What is it? What's means this tattoo?

[Karlaa_Against]

I need to translate it.

[jkhsu]

Could it be 潔 = clean?

http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&wdrst=1&wdqb=%E6%BD%94

[jbradfor]

That was my guess as well, although the bottom sure looks like a 寸 with an extra dot, rather than a 糸. Or maybe it's one of those "variations" skylee keeps telling me about

[Karlaa_Against]

The owner of the tattoo says that it is AN but I'm sure that is not. A and N are the first letters of a name. I think it maybe will be some letter isolated.

[daofeishi]

Sigh... Chinese doesn't have an alphabet, and therefore no individual letters. A Chinese character is a syllable which may or may not form a complete word by itself. It also usually carries a meaning or a set of different meanings. How could the character possibly represent the letters "AN", or any letter at all?

The only way you could come close is by transcribing the sound of the letters into Chinese, i.e. take the letters A and N and write something like "AY EN". Except, since Chinese syllables have little overlap with English syllables, it would be rendered imperfectly. Perhaps something like "EI AI'NA". That is not what has been done here.

I am puzzled by the amount of people who put so little research into what they permanently ink to their skin that they don't realize that before going to the tattoo shop.

[Shelley]

I have to agree with daofeishi 100%. Why do people do it? This one of those things that really gets me. I asked once before here and was given the one word answer "alcohol". This did seem to make sense, but still I am amazed at the lack of thought in something so permanent. Also I am surprised that people think their local tattooist is an expert in foreign languages.

Shelley

[Karlaa_Against]

That's why it's maybe impossible for me. I"m trying to translate it one month ago and I don't know until now. Someone knows what it means????

[Karlaa_Against]

That's tattoo means some sound in chinese language??????

[daofeishi]

Maybe Hoffman or skylee or someone else with extensive knowledge of the history of Chinese characters can trace the tattoo to some obscure character from bygone ages, but it looks to me like an incorrectly written 潔, a character from the traditional character set that is pronounced jie2 and means "clean".

[jbradfor]

That's tattoo means some sound in chinese language??????

[This isn't a troll, right? I'm not falling for a troll?]

Each character in Chinese has both a meaning and a sound. The meaning is "clean", as has been told you already.

[Karlaa_Against]

JBRADFOR

The owner of this tattoo tells me that its a sound of a name, and when the person did the tattoo, i see she looking a Name's Book. That's why I think that this tattoo means some sound or letter.

I think she lied to me, understand me now?

[renzhe]

I think that it's likely that neither she nor the tattoo guy have any idea of what what it is. It is also possible that the character is simply wrong and does not mean anything, as none of us recognise it. My best guess is also a poorly written 潔, meaning "clean" and read "jie". If the person's name sounds like that (Jay? Gina? Jimmy?) than perhaps that's it.

You won't be surprised to find out that this sort of mess is very common when people get names transcribed into Chinese by tattoo artists with a book of templates.

[mona99]

Well, I think it's "洁", which means "clean". "潔" is the complex form of the simplified Chinese character "洁".