Chinese tattoo checker

How it reads your tattoo

Our reader splits the characters into words as a Chinese reader would, then gives each word’s pinyin and its meaning from our dictionary. Words together are read word by word; it doesn’t judge whether a phrase sounds natural, so have a native speaker read a whole sentence too.

Not a word we know

Characters that don’t make a word are marked, with what each one means on its own. A word written in the wrong order, like 气勇 for 勇气 (courage), is a common tattoo mistake, so the checker also reads the characters the other way round.

Mirrored, upside down or the wrong font

A mirrored or upside-down character can’t be typed, so if you can’t find one of your tattoo’s characters in your keyboard’s handwriting input, it may be drawn wrong. Horizontal Chinese reads left to right, and vertical Chinese top to bottom.

Simplified or traditional?

Both are read. Mainland China writes simplified characters (龙, 爱); Taiwan and Hong Kong write traditional ones (龍, 愛). Pick one and keep the whole tattoo in it.

More free tools

• Your name in Chinese
• How to say it in Chinese
• Stroke order
• Character worksheet
• Chinese zodiac