eloriane:

kateskute:

my first tattoo.  it’s in arabic and it means “my best days are with you” which is a quote from the song with you by the subway.  we used to listen to the song all the time when we first met and i love it as much today as i did the first day i got it.

Sorry! That’s not how someone who knows Arabic would write it!

First, the letters in each word are supposed to connect. You’ve written جيدة properly but in the other words you’re doing the equivalent of writing in children’s all-caps.

Second, in the words that you have failed to connect, the letters are in the wrong order. The words are all spelled backwards. Which means that your children’s all-caps spell out absolute gibberish.

Finally, the translation you attempted is… questionable. Not as questionable as when I was trying to translate the gibberish, but still not excellent. جيدة means “good,” not “best,” and the phrase “with me” is actually supposed to be (kindasorta) a contraction. And it’s not supposed to use the form of “you” which is used to directly address people.

Tentatively, I would translate “my best days are with you” to “ايامي احسن معك”. I am tentative because I’m actually not a native Arabic speaker— I’ve just studied the language for a few semesters. My translation is, to the best of my knowledge, grammatically correct, but there may be more idiomatic phrasings.

This is not to say that it would not be an improvement. Your version, I would translate as “HEY,YOU-WITH good MY DAYS.” Only worse.

People of the world: please do not tattoo yourself with messages in languages you do not know. Failing that, consult with native speakers to ensure that your tattoo— which you will not understand— is at least comprehensible to others. Failing that, ask some white chick on the internet, or do a basic google search, and try not to write like a dyslexic two year old.

wow, way to be an asshole and a know-it-all… and furthermore where did kate ever say she consulted “some white chick on the internet” for anything