So many translations.. please help.

[123danielle123]

I understand..

so what do you think of my drawing of those characters..

Im having a problem drawing them out without seeing them written.. Just seeing them in a font doesnt let me see a flow of the characters.. Do you know what I mean?

I felt like I was able to render what my sisters friend wrote a lot better because I was able to see that aspect of the characters..

any ideas

[123danielle123]

I dont suppose anyone would be willing to write it down for me and then scan it in and post it would they?

It doesnt have to be fancy or anything.. just so i could see the flow of the writing.

[yelei_1981]

I strongly suggest "没理由的爱". See, we don't have to let "love" lead the sentence when we translate it into Chinese.

[skylee]

Perhaps these links are helpful (although I don't think "爱无条件" is a good choice) -

爱 -> http://www.csulb.edu/~txie/azi/b0aej.gif

无 -> http://www.csulb.edu/~txie/azi/cedej.gif

条 -> http://www.csulb.edu/~txie/azi/ccf5j.gif

件 -> http://www.csulb.edu/~txie/azi/bcfe.gif

[123danielle123]

what is the translation for "没理由的爱" ?

[123danielle123]

and skylee those are helpful, I dont want to have to ask you to find me the links to all the character I may need, so how did you search for them so I can do it myself.

[yelei_1981]

no reason = "没理由"

love = "爱"

so I think "Love is no reason" = "没理由的爱"

[skylee]

You can find the animated stroke orders here -> http://www.csulb.edu/~txie/azi/page1.htm

[123danielle123]

well i cant search that way, that goes according to pronunciation? and I can't speak the language.. but thank you. I may end up going with individual words not trying to form a sentence, just a statement.. Since It is proving so difficult to do the sentence.

Something like

Life

Love

Art

This is the symbol for Love right 爱

so now i just need to find Life and Art..

I think this is the best way for me to go since I am on a time frame for the project Im working on.

[renzhe]

Life and art are a bit more difficult, and it depends on what exactly you want to express. Finding a single character may be hard.

生活 = life

生命 = life (force)

生 and 命 can both mean life on their own, but 生 primarily means "birth" or "growth", so it's vague. 命 mostly comes up in variations on 革命, which means "revolution".

Art is also complicated because I believe that westerners have a slightly different understanding of the concept. For us, "art" usually means something pretty, something decorative. But the word "art" can also be applied in the sense of "arts and crafts", a highly developed skill.

The character 术 is often translated as "art", but it refers more to the skill. This is why westerners often misunderstand the term "martial art", which is a translation of the characters for Wushu, and think that it's an artistic form of ballet and interpret all sorts of things into that, when the meaning is more closely translated by "martial skill".

艺术 means art, the way most of us understand the word "art"

美术 means fine arts, things like painting, sculpture, etc.

As you can see, the meanings of characters are very complex and often depend on the context. Pulling a character out of any context means you will likely have to do a lot of explaining every time someone asks you what your tattoo means.

I'm not a native speaker, I'm sure people will correct the more blatant errors

[muyongshi]

I think though that 艺 better carriers the overall meaning over art.

[123danielle123]

生

活

爱

艺

术

does that work.. I mean as single statements?

Life

Love

Art

[zachzachdd]

I think "爱无条件“ will be the best out of all. And hold on a sec, I am scanning the stoke order for you.

[zachzachdd]

hope this may help. using marker, so it's not very pretty.

[muyongshi]

Honestly no!

Chinese has a way of saying things where if you use two syllable words you use it consistently and if you use one syllable words you use it consistently. It helps with the rhythm and flow of the whole thing.

So 生活爱情艺术 would work in this sense but it still sounds funny

It would be better to do single character statements like 命爱艺. Still doesn't sound the best but it is better and before you ask no you can't use 活 as a single character in this situation.

[renzhe]

I was going to suggest "爱情" as a two-character word for "love", but it only means the man-woman love of the romantic kind, not love in general.

[muyongshi]

There's another kind??????

[renzhe]

Well, love for your family, love for your friends, your dog, "The Lord loves you!", stuff like that.

[123danielle123]

zac

thanks, what does that translate to exactly?

I am so grateful to you for going through the trouble of giving me those strokes and the order. Its going to be a great help to me.

[muyongshi]

There's really not a noun to describe that kind of love that is separate from 爱