What do the characters on my ring mean?

[Adventure]

I bought a titanium ring with chinese characters yesterday in a shop in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. There are four characters on the ring. What do the characters mean? Here is a photograph of the ring:

[imron]

It means "my love", where love is the emotion love, and not a person that you love. The calligraphy is not very good, and looks like it was written by either a child or a foreigner.

[monto]

我的爱情

My love , My affection

[Adventure]

Thank you for the answers and quick reply!! What do you mean by "The calligraphy is not very good"? Are the characters written in the wrong way? Or do you mean that they don't looks as beautiful as they should/could?

I can tell from the second post that the first and last characters on the ring looks a bit weird compared to the 我 and 情. That doesn't matter too much. I really like this ring anyway.

But I don't fully understand the meaning behind the words. If the words love and affection don't refer to a person, what do they refer to? Is it just making a statement that the wearer of the ring is a loving and affectionate person?

[skylee]

"The calligraphy is not very good" means that the characters look ugly / childish.

If the words love and affection don't refer to a person, what do they refer to?

The characters on the ring refer to the feelings that one has towards one's lover/spouse, or the relationship between the two persons. To refer to the person that one loves, it would have to be 我的愛人.

But what's important is that you like the ring.

[renzhe]

Thank you for the answers and quick reply!! What do you mean by "The calligraphy is not very good"? Are the characters written in the wrong way?

They are correct, and perfectly readable, just don't look terribly pretty. The person who engraved them almost certainly copied them from a template and doesn't know how to write Chinese. Which is kind of understandable, in Stockholm.

Think of the meaning as "My love (for you)".

[roddy]

Yeah - it's akin to giving someone who can't write English and asking them to copy a few words - you'll be able to read it, but it isn't going to be pretty.

As for 'my love', think of the difference between 'I give you my love' and 'you are my love' - one's the emotion, the other is the object of your affections.

Anyway, at least you didn't get it tattooed on you.

[Lu]

The person who engraved them almost certainly copied them from a template and doesn't know how to write Chinese.

While I agree th calligraphy isn't too good, I do think they look like they were written by a Chinese, but then a Chinese who doesn't have very good-looking handwriting.

Anyway, OP, now you know what it means and you still like the ring a lot, so all is well :-)

[imron]

What do you mean by "The calligraphy is not very good"?

See for example:

[ABCinChina]

I don't think that the calligraphy is that bad and certainly nothing like the picture above. Then again, my written Chinese looks like that of a kindergartener.