Hey. I got dilemma. I wanna paint some chinese symbols on my lamp and Im not sure about symbol of love. I found two similar ones. They are described as chinese in some places/webs, but also as japanese. So Im confused. Maybe this sounds funny, but I realy dont know this language and I would like to find out which is correct symbol. Can You explain me the difference between those?


and


I will be grateful for help

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2009 02:27PM by Framandi.

愛 is a traditional caracter while 爱 is a simpliphied one. In my opinion traditional writing is more elegant.

Hm thanks. I should buy some books or get some course, cause Im still confused. I thought japanese and chinese are totaly different. I saw those symbols of "love" described as chinese and somewhere else as japanese. I used some dictionaries and found one same symbol in both languages. Like [www.chinese-symbols.com] , theres many symbols those I found somewhere else described as japanese. Seems I havent got any idea about it >.< But thanks for helping

One more thing. If I got two symbols like :

for happines, do I have to write/paint both to keep meaning? Cause I saw them written together and apart. It's still same meaning if I write/paint only first or second symbol? And whats difference between those symbols and:


This may be annoying for You, but thanks for help and patience ^^

The character 愛 is common both to traditional chinese and japanese writing, it's because the japanese use chinese characters as a part of their writing system.
As for the 幸福, you can use 福 character separately to have the same meaning.

Ah, cool Thanks a lot <3 If its not tiring for You to talk with such a newbie like me, can You also explain me difference between first (black symbol) and second (red) one?