can someone translate this please

[kthruz143]

http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg200/kthruz143/010.jpg

[muyongshi]

It doesn't mean anything. The pronunciation is zài kè and to me sounds like it might be a phonetic name: Zack.

[dalaowai]

Literal translation could be translated as "at customer".

[leeyah]

在客 literally means to be a guest, 在他乡, i.e. away from one's homeplace, a guest in a strange place. For those of you who can read Chinese here's the usage of 在客 in context.

Even if it reads 'zai ke' I don't think it is used as a transliteration of the name Zack, or if it is, then it's a wrong one, as Zack should be 扎克, 'za ke'.

[muyongshi]

在客 literally means to be a guest, 在他乡, i.e. away from one's homeplace, a guest in a strange place. For those of you who can read Chinese here's the usage of 在客 in context.

Even if it reads 'zai ke' I don't think it is used as a transliteration of the name Zack, or if it is, then it's a wrong one, as Zack should be 扎克, 'za ke'.

I'm coming at this from a certain perspective: it's a tatoo. Why would you have that tatooed on you unless it is a (bad) transliteration of a name. I guess there could be some hidden meaning but come on.... that's digging pretty deep.

[muyongshi]

And may I also point out that it is so infrequently used, and even in the example you gave it was used in "" meaning that it was inferring a special meaning, not as a straight forward usage.

Also, it is a place name, but I doubt that in the end is relevant to the meaning for the OP.

Edited July 15, 2009 at 07:36 AM by muyongshi
misspelling

[imron]

Unfortunately, it's also not very nice calligraphy.

[leeyah]

Muyongshi, Imron: I agree with both of you, given the meaning of 在客 it is a weird choice of characters for a tattoo, and the calligraphy is not very good looking either, but the person wearing it is not aware of this.

I can understand the thirst for exotic stuff, like Chinese character tattoos, but it's a risky business to have a tattoo in a language you know nothing about. I wonder if there's a way to remove a tattoo? & I think there is a thread on the risk of choosing a random Chinese character tattoo somewhere on the forum...

Anyway, here's a perfect example of cheating people with false name transliterations. So, whoever tattooed 在客 on the person on OP's pic above, is probably just another cheat who couldn't care less what the characters mean, so long as they look Chinese, and he gets paid for making it.

[kthruz143]

i was told it was the name Zack in english

[imron]

Have a read of this thread and this thread to get an understanding of why it doesn't mean Zack, but is rather just an approximation of the pronunciation using characters that sound sort of similar, but mean something completely different. For reference, when I say sort of similar, the characters in the tattoo sound somewhat similar to "dziker"

[muyongshi]

The pronunciation is zài kè and to me sounds like it might be a phonetic name: Zack.

i was told it was the name Zack in english

Damn, I'm getting better at guessing those stupid phonetic transliterations.