Japanese Kanji Tattoos

Chinese tattoos and Kanji tattoos are really popular these days. However, many people have no idea as to the differences between a Chinese tattoo and a Kanji tattoo, nor can they figure out what it is exactly on their body. More often than not, people will take Chinese symbols for Japanese kanji, or vice versa. Here are some differences and truths to help you know more about the two and get your ideal tattoos.

1 Definition

To begin, you should have an general idea of the two. Kanji is the Japanese term for Chinese characters that are used in the Japanese language. It is imported centuries ago. And there is an equivalent term for Chinese characters in Chinese language, namely Hanzi.

2 Amount

Kanji are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana,katakana. And they only constitute part of their language or vocabulary, approximately only hundreds of them are frequently used. While Chinese characters are solely used in Chinese writing. According to Kangxi dictionary, there are about 47035 characters in Chinese language.

3 Truths

1 A Chinese character and a Japanese kanji may have the same form, but are pronounced differently.

2 A Chinese character and a Japanese kanji may have the same form, but they may have very different meanings. For example, "å¨~" exists in both Japanese kanji and Chinese symbol, while it means "mother" in Chinese, it means "daughter" in Japanese.

4 Chinese symbol tattoo or Japanese Kanji tattoo

So which one should you choose as your tattoo? It is really up to you. There is no restrictions on your choice. But it should be noticed that, as is said, compared to Chinese symbols, there are a smaller amount of Kanji symbols used in Japanese, which means, sometimes, you may not be able to get what you want to mean in Kanji. So, Chinese characters may give you more options and flexibilities on your symbol tattoos.