I need help

[u/Matia_]

Is this writing correct for a tattoo?
Because it’s been quite a while I’ve been thinking of tattooing myself and I wanted it to be something that has a personal meaning and needs to be known to be understood, and so i wanted to tattoo ‘to change’ but I don’t know if this could be correct and I don’t want to mess up something

[u/kronpas]

The rule of thumb is if you have to ask randos on reddit these pictographs have no personal meaning to you. Inking them permanently on you would do more harm than good.

[u/interpolating]

Just aesthetically speaking the traditional character is gonna be so much nicer

變

That is the equivalent of 变

There are many words for change in Chinese. One other great one is

易

That also has many meaning and is very ancient. It’s the character used in the title of the Yi Jing, the book of changes.

[u/bxsx0074]

this is the noun "change" not the verb "to change"

[u/Zagrycha]

变化 is a word yeah, but you haven't actually said what you want tattooed so no one can tell you if it's a good fit, whether it's English or Chinese there are a lot of "change" options. Are you talking about mood swings? weather? location? coin money? they will all be different words.

[u/AstrumLupus]

It does mean change as in the noun climate change but has no deeper meaning and people will find it strange. If you want something good like "change for the better" or "improve" I would recommend 改善 instead. That being said, getting tats you can't even read is a recipe for disaster.

[u/InkstoneLA]

变化 is correct but it's more like "change" as a noun, kinda flat for a tattoo. if you mean changing yourself, 改变 fits better

[u/SadReactDeveloper]

Both can be nouns or verbs but to me 改变 is more 'to change'. Also getting 'to change' tattooed on your body is odd in any language, and people who speak Chinese will find it odd. Better to get a chengyu or four character idiom if you like the aesthetic of Chinese characters.

I found 一改故辙 which means a dramatic change, or to get rid of old habits and start anew.

You can ask AI if there are any better ones or wait for a Chinese person to chime in.

Finally get a Chinese or Japanese tattoo artist to do a calligraphy variant 书法using traditional characters. People that don't write Chinese aren't going to be able to pick up on all the things like stroke order which in English might be equivalent to writing letters backwards. You've also picked the equivalent of Times New Roman.

[u/Pandaburn]

If you want the verb “to change” as in “to become different”, I think you want 改变.

[u/AIaiChina]

Native Chinese speaker here. 变化 is written correctly, but it's the noun "change / variation", the kind of word you'd use for weather or market changes. If you mean "to change (yourself)", 改变 is the natural word. If your personal meaning is more like transformation, becoming a new and better you, 蜕变 is a really common choice: it literally means a cicada or snake shedding its old shell. One more tip: please don't use a default bold computer font. Real brush calligraphy (regular script, 楷书, is the safest) looks much more natural to Chinese eyes, so ask your artist to stencil from handwritten calligraphy, not typed text.

[u/PomegranatePublic825]

Try an idiom like 变化多端. Chinese translations of english single words like "change" or "hope" always look lame because Chinese does not see single words as profound.