Does anyone know what this means?

[sarasi]

Your friend had only studied Japanese for 5 months (it takes years to be fluent, particularly in written Japanese), so at that point still didn't really know how to construct a proper Japanese sentence (or write kanji well), so he has just given you individual words- as above, heart, one person, and (badly written) flame. There is no way to interpret the meaning other than just looking at the words and reading whatever you want into them. It's the same as writing "heart, one person, flame" in English- just a string of words.

The sentence KyleGoetz gave you is one way that you could take the meaning of the 3 words and make a proper sentence out of it- "the one person who makes my heart/soul burn like fire"- Kyle Goetz explained that that was the meaning, but you seem to have missed that at some point. And whether that's what your friend actually meant is known only to him.

[BenBullock]

Originally Posted by TenshiChan

I don't know if the characters even make sense. I don't know Japanese. I was just hoping it would mean something.

Looking at the picture, it looks like your boyfriend doesn't really have a strong grip on the language. The one character is rotated ninety degrees and the other characters look bad. In this case, the only solution is to ask him what he meant to say.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by TenshiChan

Why not? I'm not welcome if I don't know any Japanese?

No, don't get defensive. You're definitely welcome here. But it's pointless to teach you stuff when you have no basis to actually comprehend it. That's my point. It's like me asking someone to teach me how to land an airplane before I've learned how to take off.

I mean, you have said yourself you don't know any Japanese. So why do you want to know how to pronounce something that you literally cannot use?! It's confusing to me!

I meant could you please tell me the words as I don't know those characters, so I can't pronounce what it says.

Why do you need to know? I thought your boyfriend wrote some stupid and poor Japanese and you just wanted to know if it was correct. Now you want me to teach you what the correct thing is? At this point, it's really starting to ring my "person wants a Japanese tattoo" alarm!

I'm not going to teach you how to pronounce it because what I told you is not good Japanese (it's correct, but not good). Translating "poetic" English into another language inevitably will lose stuff in translation. To top that off, I'm not a professional translator, so what I've given you is most assuredly not a decent translation of something "poetic." The feeling will have been lost.

I'm sorry I don't know any Japanese, but I really want to learn.

Start reading Tae Kim's site. Google it. You'll know it when you see it. Learn what's on there, and you'll be further ahead than anyone in even a second-year Japanese class at any university in the US.

Looking over your posts, you've said you're "trying to understand." My point is that you shouldn't be trying to understand something like this. You should be trying to understand how to read kana and how to form simple sentences. You're just a duckling! Inevitably if you start learning stuff you're not ready for, you're going to think you get it and make a lot more mistakes by misapplying stuff.

Over in another thread, someone keeps trying to use てはいけない in ways it is not meant to. The person doesn't seem to have the proper foundation to actually use てはいけない yet because the scenarios in which he is trying to use てはいけない would be better suited to use a different grammar point he should have learned before てはいけない: regular old past tense of a regular old verb!

I'm not angry with you. I'm not trying to be a fuddy duddy or hide the ball or prevent you from learning. I'm trying to save you future difficulty by trying to learn stuff out of order (OK, and a little part of me is suspicious that you're just fishing for a Japanese tattoo).

Regardless, here's what you should be doing to learn Japanese right now:
1. google "tae kim japanese"
2. read the Tae Kim site and learn what's on it
3. enjoy knowing a ton of Japanese

While doing this, definitely come here and ask questions about what you're learning! I'll be more than happy to assist you in your goals! (I'm a nice guy, really I am!) I'm sure other JF users will be happy to help, too. This forum is to help improve the Japanese of friendly people

[Sashimister]

Originally Posted by TenshiChan

I don't know. Don't ask me, I don't speak Japanese.

You're crazy. Who should we be speaking to, then?

I'm outa here!

[TenshiChan]

I am definitely not looking for a Japanese tattoo. You can be sure of that. Please don't think of me like I am that kind of person. Besides, I already have one tattoo (nothing Japanese or what so ever) and that's enough for me. I don't want any more tattoos.

I wanted to know the correct way of saying "the one person for whom my heart blazes" so I could show my boyfriend and ask him if that's what he was trying to write down. I was going to show him all of your explanations. And then ask him why he was afraid to just say that directly in my face.

