hm... alright thanks for ur answers.

i got prepared to have it discussed and ur pretty right.. but i also like the meaning of the sentence, my dad teached me to trust my opinion and go my own way.. anyway i like the kanjis and i want it as tattoo

Unfortunately these characters do not mean that sentence. It could be read much the opposite, actually.


I didn't shoulder tap him to tell him what to put on his tattoo. Remember who came to who to ask for advice.

You see, there are these things we call "outliers." Just as you can say, not everyone is out to impress others, I can say that not everyone gets tattoos for themselves. Living in a city, you can believe I know many people with tattoos. But you can't tell me a tattoo of Tinkerbell(which I've witnessed), or tribal tattoo, or barbwire, can mean something to someone.
I'm glad your friend likes his tattoo. It's just unfortunate he ruined the human form with something unapealing for the sake of charishing something only he knows.

I don't see it as weird when you've put it in the context I've put it in. I mean, if someone said "hey, what do those mean," he can do something like:
A) This one means father, because of...fill in the blank
B)This one means truth, because...fill in the blank
C) This one means bond/connection...fill in the blank

Most people don't do this in English because they're looking at the kanji as almost like a theme. I know a girl with a single kanji on her wrist that says "strength." IMO, it's a lot easier to describe to people that each kanji is a piece, rather than an Engrish sentence tattooed on you. This is obviously directed towards a western audience.

I have a feeling this is your first tattoo isn't it ? :mtongue:

If you're worried about the meaning, maybe you could ask one of the members here to translate the meaning into Japanese for you, rather than you going out and finding random kanji and putting them together. I'm sure someone would glady step up to help ;)

Didn't I do that?

Of course what you're saying works if no one can read it and 90% of the time no one will, but the fact of the matter is that there are people who CAN read kanji and they'll see the kanji as being linked. Especially if their grouped together in one area, like the OP has insinuated he plans to do. If he had one character on one arm, one on the other and one on his leg, sure, you'd assume their separate from each other but if someone wrote all three vertically, you're going to read that as linked. And the three words suggested don't have a group semantic like 和愛美 style triptych tattoos have. That's why it looks bizarre. That's why I said picture it as seeing 'dad truth fetters'. That's not a sentence either. You could equally say,
I got 'Dad' because of...
I got 'Truth' because of...
Doesn't make the overall picture any less aesthetically weird.
And if the OP wants to express a "My dad taught me to express myself and go my own way" sentiment or a "me and my dad are close" sentiment, then these aren't the right characters. OP asked the board to check his character choices. Note, no one's judged what he wants, or that he's chosen to do so in a language he clearly doesn't understand, which is a BIG rarity on JF. All I've pointed out is that the group of characters doesn't look right as a whole, which should honestly matter just as much as the individual characters themselves. I mean, see it like this;
"I want a kanji tattoo with the characters for 猪 because I'm part native american and it's my totem animal, and 愛 because i have a japanese girlfriend and it's the first character in her name." Great, perfect character choices; just don't put them together, because that seems like you mean "Boar love", which makes the original intention redundant and is unflattering.

There's a difference between asking for advice and asking for help! I don't see the OP asking what people think of his idea for a tattoo, all I see is help confirming the meaning of separate characters.

thanks, but i gotta say im happy to read some opinions of others.. what they think about my choice and so on.

i dont want a sentence that much, just dad, honesty & bond. vnow i got it, thanks ;)