Thanks for the quick response. I read both of your posts and I would say I'm leaning more against the idea of a thinking up a new tattoo. Personally I'm just trying to get input and perhaps this isn't a good idea. But I'll keep researching. I've got my whole life to actually pull the trigger.

Quote:愛 does mean love. Of course you can have your opinion that a tattoo of this is exotic, but keep in mind that a Japanese person would probably see it just like we would see people with simply the word "love" spelled out on them.

Exactly. I want the tattoo to say 3 words Love, Charity, and Esteem. These are the there elements of brotherhood defined by my fraternity. So the reason why I choose Kanji is because it looks very artistic. Also the characters have the same width and wouldn't take up as much room down my arm (Japanese reads from top to bottom right?). Perhaps there isn't a way to truly convey my message with another language with out truly understanding it. Many good points came up in the post I will need to consider. Like how words change meanings over time. Perhaps this is a problem in any language.

Love: that binds our hearts with the sturdy chords of fraternal affection.
Charity: that is impulsive to see virtues in a brother and slow to reprove his faults.
Esteem: that is respectful to the honest convictions of others and that refrains from treading upon that which is sacred to spirit and conscience.

Is it unrealistic to think it would be possible to convey such a message in such a way that it would be totally missed to someone with a native eye? Or is it typical in Asian culture to find a simple series of words to be not of style?

I know Charity is the word you use, but your definition sounds more like benevolence to me, so here are a few:
http://jisho.org/words?jap=&eng=benevolence&dict=edict
I like 博愛, but it already contains the kanji for love.
Esteem could be respectfulness: 恭倹 (instead of your first pick "honor(ific)" which really doesn't work here).

But to someone used to kanji, kanji tattoos are like, really average. I personnally would find it more stylish if you had L.C.E. in gothic letters on your forearm.

kajimaster Wrote:Is it unrealistic to think it would be possible to convey such a message in such a way that it would be totally missed to someone with a native eye? Or is it typical in Asian culture to find a simple series of words to be not of style?

I don't understand, do you want the meaning to be clear or hidden?

Thanks Eratik! Benevolence was what I was considering too.

Quote:But to someone used to kanji, kanji tattoos are like, really average. I personnally would find it more stylish if you had L.C.E. in gothic letters on your forearm.

I could totally agree with this. But I'm sure i would get the same opinion if i went to a gothic letters board .

I think overall I got enough information to chew on. I think i'm going to start thinking of other ideas for a tattoo.

What's the question the presenter asks?

delta Wrote:What's the question the presenter asks?

「○○○さん、ニンテンドー3DSがどんな物か、 テレビの前の人に分かりやすく伝えてみてください」

本項では固有名詞（団体名等）や引用元のあるものを除き「空」「唐」を問わず「から揚げ」と記述する。

This sentence is from the Wikipedia entry for から揚げ. It's the third sentence.
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%94%90%E...A%E3%81%92

I think this sentence basically means 'Aside from proper nouns (corporate names, etc.) or when making reference to something, regardles of whether 空 or 唐 is used, it is called から揚げ.'

A few questions:
What role is 本項 playing here? I'm no so familiar with this word. Does it just mean 'generally?'

Is 記述 often used in this way? Here it seems to just be giving the name of the food, but I always have encountered this word as being used for 'descriptions' more in the proper sense.

And the 引用元 is strange to me just because I don't really understand it. I get the proper name thing, since I can imagine 山ちゃん (a restaurant) calling its karaage 山揚げ or something to be cute, but I don't really get the 引用元 thing.

Ah, thank you, I wasn't getting the 伝えて.

iSoron Wrote:

delta Wrote:What's the question the presenter asks?

「○○○さん、ニンテンドー3DSがどんな物か、 テレビの前の人に分かりやすく伝えてみてください」

So, it means, "Please explain easily to the people watching what kind of thing the Nintendo 3DS is." Right?

delta Wrote:Ah, thank you, I wasn't getting the 伝えて.

iSoron Wrote:

delta Wrote:What's the question the presenter asks?

「○○○さん、ニンテンドー3DSがどんな物か、 テレビの前の人に分かりやすく伝えてみてください」

So, it means, "Please explain easily to the people watching what kind of thing the Nintendo 3DS is." Right?

Pretty much ;-)

Tzadeck Wrote:What role is 本項 playing here?

I think "in this article".

Quote:Is 記述 often used in this way? Here it seems to just be giving the name of the food, but I always have encountered this word as being used for 'descriptions' more in the proper sense.

It's also used to say a term can be 'written as X' or 'called X' It can be passive, but I suppose an intransitive 記述 would have the same translation. (The egs suggest 記述 is both trans and intrans, but the intrans might be loose translations.) The quotation marks aren't required.

Quote:I don't really get the 引用元 thing.

Looking at the article, it seems to be that when the name comes from a cited reference/source, they'll use that written form.

I didn't realize there was so much to know about karaage!

Tzadeck Wrote:本項では固有名詞（団体名等）や引用元のあるものを除き「空」「唐」を問わず「から揚げ」と記述する。

This sentence is from the Wikipedia entry for から揚げ. It's the third sentence.
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%94%90%E...A%E3%81%92

I think this sentence basically means 'Aside from proper nouns (corporate names, etc.) or when making reference to something, regardles of whether 空 or 唐 is used, it is called から揚げ.'

"In this article, aside from proper nouns (corporate names, etc.) and quotations from other sources, the word will be written as から揚げ instead of using 空 or 唐." The 問わず usage is a little odd to me here but maybe it sounds natural to native speakers.

Quote:Is 記述 often used in this way? Here it seems to just be giving the name of the food, but I always have encountered this word as being used for 'descriptions' more in the proper sense.

