Chinese symbols/translation

Hi All

I have a friend who is an ardent supporter of a South African rugby team. She want's a small tattoo on her forearm that represents the South African rugby team known as the BLUE BULLS.

I would like to know the Chinese symbols for BLUE and BULL. She would like them tattooed in Chinese next to each other that will read as BLUE BULL(S) for the informed.

Anybody know?

Cheers,
TV Tech

Have you never heard of google?

https://japanese.about.com/library/blkod45.htm

https://japanesekanji.nobody.jp/animal/bull.htm

Nigel Goodwin said:

Have you never heard of google?

https://japanese.about.com/library/blkod45.htm

https://japanesekanji.nobody.jp/animal/bull.htm

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Yes Nigel. I have heard about GOOGLE. Apparently, it's a search engine.

My friend needs SPECIFIC info.....

Cheers,
TV Tech

tvtech said:

Yes Nigel. I have heard about GOOGLE. Apparently, it's a search engine.

My friend needs SPECIFIC info.....

Click to expand...

You're not going to get any more 'specific', there aren't specific one for one kanji translations, kanji symbols have multiple meanings.

As they say, the difference between a tatoo and true love is that one of them lasts for ever.

I don't think I would trust Google or anyone not absolutely proficient both in Chinese and in the South African context of the name for a translation. Even in English, the two words taken separately could mean several things. Thus, the re-translation from the foreign language to English might come back as "sad bull," "blue bull" (meaning color), and so forth. In my experience, proper nouns (names) are often used without translation. Sometimes, the translation is simply to something that either sounds similar in the other language or is of similar common use/derivation, like Jose for Joseph.

Blue Bulls is a proper noun. If it were me and I valued the relationship with the woman, I would find something else nice to do for her.

John

Nigel Goodwin said:

You're not going to get any more 'specific', there aren't specific one for one kanji translations, kanji symbols have multiple meanings.

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OK Nigel. Picture this: Two words...BLUE and BULL.

In Chinese, they certainly should have the word "blue" somewhere ???
In Chinese, they certainly should have the word bull" somewhere ???

We only need those two words. No complications.

It's for a simple tattoo. On an arm. Not a Thesis.

Thanks,
TV Tech

tvtech said:

OK Nigel. Picture this: Two words...BLUE and BULL.

In Chinese, they certainly should have the word "blue" somewhere ???
In Chinese, they certainly should have the word bull" somewhere ???

We only need those two words. No complications.

It's for a simple tattoo. On an arm. Not a Thesis.

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Which is what I've already given you - within the limitations of Kanji.

As I've already explained, Kanji doesn't contain specific symbols for specific English words, notice that the web pages I posted for you give various different meanings - that's what Kanji is.

Nigel Goodwin said:

You're not going to get any more 'specific', there aren't specific one for one kanji translations, kanji symbols have multiple meanings.

Click to expand...

Therein lies the problem. Thank God I speak English. Properly?. I hope.

Till another day.

Tv Tech

Moving this thread to the Chinese section of Electrotech may provide some answers from the Chinese members, they'd be the people to ask.

tvtech, probeer "http://babelfish.yahoo.com/"

Blue Bulls = "蓝牛羚"

Did you check the reverse translation back to English? Google gave "blue wildebeest," which is not quite the same.

Proper nouns cannot be translated. I did test a few others (like Coca Cola) and did get a Chinese equivalent, which appeared to be just a letter by letter translation to the Chinese characters. The Chinese equivalent translated into every language using our alphabet as "coca cola." Since it is the Christmas season, try translating Christmas to Chinese, then back translate to German, Spanish, English. I got gibberish with Google.

John

Did you check the reverse translation back to English?

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...and Yahoo gave "Blue takin" !

Hi there,


From what i know about Chinese characters (and that's not too much ha ha) Yahoo Babelfish will give the incorrect translation. I cant see the characters for some reason but i can see that there are too many so it cant be right. The character for 'blue' is actually two characters and the character for 'bull' is two characters, but when putting them together we'd leave out the second character for 'blue' and we'd also leave out the first character for 'bull', thus leaving us with two characters (see attached diagram, right side).

The problem then becomes one of interpretation of the final set of characters, which in Chinese can mean 'blue' plus several different animals including bull, ox, possibly even cow and possibly others as well. Thus the reader upon seeing those symbols might read "blue bull" or "blue ox" or maybe even "blue cow" and there may be other animals too. What this means is that the characters alone may not be enough, as you might have to include a little logo of a head of a blue bull or something like that. Alternately, it could be accepted as like an encoding where only members of the elite group know the true meaning and thus add some mystique to the whole thing which would be cool in a way.

If i was going to get a tattoo of this or anything like this (which i wouldnt do anyway) i would certainly consult with an expert first.

I'm sure a "blue cow" interpretation wouldn't go down too well with the intended tattoooee

Why not just get a picture of an actual Blue Bull instead? That way if she ever changes her feeling about the sports team there are loads of other things it could still represent!

Babe the Blue ox from the Paul Bunion legend would be fairly neutral second excuse for it!

Whatever, the tattoo should be in black ink. Then, if she needs a real rugby team, she could have it made All Black.

John

If they are true Chinese...

House0Fwax said:

Moving this thread to the Chinese section of Electrotech may provide some answers from the Chinese members, they'd be the people to ask.

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The certain risk is that they would answer in Chinese what would bring you to square one again.

According to Google Translate, "blue" is 藍色 and "bull" is 牛市. That is in "traditional Chinese", whatever that means

EDIT: I see that this is exactly what Mr Al posted a little bit ago. Anyway, in google translate, it translates the characters back to "blue bull" just fine. No problems like "blue cow" or "blue wildebeast"

I was taught that when giving an object's colour, the words should be linked with 的. ie. simplified 蓝色的公牛, traditional: 藍色的公牛, pinyin: lan2 se4 de gong1 niu2

Mr Al, I would like to know your source for the word rule.

Here is a great resource: https://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/

I am looking at the manual for my new toy. (Christmas) The manual was translated form Chinese to English. I hope you have better luck translating into a language you know nothing about. Think long and hard about what you want permanently on your arm.