• Hoimo
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    4 days ago

    To be honest, Ariana Grande had it properly translated, but she missed that it was also a kind of grill in Japan. She probably should have stayed away from Japanese in this case, because there’s just no great way to phrase “7 rings” without invoking the grill. I wouldn’t do it for the aesthetics of the kanji either, 七 is the ugliest one imo.

    Edit: Actually, I think she could have fixed it quite cleanly. I’m no expert on Japanese, but counting is done a little differently than in English. 七輪 is very literally “seven rings”, but it actually has a very general sense “seven ring-shaped objects” and you’d normally qualify what object you’re talking about exactly. So if the meaning is supposed to be “seven rings (jewelry)”, you could write 七輪の指輪 “seven rings (general) of rings (jewelry)”. That’s an addition to the original tattoo that would eliminate the “grill” sense because now the grammatical function of the word is different.