This Hebrew tattoo, which was discovered and sent in by Leor, is supposed to say "Lord give me strength". I have to admit, it is grammatically correct. Out poor victim made the mistake of trying to render it vertically, though, all by herself. Bad idea!
Below is how "Lord give me strength" is supposed to be written in Hebrew. They're the exact same words as in the tat. Can you spot what went wrong?
Mistake #1: This Hebrew tattoo is backwards. Unlike English, Hebrew is written right-to-left, so the rightmost letter should be on top, in a vertical tattoo.
Mistake #2: Letter Yod is not an apostrophe! Yod is the shortest letter, but it's still a letter, and as such, it deserves its own line when written vertically. In this tattoo, all Yods have to share their living space with other letters :(
Mistake #3: Some letters were replaced by other, similar looking letters. So you can very well read the word "Ten" (give) as "Chen" (grace), and you can read "Koach" (strength) as either "Noach" (comfy) or "Moach" (brain). Yeah, this tattoo could absolutely be read as "Lord give me brains".
Vertical Hebrew tattoos? Kids, don't do them!
It's not really unlike English. If you write an English sentence vertically it would be equally as stupid to write it from the bottom to the top.
ReplyDeletePlus the "noon" looks like a Z which makes no sense whatsoever.
Also it's an ugly font :P
what is correct way of writing "daniel" in hebrew?
ReplyDeletecan someone tell me how to write brothers forever in hebrew horizontally if it is posible at all. And can you post it so I can see how to do it propertly if possible. Thank you..
ReplyDeleteDaniel in Hebrew: דניאל
ReplyDeleteBrothers forever: אחים לנצח
Hello, please help me. My wife and I wish to get the Hebrew word for TEN or TENTH tattooed for our 10th wedding anniversary. Please could you confirm the correct spellings?
ReplyDelete@Alan:
ReplyDeleteTen: עשר (also: עשרה and when counting: י)
Tenth: עשירי
Thanks so much. Which one for Ten do you think is most appropriate? Did you mean that עשרה is only used when counting?
ReplyDeleteDear Typo Tat,
ReplyDeleteMy name is Brenda. I want to get a tattoo with the names of my 4 children in Hebrew. I've gone on many sites and got various different translations and I am very confused. If you could help me out and translate my babies names for me I would really appreciate it... The last thing i want is gibberish on me... The names and year of births are: Brian (2004), Angel (2006), Rihanna (2010), Adrian (Due in September, 2011). Thanking you in advance, Please help.
Regards,
Brenda
You probably should go with the simple ten: עשר
ReplyDeleteThe letter Yod (י) is used when counting, as it's the tenth letter. The other versions are used depending on Ten of what we're talking about. עשר is the most neutral.
@Brenda, I answered your question a couple of days ago, here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.badhebrew.com/2009/10/your-name-is-what-brian-and-angie.html
Thanks again. You've really helped out :)
ReplyDeleteAww how disappointing I can’t imagine how frustrating it must be for a tattoo translation to go wrong after you have even gone to the trouble of consulting someone to check it’s correct. This is why consulting a professional in a translation company is really the most ideal solution. Real language professionals would only ever make accurate recommendations and prevent error that will last you al lifetime like these from occurring.
ReplyDeleteHi Typo Tat,
ReplyDeleteI would love to get El Shaddai in hebrew as a tattoo but im deathly scared of getting some backwards crap. Could you help me? Its my first tattoo & im really nervous.
Former tattooist here. I forget how many times I said, "That's *not* what you think it says." The worst part is, some clients didn't believe me. They went to someone else and got whichever bit of gibberish inked in. One guy said to me, "But I like the way it looks. The way you spell it doesn't look as cool."
ReplyDeleteThe word in question? Someone had told him that the Likud party logo (HaLikud) was the Hebrew word for 'dance' (he's a breakbeat dancer). So he went to someone else and got the Likud logo instead of the word 'Lirkod.'
I bet that Bibi would be overjoyed.
Best,
-Nici (South Africa)
To Alan -
ReplyDeleteI suggest you to go with עשור
which means : Decade
We use the world when saying we are
"celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary"
as
"אנחנו חוגגים עשור"
we drop the wedding part as it goes without saying :)
Helo, I am going to put small tattoo God give me strenght on hebrew. Not like this girl on her back and not vertical. Do I just copy , corect way of spelling , letter symbol and order , as you posted above. Thank you for answer... Marc
ReplyDeleteI would like to get on hebrew Lord give me strenght. I am reading your web-page for a 2 full daies, and I learn a lot. Example how to properly read (from right to left) so that means first letter should be starting on right. Also I realize that symbols are crucial , wrong drowing could change everything. So as you mention above if I would like to make horizontal tattoo of Lord Give me strenght, I copy your corect spelling. Your web helped me a lot and thank God I didnt do anything b4 I read this page. Thank you for this information m8! Marko from Croatia(Europe) :)
ReplyDeleteHow do you pronounce "Lord Give Strength" can you write it Phonetically?
ReplyDeleteVery cool! Love the blog, and now I suddenly want a Hebrew tattoo ...
ReplyDeleteI know there are many versions in hebrew of the word "strength" - do you know the one meaning courage/strength?
ReplyDeleteHow do you know when to use tet or tav(or any other of those similar letters like samech and sin or kuf and caf or even ayin and alef. and the vowels too because I know there's like at least 3 ways to make the oo sound and at least three to make the ah sound and even more ways to make the eh sound)? Sometimes my friends ask me to write out their names in Hebrew and I write it out the way I think it is, but I'm almost positive that if they were to get a tattoo of what I write down as their name in Hebrew, they would appear on this site.Could you give some pointers maybe in the next post?
ReplyDelete