Can anyone help translate from English to Chinese ideograms?

[Guest stryker]

I am hoping someone can help with translating an English phrase into Chinese ideograms. It is a phrase that has a lot of personal meaning to me, and I am thinking of getting it tattooed on my back. The ideograms are for two reasons. The first is that I like the way they look! The second is that the message is personal, so I don't want every person to be able to read it (I am in Australia).

The phrase is "every end is a beginning". I had a troubled few years that saw me in a pretty self destructive cycle. I had a very good friend killed in a horrible way, and I thought for a while I was not going to be able to survive the time. There were a few things that kept me going, and one was trying to think that things would get better, and that every end in life was a new beginning of another phase (when one door closes another opens, that kind of thing). Anyway, that is the short explanation!

Thanks to anyone who is able to help me! Feel free to post here or e-mail to js25@hotmail.com.

[confucius]

Get yourself a dictionary of Chinese idioms and I'm confident the four character phrase you're looking for will appear.

[Tsunku]

Second confucius' idea. We could translate that word for word but it would just sound funny, it wouldn't have the deeper meaning you're looking for.

[Quest]

I am sorry for what happened to you, I hope you are having a more positive experience of life now. Here are some of the possible phrases that carry the meaning of "every end is a beginning".

每一个终结只是另一个开始 (literal)

失败的尽头是成功的开始

当上帝把你的门关上了以后，他总会为你打开另一扇窗。

明天会更好

However, it would be much better to use a 4-character idiom for a tattoo, but I can't think of one right now.

[Guest fodun]

I think it should be 终即始

[confucius]

"Mingtian hui geng hao!"

Now I can't get that stupid song out of my head!

[pazu]

I'm a little bit reluctant to reply your post, you're going to tattoo something you aren't quite sure permanently on your skin. Isn't it a bit risky? I met an American lady in France a few years ago and she tattooed the "AI" (love) on her left arm, the Chinese character was, however, flipped horizontally...

Here's a phrase that match what you want to say:

終而復始 (in Traditional Chinese)

终而复始 (in Simplified Chinese)

Note: if you're going to do the tattoo, you should use the Traditional Chinese instead of the Simplified one, just as what you should use in caliigraphy.

Because you said you think it's very meaningful to you, I hope you won't mind if I talk more about the background of this ideogram. "終而復始" means literally "end then again begin". It's a quote from the book Guangzi (《管子》, which recorded the quotations of Mr Guangzi). Guangzi was once the "Prime Minister" of the Qi (齊) State in the Chunqiu Warring States (the same time of Confucius and many other great Chinese philosophers) and it was his idea to let Qi pay their respect to the King of Zhou Dynasty and use Zhou's long lost but still lingering power to isolate the other states. (尊王攘夷, 一匡天下).

The full quote was (well... of course I can't remember it, I admit I just copied it from Google, do a search by yourself): 天覆萬物，制寒暑、行日月、次星辰，天之常也，治之以理，終而復始.

Literally it means, "everything covered by sky, making of winter and summer, orbiting of sun and moon, staying of stars (all celestial bodies excluding sun and moon), the eternal rule of Universe, treat that with reasoning, end then again beginning."

I think I don't have to translate them into plain and correct English and you still can get the meaning.

Just think you may be interesting too... there's a Chinese saying from the "I Ching", which I would use that for a tattoo instead of using 終而復始, it is:

否極泰來 (in Traditional Chinese)

否极泰来 (in Simplified Chinese)

(pi3 ji tai lai)

Note that the word "否" pronounced as "pi3", not "fou3". It is one of the 64 divinatory symbols (卦象) in I Ching (《易經》) and probably the worst diagram that you can get, while TAI (泰) is another symbol, and probably the best diagram in I Ching. (I just said it in general, sometimes TAI isn't that good for some things...)

The meaning of 否極泰來 means "worst extreme, good come".