Kanji for family first quote

please can anybody help me with a bushido style tattoo im working on. i want to write the words family first in japanease using the corect strokes etc
many thanks Darren

I believe you posted the same question under "Language"?

What do you mean by "bushido style" by the way?

I suppose he means Japanese style.

Anyway, good idea making a new thread. That old one got inundated by the decidedly unhelpful anti-tattoo crowd.

I suppose I mean in the style that tells a story .the book im using is bushido legacies of Japanese tattooing

@yllwsmrf
anti-tattoo?
I just said that Japanese have no Kanji meaning "family first".
Don't get me wrong!

But I think my post was unhelpful for OP as you pointed out.
Thank you.

Sorry ajapaneseboy, I wasn't referring to you specifically. I was speaking more toward the posters who rather than being helpful, just pile on with "Japanese people don't like tattoos" or "Japanese people will think your idea sounds stupid". There's a good way and a bad way to discourage a tactless tattoo, and that thread seemed to be taking the later path.

Anyway, I'd help with a translation, but I wouldn't trust my Japanese for a tattoo.

http://www.japan-guide.com/forum/quereadisplay.html?0+96991

If the above older thread is the one we're talking about, I didn't think it was unhelpful at all. In fact, posters were seriously trying to help by trying to figure out what the OP may have meant.

It's a good thing that here AK asked the meaning of "bushido style," because that is the precise phrase that is making the original question so confusing.

I don't think any of us still understand what the OP is trying to do. In any case, a translator would need full background to translate a phrase as abstract as "family first," and at least for most of us here, this phrase doesn't really seem to have anything to do with bushido or tattoos.

Again, I'm not critisizing. I'm just saying that the OP needs to add more clarification and background to get more help.

Yea, I guess I was just turned off by a few of the comments. It seems to have turned for the better.

Anyway, it seems that the Japanese speakers are being thrown off because you said you are looking for bushido style, and I don't think there are any poetic "bushido" phrases that mean what you are trying to say.

So how about using a more straight translation. �Ƒ��D�� (Kazoku Yuusen) means prioritize family, and has a similar nuance as 'family first'. Perhaps the Japanese speakers have more suggestions along these lines.

Thank you very much for all your help. I didnt mean to confuse the issue With the word bashido,I obviously dont really now what im talking about but trust me my intensions are True. and i love the new quote

Kazoku Yuusen in kanji . will it still read the same in horizontal txt

Well, as a native speaker (and professional translator) I can think of �ƒ��� but still it would look totally silly as a tattoo.

Mind you, I'm not against kanji tattoos at all. It's just that there just are phrases that would never look cool as tattoos and this is certainly one of them. And no offence intended, but I must say that �Ƒ��D�� is even worse.

Finding phrases and catch copies in foreign languages is much more difficult than you'd think. This is just some serious advise, but it's really up to you. Anyway, think well before you engrave something permanent.

And back to our question, why do you want to tattoo "family first" in the first place? If you want to strenghen the spirit of thinking that your own family comes first, why not simply tattoo all the names of your family members?

WOW its all getting a bit to deep for me ,I only asked for a little help on some translation, as a fully grown man who takes his art very serious I didn't really expect a lecture. FAMILY FIRST is a well know quotation within the tattoo community . But still no offense taken;-)

I see no lecture, I simply see genuine advice being given to help you understand the situation. What you do with that advice is purely up to you.

While "family first", IN ENGLISH, is a well know quotation within the tattoo community, these good folk are trying to tell you that the literal translation for that results in kanji that is a bit weird.

Here's what I recommend;
a) tattoo whatever you want on your self
b) if a customer comes and asks for "family first in Japanese", tell them what you've learnt here

It may be a well-known phrase in the tattoo community (and actually in the entire English-speaking world), but that doesn't mean it translates well into another language and culture.

If you just want a straight translation and don't care about the cultural aspects, go with one of the options mentioned above. Just be aware that you will have a tattoo that Japanese people (and Chinese, who will also understand the meaning) will be confused by at best, or will laugh at at worst.

Some phrases and concepts that seem perfectly normal to us in English-speaking societies just do not transfer well into other languages and cultures, and this is definitely one of them. You can see by the responses you have got just how odd a concept it is to Japanese people.

Why not have it in English if the meaning is that important to you?

Ausmomo and koko says it all. At least on my post, no lecture was intended. This is what a translator would normally do to satisfy the needs of a person who needs something translated. Just wanted to help and still do.

Ok i probably got this all wrong, so for that am sorry.but i do still need help so if anybobys got any good constructive ideas on a nice japanease quote refering to family life i realy would appreciate it. If its any help it will be going inbertween a butterfly & a chrysanthemum The last thing i want is something that somebody may laugh at

hiragana, katakana,man'y�gana ,ARE these diferant styles of writing ?

Darren, again what are you trying to do with this tattoo?

Is this for someone else's body? If so, why does that person want this tattoo? Does the person want to express love toward his/her own parents? Or is it for the person's children? If so, why? Or is it to promote respect towards family in general, almost like saying, "all people in the world should honor their family"? If so, why?

You need to tell us the background. The point is to express the feeling that lies within that background, not literal words. Language is culture. Not just a string of words from the dictionary.

Also, why do you want it in a foreign word when it's a lot safer and sincere to express it in words you actually know? Again, I'm not lecturing. I'm asking a question so that people can get a better idea.

By the way, are you familier with proper fonts? For example, it would be totally odd to do it in mincho-shape characters. Is there a caligrapher who can write it properly for you? And do you feel comfortable relying to information from anonymous internet users like us? Do you know a native proof-reader in real life?

Ok here goes , the tattoo is for my body and I do already have the words tattooed in my native language. However this particular sleeve is in Japanese style (horiyoshi lll). So what im trying to do is express my love to all family & to try and let others know that the only thing in my life that is truly important to me is my Family. The likely hood of me ever bumping into anybody who could read this script is around 100000000/1 , but I can't take that chance it has to be correct

I hope native posters can come up with alternatives or opinions, but here are my ideas. I can think of a few.

��
This kanji means "home/house." Traditionally, the Japanese consider that family, home and house are similar things. This often implies heritage and bond, but it often implies that one is espected to return to his/her home/homeland rather than to be scattered around the world freely for the rest of their lives.

�F
This kanji means "devoted/dutiful."
It implies being true and kind to family members, especially to one's parents. But it can also be used for spouse and older siblings and such. Not so typically used toward one's children, though. Traditionally, it is the children who are expected to be dutiful towards their parents and not the other way around.

��
This kanji means "love." What more can I say?

�J
This kanji means "bond." What more can I say about this as well?

You can either choose one of those kanji, or you can put some of them together. But if you put them together, you should leave at least one space in between so that it would look like random symbols. Otherwise, the set of kanji you chose would look like one single word, and if that word doesn't exist in the dictionary, it would look like a dumb tattoo that a foreigner with no knowledge of the language designed.

As I've mentioned before, there are more literal translations like �Ƒ��D�� or �ƒ���, but these phrases look like something you'd see on a health insurance leaflet. It would look very odd as a tattoo.

Again, I hope you know the right font to use.
font