CHINESE SYMBOLS FOR TATTOOS
Is this one or two Chinese symbols?

CHINESE SYMBOLS FOR TATTOOS

When people want to use Chinese symbols for tattoos, they often feel confused when an English word is represented with more than one symbol in Chinese. They wonder whether they have to choose one of the two or have to apply them together. In other words, the question is whether these two Chinese symbols can be separated. The answer is no, they cannot be separated. For example, the English word "beauty" can be written in Chinese with a single Chinese character. But some other words, such as "Nirvana" have two separate Chinese characters in them and these cannot be separated without altering or truncating the meaning.

This is somewhat similar to English words such as "breakfast" which actually consist of the words "break" and "fast" but should always be read together to have the meaning of "breakfast." At the same time, each Chinese character or symbol has its own meaning. For instance, the word for "karma" is made up of the characters meaning "cause" and "result." Now if you take the two parts apart, you will end up with either cause or causation but not karma. Karma is the combination of the two. Stephen Bekes The Origins of Chinese writing Direction of Chinese tattoos Chinese symbols and tattoos Mistakes in Chinese tattoos Chinese symbols - How many are of them? Chinese symbols - Letters or Pictures? Chinese writing - Symbols or alphabet? Pictographs versus letters The Chinese zodiac Origins of kanji The Chinese alphabet The non-ideographic nature of Chinese writing Get your favorite kanji Why are Chinese symbols popular? In search of the Chinese alphabet Number of symbols in Chinese names Goddess of Mercy good luck plaque Funniest Chinese subtitles