Tattoo trends come and go, so getting something sentimental inked onto your body forever can end in disaster. Many ink lovers are praised for their powerfully meaningful pieces, but others are caught out with serious tattoo blunders.
Whether it's an unfortunate misspelling or a failed relationship, some people are left racing to book a tattoo removal. One woman has taken to TikTok to deliver the bad news about a dodgy tattoo translation in a hilarious take down that's left people in stitches over the ink-gone-wrong.
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A seemingly unproblematic design at first glance, one man revealed he'd chosen to get his partner's initials tattooed in Chinese on the top of his back.
He showed off the ink in TikTok video that saw him take his hoodie off to unveil the meaningful tattoo, which is nestled between two large angel wings on either shoulder.
A woman called Shannon, who posts under the handle @shannon.iao on the platform, swiftly slammed the man's tattoo by revealing the translation hadn't quite worked the way he'd planned.
In a response to the tattoo video, Shannon, who is from Hong Kong, made her own clip with the words "it makes no sense bro" plastered across the front.
Although the original poster did not reveal his partner's name in the video, Shannon is convinced that the typography has to be a serious translation fail, as it actually amounts to the three words: "test", "special" and "Buddhist nun" in Chinese.
The funny response breaks down what each character translates to, and the woman filming the video can't hold back her smirk at the silly error.
According to Shannon, the tattoo disaster has spawned from a lack of understanding around the language that the man's ink derives from.
This is because Chinese is not a phonetic language, meaning the pronunciation of a word is not related to how it is written. As many of the comments on the woman's video point out, the man may have used Google Translate to find his partner's name, but the true meaning is something far different - as there's no direct translation.
While some commenters claimed that the tattoo translates to the name Courtney, Shannon debunked the meaning, explaining the unfortunate reality of the wording.
She said: "There’s no translation for Courtney in Chinese… he just 'spelt' it phonetically which translates to very random words that don’t make sense".
Many people flocked to the comments section to slate the man's serious oversight, with one commenting "Never understood why people [sic] tattoo a language they don't understand".
Another said: "English names don’t translate directly into Chinese anyway lol".
Others joked that the unusual translation could in fact be the woman's name, by saying "what if her name is Ms. Test Special Buddhist-Nun?".
It's definitely not the first time that someone has committed to a poorly translated Chinese tattoo, as it's one of the most common ink-related blunders around.
One TikTok user shared another terrible fiasco in comments, saying: "Saw a dude who thought he had a Chinese 'wisdom' tattoo or something [sic] like that, turned out it actually meant noodle soup".
Another joked that the weird translation could relate to the girlfriend's character, by suggesting that she was a "very special Buddhist nun who tested his limits".
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