from: dulce
to: "tiangotlost@gmail.com"
date: Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 12:19 PM
subject: a question/ tatoo

dear sir

today I met this man, who came to fix my car.
when I saw his arm, tattoed , I did ask him the meaning of the word and he said: this is the name of his son, called: João Victor (something like John Victor in English)

Is he right? I don´t think so....

best regards

dulce



It is completely gibberish, not even correct with the gibberish font.

Slightly off topic here.

Image above was posted in CheckoutMyInk.com. The tattoo is Korean Hangul (Korean alphabet), but upside-side down, of course.

Who or what is "Park Noh Sik"?

Maori fern tattoo with koru swirls

Hi,

A few months ago I created a Maori fern tattoo design for a customer from New-Zealand, also named Aotearoa. The koru is the spiral shape of  a silver fern frond and it is a symbol of growth, strenght and peace. This symbol is used in a lot of Maori art, carving and tattoos.

My Kiwi customer from the Pacific Ocean asked me to design a tattoo to cover the full side of his body, from armpit to just above the hip. First I created a sketch with pencil for the rough outline of the fern. Then I added some repetitive leaves and koru shapes on the bottom. To add some more depth and 3d to the fern and arrow shapes, I added shadings to the leaves. The high resolution tattoo is optimized and the linedrawing or stencil is created for the customer. This linedrawing is used to transfer the outlines of this koru tatoo to the body.

Yesterday I received this photo of the final tattoo on the side of the customers body. It looks great!

If you are interested in a custom maori inspired tattoo or a silver fern design, please let me know and maybe I can help you out with a unique piece.

Kind regards, Mark Storm

info@storm3d.com

www.storm3d.com

Shoulder sleeve tatou in Maori Kirituhi style

Hi,

It has been quite a while since my last post, but I have been really busy with all kind of projects, from logo design to t-shirts and other custom projects.

Here's my latest design in Maori style, a shoulder sleeve for my galleries, where it is available for purchase.
This series of pictures shows the process from the first pencil sketch to the traced design:

The final traced drawing, before the scanning and optimizing process:

Some nice  depth of field photos:

Upper part of the Maori tattoo, partially traced with a marker

a nice overview of the total tattoo

The completed design with flowing maori koru curves

If you're interested in ordering the high resolution design and stencil/linedrawing of this tattoo, simply hit the 'buy now' button below and you will be forwarded to the Paypal website, so you can order with creditcard or Paypal account:

Size: 30 x 26 cm (11,5 x 10 inches)

Product code: Shoulder tattoo 155

Price: 41,65 euro (57 USD)

Any questions? Just let me know.

Kind regards, Mark Storm
info@storm3d.com
www.storm3d.com

In recent issue of GQ magazine (US edition), I came across this ad for The Art of Shaving:



The Chinese translation of "The Ambassador of Smooth" as 平稳大使 is contextually incorrect.

平稳 refers to stability, not related to physical surface condition, which shaving is about. Nor the American English slang usage of "smooth" in terms of finesse.

平稳大使 would be better suited as ad slogan for a physical therapy clinic, than hawking male grooming products.

from: Elsa M.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Sun, Nov 6, 2011 at 10:41 PM
subject: Hanzismatter-worthy shirt

I actually laughed out loud when I saw the Chinese on this shirt. Thought I would share. Some smart alec designer had finally had enough.




Presumably the intended sentence is:

這是傳統中文的寫法

which means "this is traditional Chinese way of writing",

with missing "文" & "的".

From BME's gallery, 雪 has one extra horizontal stroke under the radical, 雨.

Also, 雪片花 (snow piece flower) is redundant, 雪花 (snow flake) would suffice. 

Dr. Victor Mair at Language Log has a nice piece on how Google Translate became the de facto tool for anyone wants to communicate in a foreign language.  Even though in some cases, translation it provided are incorrect. 

This young man holding the sign at "Occupy Wall Street", probably wanted "No More Corruption".  However, Google Translate gave him "There isn't any more corruption."

By the way, why is he holding a sign written in Chinese?! 

Has this naive young man ever done business in China?

How about 關係, 後門, and 紅包?

from: Fedor M. 

to: tiangotlost@gmail.com 

date: Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 8:23 AM 

subject: hanzi smatter in DFW 

This is a sign for a Chinese restaurant in Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. The characters are upside down and seem to say "blue bamboo". 

蓝竹 does mean "blue bamboo" and it is displayed upside down.  

According to Yelp, its food is terrible and only has one star.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/blue-bamboo-xpress-dallas

from: Laura R.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 1:14 AM
subject: "Chinese" trash can

Hello and thank you for your awesome blog!

We recently visited the "Phantasialand" amusement park close to Cologne in Germany.

This is what the trash cans in the "Chinatown" section look like. It says "garbage" in German, and while I instantly recognized the second character as being upside down (have been studying Japanese for a while now), I'm not sure whether the first one is a correct character at all or if there is any meaning to this combination.

There were loads of upside down or gibberish characters in the "Chinese" ghost train ride, too ^^;

Thanks in advance!

