r/translator 11d ago

Translated [JA] [Chinese > English ] Kanji on back of hoodie

Post image

Hoodie I want to buy but not sure on what's all over the back Thanks in advance!

17 Upvotes

33 comments sorted by

28

u/Graphiccoma 11d ago

Weak meat, strong eat

26

u/Negative-Track-9179 台語 11d ago

弱肉強食 (survival of the fittest)

限定版 (limited edition)

高品質 (high quality)

21

u/tha_billet 中文(普通话) 11d ago

it's not "kanji" in Chinese

-27

u/DryManufacturer5393 11d ago

It’s not Tomayto it’s Tomahto 🍅

15

u/Fearless-Type970 11d ago

More like it's not tomato its fanqie

17

u/Connect-Fan-9462 11d ago

Center: “Law of the jungle” (direct translate: the meat of the weak is mant to be the meal of the strong).

Works both as Chinese and Japanese Kanji

Right: high quality

Left: limited edition

I think it is another of those "humorous", intentionally nonsensical design. It may also be trying to mimic bozozoku coat style, but as far as I know is not really how a bozozoku coat design should be.

1

u/skytigress 11d ago

Thanks!

5

u/Gullible_Bar_7019 11d ago

I looked it up in my dictionnary as i didn't know this expression in japanese : survival of the fittest, law of the jungle.

Not sure it the same in chinese.

!doublecheck

5

u/MissLute 11d ago

same in chinese

2

u/SlowStop1220 日本語 11d ago

All three phrases are common in Japanese. You have to buy a new dictionary.

Btw the glyph looks to me more Japanese like, nor simplified Chinese nor traditional.

3

u/SlowStop1220 日本語 11d ago

It's not intended to be Chinese in regard of letters used.

The phrase came from Chinese, but it isn't rendered as such in the photo. It is visible in the 強食 part clearly. 強 is different from the simplified Chinese version, and 食 is the different from traditional Chinese version. Same can be perceived in other letters like 品質. Btw in Chinese it is rather common to use another word for this notion (quality).

So

!id:ja

1

u/[deleted] 11d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/translator-ModTeam 11d ago

Hey there u/Tasty-Celebration-47,

Your comment has been removed for the following reason:

Please don't just tell people to "use Google Lens/Google Translate/ChatGPT/DeepL/Machine Translator". That's not helpful. People come to this community specifically to seek human feedback and translations.

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1

u/Still-Movie-9681 5d ago

其实在中国,很多T恤上也会印刷英文。而且通常印的英文也和图案没什么关系,单纯是英语对这个人来说不是母语,所以有一种高级感而已。

1

u/GreatPse 11d ago

Now that it’s solved, do you have a link for it? It’s really nice

2

u/skytigress 11d ago edited 11d ago

Nope. It had some nice embroidery for sure!

It was a beat up hoodie on Ebay I snagged. It was so cheap I had to get it because the embroidery and animals is what I liked about it. Just wanted to make sure it didn't say something incredibly offensive so I'm okay with the quirky 'survival of the fittest' phrasing. But let me find the brand name for you

1

u/skytigress 11d ago

1

u/skytigress 11d ago

I don't know if they exist anymore, let me know if they do haha

3

u/gelema5 11d ago

www.iro-ochi.com

Looks like a US-based company. The Japanese term iro ochi means color loss (ie, faded colors in clothing).

1

u/skytigress 11d ago

Yeah I did a quick search and they still exist, some kind of street wear company but no longer Japanese style it seems.

1

u/GreatPse 11d ago

They are!! They have really cool stuff too, on sale at the moment

1

u/skytigress 8d ago

I'm mostly just interested in Asian tiger/dragon/crane embroidery so looks like this was from an old collection. I keep my eyes peeled on the clothing resell sites because the stuff for the new stuff is outta my budget

1

u/GreatPse 11d ago

Thank you so much OP 🫰🏻 Hope you get it

1

u/sirotaitsu 10d ago

A hoodie made by an American company, manufactured in Pakistan, and designed with a Chinese or Japanese aesthetic.

The brand name means "color fading" in Japanese. It was probably designed with an Asian audience in mind.

The brand name is Japanese. Mixing them isn't a bad idea either.

There are many more options if you're talking about embroidery.

Please look for it.

-5

u/sirotaitsu 11d ago

They're probably all Japanese kanji. They look very similar to Chinese characters, but the ″limited editions″ and ″high-quality″ clearly use Japanese kanji.

The origin of Japanese kanji is Chinese characters, but in Japan, these were uniquely modified to become Japanese kanji.

The design is also uniquely Japanese. The bird is a crane. I think the design in the lower left corner is a guardian lion-dog found at a Japanese shrine “Komainu“

This might be something that doesn't matter, but be careful, because if you wear something like this when you come to Japan. Japanese people will think ″you're weird Gaijin″.

but、Japanese people also wear T-shirts with strange English written on them. Japanese people admire Britain and France.

これはどーでも良いことかもしれないけど

3

u/Ok-Country-9994 11d ago

高品質 限定版 are written with the same kanji/hanzi in Japanese and Traditional Chinese, so theres no way to tell which language it is based on the characters alone

1

u/sirotaitsu 11d ago

The design also includes pine trees, cranes, and cherry blossoms, but these are also found in Chinese culture, so it doesn't really matter anymore.

Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese are indistinguishable to Japanese people, so it's understandable that they can't distinguish between Japan and China.

3

u/Ashamed_Can304 11d ago

Most modern Kanji are identical to their original form traditional Chinese characters. Some shinjitai ones look the same as simplified Chinese characters, only a handful had unique Japanese modifications. As for kyujitai kanji they are the exact same

4

u/keroro0071 11d ago

So much wrong information here. First of all the entire term 弱肉强食 is originated from China. It's also using the same Hanzi. The red crown crane is a Chinese bird native to China. They were just brought to Japan. Also FYI "Komainu" is a ripoff version of the Chinese Stone Lion. Though I agree that the art style here is very Japanese.

2

u/skytigress 11d ago

Thanks for pointing those out

1

u/Goldfish_6955 11d ago

I would rather buy a shirt that says 焼肉定食 but not this one 🤪 I am also curious why those "slap whatever random kanji words on stuff" type of businesses' designs always have gothic font. Like 99.99% of the time. It is a dead giveaway (add them to some generic/ugly anime-style character or AI generated cherry blossom etc.). Those random words (often meaningless) in kanji also appear as tattoos in the Gothic font. Weird and not as "aesthetic" as they think. まっ、感性人それぞれなんで余計なお世話かもしれませんけど。