How do you say “high tech lowlife” in Japanese?

3 comments

1. If your intention is to preserve the high/low wordplay I would consider getting the same phrase but written in katakana (it would basically be the same phrase just with a Japanese reading), since it might not really feel the same otherwise.

   ハイテク・ローライフ

   And it’s plenty common for phrases like that to be left intact when brought over to Japanese, but I’d like to hear others’ opinions.

2. I think it would be a good idea to read [this page](https://www.reddit.com/r/translator/wiki/tattoos?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) before anything else. As another commenter mentioned, this phrase doesn’t really translate very well into Japanese, but can be transliterated using katakana.

   But honestly, it would probably be better to just get it in English. The tattoo being in Japanese doesn’t automatically make it cooler or anything, Japanese words are just words, the same as in English. In fact, the chances of it instantly becoming bad are higher since both you and the artist are more likely to make silly mistakes. Of course, it’s still perfectly fine to get it in Japanese if you want, but you’re more likely to end up with something kinda dumb or even just plain incorrect on your skin.

3. That pun doesn’t work in Japanese.

   The ‘high/low’ thing doesn’t carry across, because the Japanese equivalent to ‘lowlife’ would be something like ‘くず’ or ‘scum’.

   Not to mention that stuff like ‘high tech’ often just gets transliterated, since there’s not really a satisying native term for it. There are *some* translations (e.g. [先端技術](https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/en/high-tech/)), but they’re not one-to-one.

   Beyond that, especially with tattoos, not only do you lose personal control of the nuance, you also face the problems that:

   1. Your tattoo artist is likely about as clueless about Japanese as you, so there’s a noteworthy chance of a fairly bad mistake. And because it’s a tattoo, that’s a permanent mistake.
   2. Because you personally don’t understand it, it’s a bit like a tree falling in the woods; it doesn’t matter if it makes a sound or not, because without someone to hear it, it’s lost. And if neither you nor anyone around you can personally read it, then what you are getting engraved on yourself amounts to nothing more than illegible scribbles that strangers on the internet assure you has a particular meaning.

   I say this to everyone when it comes to tattoos, but it’s much better to get them in a language you yourself personally understand.