xh207hi Posted December 14, 2013 at 09:24 AM Report Share Posted December 14, 2013 at 09:24 AM Hello, my friend asked me about Chinese way of saying something like "I will fall 6 times, but stand up 7 times" for a tattoo. I guess there must be some kind of a nice chengyu depicting this idea. Could anybody provide me with something? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skylee Posted December 14, 2013 at 09:41 AM Report Share Posted December 14, 2013 at 09:41 AM Consider 百折不撓 http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&wdrst=1&wdqb=%E7%99%BE%E6%8A%98%E4%B8%8D%E6%92%93 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demonic_Duck Posted December 14, 2013 at 11:18 AM Report Share Posted December 14, 2013 at 11:18 AM Obligatory admonishment against getting tattoes in a language one doesn't understand. If the idea your friend wants is "I will fall 6 times, but stand up 7 times", s/he can get a tattoo of that sentence. If that's not cool-looking enough, s/he can get it in a cool-looking font. If that's not Asian enough, s/he can get a stylised picture of some Koi carp with the sentence written underneath (sure, that's Japanese, but what's the difference anyway?) If the requirement is that it can't be understandable to most other people s/he meets, then s/he can just choose a few characters at random from the tattoo parlour's catalogue, it doesn't really matter what they mean anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xh207hi Posted December 16, 2013 at 11:45 AM Author Report Share Posted December 16, 2013 at 11:45 AM @Demonic_Duck: Why do you assume she doesn't know Chinese at all? She is learning the language right now, she is a beginner but knows enough not to be easily fooled. She just doesn't know how to put this thought into a short elegant form, she doesn't know chengyu. She asked me for help, I don't know any useful as well, so I asked here. Not anybody asking for a Chinese tattoo must be a complete ignorant in terms of the language... @skylee: thank you for suggestion! If you have any good idea, please post it, maybe I haven't seen it before during research, and I'm also curious 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demonic_Duck Posted December 16, 2013 at 12:25 PM Report Share Posted December 16, 2013 at 12:25 PM I wasn't assuming she knew nothing about the language, just that she knew fairly little (as indeed you confirmed). It just seems weird to me to take an idea from English and search for the Chinese version to get tattoed on oneself. If it was the other way round, and during the course of her study she'd stumbled upon a cool saying in Chinese (which may or may not have an English equivalent), that would make more sense, at least as long as she was sure of the meaning and particular nuances of said phrase. I mean, a tattoo of something like 千里之行，始于足下 or 三人行，必有我师焉 (sans punctuation) could be cool as they're sayings/ideas that are uniquely Chinese (although I guess these particular ones are too clichéd to be truly cool). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skylee Posted December 16, 2013 at 01:19 PM Report Share Posted December 16, 2013 at 01:19 PM Glad to see learners starting to 拋書包. But why is 百折不撓 inferior to those quoted in #5? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demonic_Duck Posted December 17, 2013 at 12:37 PM Report Share Posted December 17, 2013 at 12:37 PM There's nothing inferior about it. It just seems weird to me to take an English concept, search for a Chinese equivalent, and then get it tattooed on your body, when the original English already expressed exactly what it was you wanted to say. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xh207hi Posted January 6, 2014 at 06:51 AM Author Report Share Posted January 6, 2014 at 06:51 AM One little thing about this particular situation: it's not about an "English concept", in fact, the girl is from non-English speaking country anyway. She chose an English equivalent in pursuit for the Chinese expression, which contains same sense. It's just the matter of general idea of being stronger than the failures, of being always able to overcome them. I don't think it's an English/American concept, do you? I do understand your point though. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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