Chinese Tattoo Translation (Quote) HELP!

[kagoma]

Hey guys,

 

So I've been thinking of getting a tattoo when I turn 18, but I've already turned 18 and held off on it because getting a tattoo is a lot bigger than I realized so I decided to just sit on it for a while and it's been several months at this point. The tattoo I want is an old Chinese proverb that I find really beautiful. It goes like this: Between true friends, even water drunk is sweet enough. I was really set on getting it the day I turned 18, but as I said I was kind of scared. So when I decided to hold off on the tattoo for a while, I put off trying to translate it correctly as well. Now here I am around 7 months later reconsidering the tattoo, but also trying to get it correctly translated. I've already asked 1 native speaker but all she did was refer me to another native speaker and this is what I've gotten so far. "隻要和真朋友在一起，一起喝水都覺得甜" This is the first translation I've got and I'm going to ask around and make sure it's really the right way of saying the message that I want it to say, but it's all I've got so far. I just want an online opinion of whether it makes sense or not.

 

Thanks!

 

P.S. does it make sense if there's no comma in the writing? or is that comma necessary? ex. 隻要和真朋友在一起一起喝水都覺得甜

[Publius]

You said it's "an old Chinese proverb". Can you provide the source? The translation certainly doesn't strike me as old. And when I fed the English sentence "Between true friends, even water drunk is sweet enough" into Google, it turned up several links that suggested that this is an African proverb. And frankly, "隻要和真朋友在一起，一起喝水都覺得甜" is fine as lyrics but as a tattoo? Well, a tattoo that long should scare anyone, with or without the comma.

P.S. You know the Chinese attitude about tattoo? 身體髮膚，受之父母，不敢毀傷

[lips]

「隻要」是什麼意思？

[Lu]

Don't use that translation. It gets the meaning across well enough, but if the phrase you want is indeed a Chinese proverb, that is not the Chinese original. Chinese proverbs usually consist of four characters, sometimes a few more, but I don't think they ever have that many.

 

There is a trend of making wise or inspirational lines sound better by claiming they are Chinese proverbs. Sometimes they are, sometimes they are vaguely related to a Chinese proverb if you search far enough, and sometimes that is pure nonsense and they're from another source altogether.

16 minutes ago, lips said:

「隻要」是什麼意思？

An mis-traditionalisation of 只要, I assume.

[lips]

Minnanese has a similar saying.

[Kenny同志]

The OP must be talking about 君子之交淡如水, 小人之交甘如醴, which literally means friendship between men of a noble character is as insipid as water while that between men of a despicable character is as mellow as wine, implying that for the first type of people, it does not require any 'extroverted/superficial/material reassurance to maintain their friendship' but for the other one, the opposite is true.

https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/君子之交淡如水.1925284/?hl=zh

 

君子之交淡入水 is fine as a tattoo except being a bit too long.

 

 

Edit: Just to add that 君子之交淡如水, 小人之交甘如醴 is an idiom written in elegant classical Chinese.