Laura



Not only the second character 圾 is upside down, the first character 垃 is missing a stroke.

Steve Caires of Engrish.com sent me this today:





http://www.kirainet.com/english/hemorrhoids-%E7%97%94/



From Hector Garcia's A Geek in Japan:



"At first glance, it seems like a kid with a supercool sweater with a Japanese character. The problem is that the character 痔 means “hemorrhoid” in Japanese. Probably the designer confused the character 侍, which means “samurai” and is pronounced “ji”, with the character 痔 that means “hemorrhoid” and is also pronounced “ji”… Both characters are graphically very similar but the meaning is totally different!"

Samoan Maori shoulder tattoo design

Hi,



Here's the 3rd design of my latest sketches in a Samoan inspired tattoo set. This design has some influences from the Maori style, but is mainly filled with Samoan patterns.



I started with a pencil and roughly sketched the outer lines, then traced some tribal patterns:













































For these symmetrical Samoan designs it's always a bit of a surprise how the final design will look. I only draw half the design and then mirror it in Photoshop. This seems easy, but it quity tricky to design the patterns in such a way that it doesn't have an obvious vertical line in the center.



Here's a picture of half the design finished:











































You can order the finished high resolution design right now, by simply clicking the "Buy now" button. Once I receive your payment, you'll receive an e-mail with a high resolution image + a linedrawing/stencil for your tattoo artist.

Samoan inspired shoulder sleeve design 3

Size: 30 x 24 cm (12 x 9 inches)

Product code: Samoan 103

Price: 41,65 euro (57 USD)

Any questions? Just let me know.



Kind regards, Mark Storm

info@storm3d.com

www.storm3d.com

Dr. Victor Mair from University of Pennsylvania sent me a link to a recent posting in the Language Log:







The Chinese on banner for "Bodies... The Exhibition" does not say "discover your body", rather "discover your honorable corpse." [More]

Samoan tattoo for the shoulder

Hi,



I have been quite busy for the last few weeks, but I wanted to show you some sketches and tattoo pieces that I did. It's another Samaon/Maori inspired shoulder sleeve I did for my galleries.



As you can read in my previous post, I'm working on a new series of Samoan inspired tattoos for the shoulder, with some influences from the Maori style.

You can find all 3 Samoan sleeves here.





Here's the second sketch I did:

This design is roughly based/inspired by the Sonny Bill Williams tattoo.

It has really detailed tribal elements and covers the upperarm from shoulder to elbow. It wraps around to the biceps and back side of the arm.



You can order the high resolution image of this design, by simply clicking the "buy now" below. You get the high quality files sent by e-mail once I receive your payment.

Samoan inspired shoulder tattoo design 2

Size: 30 x 24 cm (12 x 9 inches)

Product code: Samoan 102

Price: 41,65 euro (57 USD)

Any questions? Just let me know.



Kind regards, Mark Storm

info@storm3d.com

www.storm3d.com

My father has forwarded me this news story about hilarious mistranslated signs used by Royal Caribbean Cruise Line. It appears Royal Caribbean Cruise Line did not verify the Chinese translation's accuracy and blindly trusted Google Translate.

Luckily paper signs can be reprinted, unlike tattoos.


Corned Beef Hash => "salted beef jumbled signal"


Ham and Bamboo Shoot Salad => "clumsy actor and bamboo's salad"


Garden Greens => "[botanical] garden became green color"


Chicken and Mushroom tart => "timid and rapidly grown prostitute(s)"


Regular Milk => "policy milk"
Half & Half => "secondary butter blended mixture"


Green Split Pea Soup => "green separation pea soup"


English Bacon => "English [language] cultivate root"

* Update: several readers have informed me that 培根 is an acceptable transliteration for "bacon" in Taiwan. However, the sign is still incorrect for using "English [language]", instead of "English [cuisine style]".


Creamy Italian Dressing = "butter Italy costume"

Original Story:
中式英文令人啼笑皆非 美国人英译中菜单更搞笑(图)

Language Log:
Timid and Rapidly Grown Prostitutes

Samoan inspired shoulder tattoo design

Hi,

I get a lot of request from people that are looking for a Samoan-inspired design, similar to the Sonny Bill Williams tattoo sleeve.

So I decided to design a set of intricate shoulder tatoo pieces with a lot of small details in a graphic style.

You can find all 3 designs in this set here.

The original design of SBW looks like this:

First I made a basic pencil sketch with a height of 30 cm (12 inches) and added some detailed Samoan inspired patterns. Then a few swirls of Maori koru and traced the lines with a marker:

The final design has a nice upper part, I added some other shapes on top to make it look more complex. You can order the high resolution image of this design, by simply clicking the "buy now" below. You get the high quality files sent by e-mail once I receive your payment.

Samoan inspired shoulder sleeve design

Size: 30 x 24 cm (12 x 9 inches)

Product code: Samoan 101

Price: 41,65 euro (57 USD)

Any questions? Just let me know.



Kind regards, Mark Storm

info@storm3d.com

www.storm3d.com