the present day. This is one of the most diverse representatives of the animal world in terms of meanings and symbolism. The image of a cat is associated with independence, with mystery, grace, as well as with home and family comfort.
• Fox- is often mentioned in Japanese legends as a magical and mysterious beast. They are considered spirits that are not related to the forces of good or evil, and their main task is to monitor the balance of light and dark. This hieroglyph will reflect magic, cunning and patience.
• Snake- this creature in mythology is called a small dragon, but it has both positive and negative qualities.

In a positive sense, the snake symbolizes wisdom, talent, justice.

Mystical hieroglyphs

In tattoo parlors, Japanese signs are in demand, which denote worldview, lifestyle, and mystery.

Such as:

• Karma- according to Buddhist philosophy, it depends on what actions its owner performed, righteous or sinful.
• Eternity- in its outline, this hieroglyph is very similar to the sign "water" due to the fact that the Japanese personified its flow over time.
• eternal journey- this phrase consists of four characters, in which the sign of eternity is also based on the symbol of water. The red calligraphic seal of the author is placed at the very bottom of the inscription.
• Emptiness- a hieroglyph that is quite rich in semantic load, despite the first impression of the meaning of this word. Denotes attachment to illusory things that have no real value.

It is believed that mystical symbols leave a certain imprint on the life path of a person and his development.

Japanese hieroglyphs reflecting the state of mind

There is a small group of Japanese characters that can be applied to any part of the body. They reflect the state of mind of a person, his emotions, desires, goals. Such tattoos, despite the general meaning, will not be banal, but, on the contrary, will add individuality to the style of its owner.

These tattoos include:

• faith;
• good;
• harmony;
• joy;
• calm.

Japanese characters tattoo on the neck

Tattooed hieroglyphs are stuffed on the neck more often than on other parts of the body. Here, in any case, the tattoo will not go unnoticed, so here it is applied by bright and self-confident personalities.

A tattoo on the neck can be placed in several ways:

• a large character denoting one word or semantic phrase;
• 2-3 hieroglyphs placed in a vertical sequence and denoting wisdom;
• from 5 signs that are compiled into a well-known aphorism or parable.

There are several hieroglyphic images that are recommended to be applied specifically to the neck:

• angel;
• wealth;
• update;
• purity.

japanese hieroglyph tattoo on stomach

The belly is a hidden part of the body, so a tattoo with a personal meaning should be applied here, which can become a talisman and save you from trouble. If the tattoo does not serve such a purpose, then you need to choose a hieroglyph with a positive meaning and energy.

according to philosophy, there are many sources of vitality in the abdomen.

Japanese character tattoo on arm

On the hands and wrists, especially for girls, such hieroglyphs look very stylish and expressive, such as:

• beauty;
• dream;
• Love;
• harmony;
• happiness.

There is a sign that the sign of "double happiness" in the hands of a childless husband and wife helps them become parents.

Japanese characters tattoo on the back

The back is another popular place for tattooing. Masters often associate this part of the body with the canvas, on which there are much more opportunities to show imagination.

A few significant advantages to choosing this place:

• freedom for self-expression;
• tattoo on the back is easy to hide under clothes;
• you can make a composition with symmetrical hieroglyphs, focusing on the spine as an axis.

With the help of a tattoo, you can both hide the flaws of the figure and show its advantages.

Japanese character tattoo on leg

On the leg, a tattoo in the form of hieroglyphs is most often stuffed by girls and order the drawing mainly on the thigh and on the foot in the ankle area. The first version of the image embodies the combination of chastity and severity of Japanese symbols with eroticism attached to the selected part of the body.

Signs on the foot emphasize beauty and fragility.

Japanese character tattoo on the shoulder

The owners of tattoos on the shoulders are most often representatives of the stronger sex who thus seek to further emphasize their masculinity, strength and courage. For a tattoo on this part of the body, any hieroglyph is suitable, provided that its meaning and composition are chosen correctly.

Japanese character tattoo on chest

The chest is also an advantageous area for applying three-dimensional tattooed images. Due to the fact that this part of the body is not as smooth as the back, the pattern can turn out to be voluminous. Therefore, it is here that the application of the hieroglyph in the form of 3D will be successful.

Japanese hieroglyphs for tattoos are usually done in black.

It is also believed that Japanese symbols, being close to the heart, protect and protect. After getting a tattoo on the chest, you need to follow some rules for caring for it, namely: wear loose clothes, do not sleep on your stomach, and women will have to not wear a bra for a while.

Japanese characters tattoo on the lower back

Drawings in the form of hieroglyphic writing on the lower back will first of all evoke associations with sensuality and temptation, despite the meaning of the applied symbols. After all, the lower back is located next to the intimate areas, but it does not apply to them.

