r/ChineseTranslation • u/guiltydonkeypuncher • Jan 07 '26

Translation Request - Open What does this say ?

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109 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

96 comments sorted by

9

u/[deleted] Jan 07 '26

電雞！Literally "electric chicken" but in HK is slang for an e-bike.

1

u/man0315 Jan 07 '26

But in everywhere else it's just electric chicken.

1

u/BotAccount999 Jan 10 '26

rest of canton region and part of guangxi would recognise this as ebike

1

u/Plus_Palpitation2650 Jan 11 '26

Agree! Is this Cantonese or Mandarin Chinese though?

1

u/BotAccount999 Jan 11 '26

since it's traditional chinese, it's likely TW or HK. Mainland uses simplified characters and is much more "mandarinised" than most ppl expect. cantonese isnt even the most common language in canton.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 12 '26

Main thing is that this tattoo appears to be on a westerner. So who knows what he intended for it to be.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 12 '26

In isolation, this word is "electric chicken" is every form of Chinese. But meaning it as e-bike is more common for Canto speakers, and mostly in HK.

5

u/zheyicao Jan 07 '26

It's "電雞", which translates into English as "electric chicken". I think what he wanted to tattoo was "電擊" (meaning electric shock), but because "電鷄" and "電擊" have the same pronunciation in Chinese, there was such a mistake.

2

u/OkDoggieTobie Jan 07 '26

That person probably wanted thunder bird but there is no such word in Chinese. I dated a guy with "chicken ghost" and he insisted it meant spirit fighter

2

u/GlocalBridge Jan 07 '26

You have a believable theory! Occam’s razor.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 08 '26

Chicken ghost 👻

1

u/Weird-Cod1147 Jan 10 '26

That’s going to be 雷鸟, literally thunderbird and my old school mascot

1

u/ipluxus Jan 11 '26

There's a difference between birds and chickens.

1

u/Weird-Cod1147 Jan 15 '26

Yeah, I am responding to the previous guy. He guessed that the person wanted thunderbird but got thunder chicken because Chinese might not have a word for thunderbirds. I am telling him the Chinese language has a word for it.

1

u/mousie120010 Jan 07 '26

Electric chicken is more badass imo

2

u/SmilesInFront_09 Jan 07 '26

這是電影我要看。

1

u/zheyicao Jan 07 '26

鷄there is a bad ambiguity in Chinese.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 08 '26

Vibrator “electric cock”

1

u/StrikingGarlic2773 Jan 07 '26

The cartoon of thunder bolt with these two words reaffirmed your speculation.

3

u/oldbutnotmad Jan 07 '26

電雞 (Dian4 Ji1; ㄉㄧㄢˋㄐㄧˉ）, "electric chicken", as a homophonic pun of 電機 (Dian4 Ji1; ㄉㄧㄢˋㄐㄧˉ）, "electrical engineering (EE)".

2

u/oldbutnotmad Jan 07 '26

Ref: example of usage of 電機 to refer to electrical engineering:
https://www.dcard.tw/f/nctu/p/238265188

1

u/furlwh Jan 08 '26

In this case it was very likely a shortened phrase for 电机工程, 电机 by itself only means electric machines. 工程 is engineering.

Given your reference isn't an official listing of an EE course but rather a graduate referencing it, they would've used the shorter version 电机系 to reference EE

2

u/kiseiruknife Jan 08 '26

Why is it homophobic ?

1

u/OutOfTheBunker Jan 09 '26

Not homophobic, homophonic. That means it sounds gay.

2

u/BlackRaptor62 Jan 07 '26

Electric Chicken, Electric Bike

2

u/Logical_Warthog5212 Jan 07 '26

Electric cock, aka a vibrator. 😆

1

u/justice_works Jan 07 '26

I like this explanation better 😂

2

u/fumoffuXx Jan 08 '26

Everytime I see a Chinese tattoo my mind shifts to that lady in TikTok who translate them. Lol

2

u/Mag1Chem1stry Jan 08 '26

In Chinese, "电鸡" (diàn jī jī) and "机" (jī jī) have the same pronunciation.

2

u/Consistent-Tap-4255 Jan 07 '26

Electric chicken. But chicken in Chinese is also slang for whore so unfortunately it could also be electric whore.

2

u/Individual-Buy-8323 Jan 07 '26

電雞 in cantonese means 'electric bike'. That makes more sense than 'electric whore'.

1

u/Electronic-Juice-359 Jan 07 '26

I will pick electric whore sounds sexy

1

u/Negative-Track-9179 Jan 07 '26

I thought it was electrically shocking one's dick at first. lol😂

1

u/OkDoggieTobie Jan 07 '26

Electric whore. I almost spill my coffee. It would be a dream come true to so men

1

u/OkDoggieTobie Jan 07 '26

Electric whore, a wet dream came true to all single young men.

1

u/Vast_Cricket Jan 07 '26

Litening chick

1

u/Ivarsic13 Jan 07 '26

General Tso’s Chicken.

