quote: | Originally posted by jennypie
It means life, live, to be alive, to be born, to give birth, birthday. So life. I wanted live love laugh, but it wouldn't fit the way I wanted it too without the characters being distorted. |
I recently read an old thread in which you said that, and I thought you had another character in your neck, because that character alone doesn't really mean all those things, but it is used in the spelling of all the words you mentioned (birthday is 誕生, for example). 命 is more likely to occur on its own when they mean "life".
All by itself, 生 means "raw" (生の牛肉 = "Raw beef"), "live" (as in happening right now, e.g. 生の音楽 = "Live Music"), "not elaborated" (この刃は生だ = This blade is blunt / 読者の生の声を聞きたい = I want to hear readers' candid opinions) in Japanese. In Chinese, much like in Japanese, this character alone does not seem to be able to convey all the meanings you want. "Life", for example, is 生命, and it would be more usual to see the last character being used independently. In summary, that's like having "bio" tattoed in your back - it is part of many words related to life, such as "biology" and "biodiversity", but it isn't really the proper word. Who recommended you that character?
Anyway. what really matters is that...
quote: | Originally posted by jennypie
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... they look awesome on you
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