Such tattoos cause erotic interest not only in girls, but also in guys. In addition, the lower back changes less than other parts of the body when the figure changes, and the image will not lose its attractiveness.

Japanese character tattoo on forearm

Tattoos on the forearm of a man are usually in black. and reflect strength, uncompromisingness, sharpness. In this case, the hieroglyphs will not be an exception to the rule and will be selected according to the same principles.

For a female, a tattoo in this area is an opportunity for decoration and self-expression with almost no unpleasant pain. Girls usually try not to cover the entire skin of the forearm with a pattern. Their favorites in this regard will certainly be Japanese characters on the front or back of the hand.

Japanese characters tattoo on the spine

In the East, the spine is considered the focus of human energy and the most powerful energy channel. The hieroglyphs applied to it are able to enhance the vitality without revealing their true meaning to others. In addition, Japanese symbols along the vertebrae look stylish, impressive and unusual.

Celebrities with Japanese character tattoos

Britney Spears chose a sign for herself, the translation of which means the word "strange". Although the goal of the singer was to get a tattoo with the inscription "mystical". This situation once again proves that the choice of oriental signs for a tattoo must be treated carefully and scrupulously.

Symbolism for a tattoo, made in the form of hieroglyphs, primarily reflects the inner world and individuality of its owner.

Japanese culture is characterized by external restraint and deep inner content, therefore, one should be extremely careful when applying such a body pattern, since the East does not tolerate a frivolous attitude towards its traditions.

Article formatting: E. Chaikina

A useful video clip about Japanese hieroglyphs for a tattoo

The plot of the history of the appearance of hieroglyphs:

Tattoos in the form of Chinese and Japanese characters are very popular in European countries. The hieroglyphs of the tattoo carry originality and mysticism, since their meaning is practically unknown to anyone except the owner himself. But, despite this, under a seemingly simple symbol, a deep meaning and powerful energy can be hidden. In fact, only Europeans put Chinese and Japanese characters on their bodies, while the inhabitants of these Asian countries prefer English inscriptions, moreover, written with grammatical errors. Be that as it may, hieroglyphs are very difficult to translate.

Before choosing any sketch you like, take some time to find out the exact meaning of the symbols. Otherwise, you can get into an unpleasant situation, for example, the one that happened two years ago with a German teenager. Having paid 180 euros, the young man asked the tattoo artist to apply Chinese characters to him, meaning "love, respect, obey."

Having made a long-awaited tattoo, the guy went to rest in China. What was his surprise when Chinese waitresses in restaurants constantly paid attention to him. The young man decided to ask why his tattoo causes such an effect. Having learned the correct translation of his hieroglyphs, the young man was shocked. On his arm was the inscription "At the end of the day I become an ugly boy." Returning home, it turned out that the tattoo parlor was closed. The unlucky boy had to do laser tattoo removal for 1200 euros.

If you still decide to make tattoo hieroglyphs, find out their meaning in advance in authoritative reference books, or choose from the most popular and sought-after symbols.

The meaning of hieroglyphs

Chinese characters tattoo

Zi is the name of the traditional Chinese script used to write official documents in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other Chinese settlements. The Chinese "alphabet" (let's call it so conditionally) contains 47,000 Zi characters. In order to improve the literacy of the population, the government passed a law to simplify the writing system. Many dashes, sticks and dots have disappeared from use.

The Chinese themselves say that it takes only 4,000 characters to speak and write Chinese fluently. Yes, hieroglyphs are really difficult both to write and to translate. However, there is already a definite trend for tattoos. The most popular and sought after hieroglyphs of a tattoo are symbols meaning love, strength, family, luck, peace, fire. This does not mean that your choice is limited to these words. With the help of Chinese tattoos, you can express your positive or negative emotions, inspire yourself with encouraging words, or capture a pleasant moment in your memory.

Japanese characters tattoo

Japanese hieroglyphic tattoos, like Chinese ones, are popular almost everywhere, except for these countries themselves. Writing in Japan consists of three systems: kanji, katakana, and hiragana. Kanzi is the most common of the three. The characters from this system came from Chinese writing. However, Japanese characters are easier to write. In total, the alphabet has 50,000 characters, most of which belong to nouns. Katakana is used mainly for loanwords, internationalisms, and proper names. Hiragana is responsible for adjectives and other grammatical phenomena. Tattoos based on the symbols of this system are much less common than the previous two.

Many celebrities have chosen Japanese characters as tattoos. For example, Britney Spears chose a symbol that translates as "weird". However, in fact, the singer wanted to get a tattoo with the inscription "mystical". Melanie C, an ex-peppercorn, has never hidden her girlish strength. The phrase "Girl Power" was the band's motto. It was these words that Mel C tattooed on her shoulder. Pink expressed her happiness with a Japanese tattoo of the same name.

Would you like a tattoo like this?We look forward to your comments!