It refers to the way the noun will be written in the article.

Thanks you two. The rest of it would have been a lot clearer to me if I had understood 本項, haha.

(PS, the を問わず is a sort of special phrase. どんなときどう使う日本語表現文型５００ lists it as an N2 grammar point and gives pretty similar examples: 年齢・性別を問わず、どなたでも入会できます. It lists the meaning as に関係なく. I'd pretty much forgotten about it after my N2 studies, becaues I guess usually the meaning is obvious from the context and from the word 問う)

I understand what 問わず usually means and I'm used to seeing it in a context like your quotation there, but it seems like what they're trying to say in the wikipedia sentence is "We won't bother choosing between 唐 and 空 and will just write it as から揚げ", which doesn't quite seem to be a correct usage of that grammar point -- but a native speaker would have to weigh in on that. Unless it's supposed to mean "Regardless of whether it should be written as 唐 or 空" but that doesn't seem right either.

yudantaiteki Wrote:I understand what 問わず usually means and I'm used to seeing it in a context like your quotation there, but it seems like what they're trying to say in the wikipedia sentence is "We won't bother choosing between 唐 and 空 and will just write it as から揚げ", which doesn't quite seem to be a correct usage of that grammar point -- but a native speaker would have to weigh in on that. Unless it's supposed to mean "Regardless of whether it should be written as 唐 or 空" but that doesn't seem right either.

Ah, now I see where you are coming from. Maybe it's because the article talks about different karaage dishes, in different time periods, and in different places, and some of those might have a kanji preference, but the articule uses から揚げ regardless of those preferences. If you think of it that way perhaps it's a bit closer to how this grammar point is usually used? In my head it seems to work a bit better anyway, haha.

Of course, it is wikipedia. Could just be poor writing.

Is 普通　ever used as ____を普通にして?

btw I noticed 本項　is a word in edict, but it's not in my dictionaries. an error?

delta Wrote:「○○○さん、ニンテンドー3DSがどんな物か、 テレビの前の人に分かりやすく伝えてみてください」
So, it means, "Please explain easily to the people watching what kind of thing the Nintendo 3DS is." Right?

Yeah, but "explain easily" is a little funky... maybe clearly describe? or give a simple explanation?

I think there's 2 ways to read the sentence. Your "explain to the people" means the に　in テレビの前の人に is marking an indirect object.

Or, it's a に subject of the adverbial clause テレビの前の人に分かりやすく. So it'd be "Pls explain such that it'll be easy for the people watching to understand" Have you come across V-yasui/nikui?

Ken　が　この本　を　読む　　

　　　　　　　Ken　に/が　この本　が　読みやすい
　　　　　　　It's easy for Ken to read this book
This book is easy for Ken to read.

You might recognize the particle use from the potential/ability:
Ken に/が　この本　が　読める
Ken に/が　日本語　が　わかる

Thora Wrote:btw I noticed 本項　is a word in edict, but it's not in my dictionaries. an error?

Not an error, though I'm not so sure that it's very widely used for the meaning that Edict provides. 本- is an extensively used prefix meaning "this," so it's normal that dictionaries wouldn't contain every possible use of it.

Thanks J. I wasn't very clear. I'm familiar with the "this section" meaning (see above) and I'm not surprised if it's not a dictionary entry. The edict entry meaning "nub; core of the issue", however, seems to me like a distinct word with a quite different meaning. (Perhaps related to other senseｓ of 本　(true, real, central?)) If so, you'd expect to find it in JJ dictionaries.

I can't easily Google for examples, b/c at first glance they all seem to be egs of "this section". Can anyone give me an eg using this other meaning of 本項？

http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/...1441940389

"nub; core of the issue" may be a slant/mistranslation?

Yes, that was Jimmy's link and it's the "this item/provision/section/paragraph/article" meaning. The edict meaning seems quite different. I'll just ignore it. (I try to suggest corrections if I'm certain, but this word is a mystery.)

Hi!

I have a question about ご覧. I know that it's the honorific form of 見る (more precisely, the the honorific form is ご覧になる). But when it is used in the sense of -てみる, is it always honorific?

For example:
もう一度やってごらん。- As far as I know, this is kind of a request.
もう一度言えるものなら言ってごらんよ。- To me, this sounds intimidating or maybe I misundertand its meaning. Is this still honorific speech?

Thank you.

It depends on the tone. It's the same as saying:

- もう一度やってみて
- もう一度言えるものならいってみろ！

Sometimes, just like in English, saying things that are really polite with a tone that isn't polite, can be intimidating. It's like saying, "Oh, no, PLEASE! Be my GUEST!" before kicking someone out a window, ya know.

I've never heard anyone say てご覧 in real life, only on drama/anime/etc. It does seem to have a semi-insulting tone to it.

yudantaiteki Wrote:I've never heard anyone say てご覧 in real life, only on drama/anime/etc. It does seem to have a semi-insulting tone to it.

I've heard it in real life, mostly when used by a sweet youngish woman I know. I don't know why she uses it more than anyone else I've met, haha. But yeah, I've also seen it used, mostly in anime, with that kind of insulting tone.

あの声は、一体なんだったのかと。

のかと。 From looking at example questions, it seems to just to be indicating a question.
Im assuming its actually, のか and と particles being used together. This と shouldn't be a conditional と since there is no verb, and its at the end of the sentence, so I imagine its used as a question particle.

Why do they use both?
Also, if both are being used a question, a small explanation about them wouldn't hurt either.
And you guys have been very helpful so far, thanks a lot.

It's the "quoting" と - the one you get in like ～～と言った／～～と思う etc. - and the verb following と has just been omitted.
Are there any thinking/wondering/speaking kinda words in the previous sentence you could substitute in after the と?