I started reading the guide you gave me. So I'm gonna start trying to learn this by using an English guide which I also need to translate back into Dutch first. It looks really helpful though. I even started wondering if the education I applied for is going to actually teach me proper Japanese after I read the introduction part about textbook Japanese. I'm supposed to learn Japanese in four years in this school. But maybe using this guide along side my education will help me out a lot.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by BenBullock

Looking at the picture, it looks like your boyfriend doesn't really have a strong grip on the language. The one character is rotated ninety degrees and the other characters look bad. In this case, the only solution is to ask him what he meant to say.

It's possible that instead of rotating 一 the wrong way, he just wrote "1." But I doubt it.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by TenshiChan

I am definitely not looking for a Japanese tattoo. You can be sure of that. Please don't think of me like I am that kind of person. Besides, I already have one tattoo (nothing Japanese or what so ever) and that's enough for me. I don't want any more tattoos.

I wanted to know the correct way of saying "the one person for whom my heart blazes" so I could show my boyfriend and ask him if that's what he was trying to write down. I was going to show him all of your explanations. And then ask him why he was afraid to just say that directly in my face.

I started reading the guide you gave me. So I'm gonna start trying to learn this by using an English guide which I also need to translate back into Dutch first. It looks really helpful though. I even started wondering if the education I applied for is going to actually teach me proper Japanese after I read the introduction part about textbook Japanese. I'm supposed to learn Japanese in four years in this school. But maybe using this guide along side my education will help me out a lot.

Here's what you need to know going into university:
1. Four years is not enough to "learn Japanese" if by that you mean "become fluent."
2. It took me two years of university to be prepared enough to live in Japan. In that sense, it took two years to "learn Japanese."

Also, sorry if I was hard on you. I think I come across as a bully here sometimes, but it's really because I just want to help noobs avoid the stupid mistakes I made when I was young and dumb. And I just plain hate kanji tattoos on someone who doesn't have a connection to the language or culture—it's a fetishization that disgusts me.

But yeah, just go with what I typed way back in another post. It's not poetic, but it's at least better than what you got from your boyfriend.

And yeah, let him have it! haha

Good luck. Learning Japanese is very rewarding.

[TenshiChan]

Originally Posted by KyleGoetz

Here's what you need to know going into university:
1. Four years is not enough to "learn Japanese" if by that you mean "become fluent."
2. It took me two years of university to be prepared enough to live in Japan. In that sense, it took two years to "learn Japanese."

Also, sorry if I was hard on you. I think I come across as a bully here sometimes, but it's really because I just want to help noobs avoid the stupid mistakes I made when I was young and dumb. And I just plain hate kanji tattoos on someone who doesn't have a connection to the language or culture—it's a fetishization that disgusts me.

But yeah, just go with what I typed way back in another post. It's not poetic, but it's at least better than what you got from your boyfriend.

And yeah, let him have it! haha

Good luck. Learning Japanese is very rewarding.

Well. In the 3rd year of college we're supposed to actually go to Japan for about five months. I believe that's some sort of exchange. But I'm already nervous about that. Going that far away for so long all by myself.

The Japanese you gave me, I'm gonna shove it under his nose tonight and ask him if that's by chance what he meant to say. See how he reacts to that heheh.

I'm not only interested in the Japanese language. I'm also interested in it's history and culture. I wonder what I'll learn about that in school.

And it's ok you were a little tough. I understand if I came across as some nitwit wannabe who just tried to be all cool and awesome.

But I'm not, really I'm not.

[BenBullock]

Originally Posted by KyleGoetz

And I just plain hate kanji tattoos on someone who doesn't have a connection to the language or culture—it's a fetishization that disgusts me.

I don't hate kanji tattoos any more than any other tattoos. How stupid does it look if you get "Mrs. C" tattooed on the back of your neck and then end up divorcing "Mr. C" a year later? That's got to be worse than any meaningless gibberish kanji tattoo.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by BenBullock

I don't hate kanji tattoos any more than any other tattoos. How stupid does it look if you get "Mrs. C" tattooed on the back of your neck and then end up divorcing "Mr. C" a year later? That's got to be worse than any meaningless gibberish kanji tattoo.

You make a good point. I suppose when I said I was talking about kanji tattoos on people with no connection to Japan, I was simply expressing my dislike for the fetishization of Japanese by getting a tattoo that you don't understand for the reason that it makes you feel mystical or cool just because it's in Japanese.