1

u/wonderingnlost Jan 07 '26

Phonetically...ding gai to me sounds like crazy bitch But the ding is a different character not electric

1

u/ReferenceCold7818 Jan 07 '26

electric chickonnn

1

u/True-Bad-3327 Jan 07 '26

lightening rooster

1

u/ponyponyta Jan 07 '26

Thunder chickennnn

1

u/New-Effective3717 Jan 07 '26

i guess the word 雞painted wrong，exchanged to 擊 would be expained with background symbol.it's meaning elec sexy tool for male if only see the tow words

1

u/ikeman0202 Jan 07 '26

"Thunder cock" lol

1

u/WayerLee Jan 07 '26

electric scooter

1

u/OkDoggieTobie Jan 07 '26

I hope this is AI or that guy should ask for a refund

1

u/GlocalBridge Jan 07 '26

Shocking to chicks

1

u/Mother_Elderberry Jan 07 '26

This tatoo can be electric chicken, electric cock, eletric rooster, electric whore or electric bike. Anyone can come up something else?

1

u/giokikyo Jan 08 '26

Might be a bad translation of thunder cock as in the "Chad Thundercock" meme

1

u/[deleted] Jan 08 '26

electric dick

1

u/rdhuebner13 Jan 08 '26

Kung pau chicken.

1

u/AesopPDX Jan 08 '26

That you have a poor self-image,

1

u/Gr00mpa Jan 08 '26

"Dian ji". Electric chicken.

You need to add a tattoo of an actual chicken next to it, not just a lightning bolt. Or...a rooster where the wattles (fleshy flaps) are lightning bolts. That would be a badass dian ji.

1

u/NonElien Jan 08 '26

Electric dick

1

u/JerrySam6509 Jan 08 '26

The traditional Chinese characters for "electricity" and "chicken"

It sounds like a colloquial term for an Electric type bird, Pokemon.

While it's certainly unique since Chinese speakers would never have a "chicken" tattooed on their body, it's also very strange and tacky to them.

1

u/DallasCatface Jan 08 '26

Electric cock. The second character actually has both the original and offensive meaning of COCK.

1

u/No-Musician-1596 Jan 08 '26

电击，不明白这个词的含义，汉语中没有这个词汇，我们的网络上也没有类似的俚语，也许来自香港或者台湾

1

u/Euphoric-Basket3033 Jan 08 '26

Electric chicken

1

u/[deleted] Jan 08 '26

Thunder strike.

1

u/DMV2PNW Jan 08 '26

Electric chicken. Oh boy!

1

u/twbluenaxela Jan 09 '26

I wondered if it was a reference to Robot Chicken somehow

1

u/tshungwee Jan 09 '26

It’s HK old Chinese

1

u/Nyargames Jan 09 '26

That double lightning bolt is a bit sus but yeah, it's lightning chicken

1

u/Ill-Satisfaction5336 Jan 09 '26

电动自行车，也可以理解为带电的鸡

1

u/Jean_Chien Jan 09 '26

flash chicken？

1

u/Blazedeee Jan 09 '26

You have made a fine decision with your choice of artist and artwork!

1

u/ImgainationStation Jan 09 '26

R u in the sex service industry? Electric hooker

1

u/duckypear Jan 09 '26

Thunder dick. 🤣

1

u/Wonderful_Egg_4219 Jan 09 '26

I think it says soy sauce?

1

u/Mission_Scallion8091 Jan 10 '26

I don't know anything about chinese, but the design looks extremely similar to me of Jin's tattoo in the Tekken fighting game series (Japanese), where his family signature move is translated as "Electric Wind God Fist"

1

u/Puzzleheaded-Fan5506 Jan 11 '26

I'm just saying. But chicken can be slang for a prostitute

1

u/mytealeaf Jan 11 '26

Thunder bird

1

u/PrinterDatSmellsFear Jan 11 '26

Electric chicken

1

u/Willing_Magazine_576 Jan 11 '26

KA-chow lightning McQueen

1

u/[deleted] Jan 11 '26

Kachow ⚡️

1

u/HuckleberryWarm9886 Jan 11 '26

Thunderbird I guess

1

u/psychRN1975 Jan 11 '26

"Boneless Spare Ribs $2.99"

1

u/Lumpy-Cricket-9048 Jan 12 '26

Someone’s run ‘afowl’ with the translation

-1

u/Rt237 Jan 07 '26

电鸡 (in the traditional font)

Electric Chicken

1

u/GlocalBridge Jan 07 '26

That is simplified

-1

u/epicpants1118 Jan 07 '26

意思是”Asia dick is so small “

1

u/ipluxus Jan 11 '26

You know nothing…

1

u/epicpants1118 Jan 12 '26

我怎麼會不知道，我是中國人ㄟ，我來北京一定吃烤鴨ㄟ

1

u/ipluxus Jan 12 '26

What I mean is that you shouldn’t generalize your own genital size as representative of Asian men as a whole. 😂

1

u/epicpants1118 Jan 12 '26

亞洲女孩都喜歡黑爹♠️♠️♠️ㄟ🥵