she got seven rings tattooed on her palm in japanese. it says small charcoal grill. the attempt to fix it made it worse.
the short answer
in january 2019 she had 七輪 tattooed on her palm to mark 7 rings. the characters separately mean seven and ring, but together they read shichirin — a small charcoal grill. the correct phrase, 七つの指輪, needs three more characters in the middle. she had a partial fix done, which did not resolve it.
what went wrong
japanese does not work by stacking the characters for each english word. 七 means seven and 輪 means ring, hoop or wheel — but 七輪 as a compound is an established word, and the word is shichirin, a small portable charcoal grill of the kind used for yakiniku.
the phrase she wanted is 七つの指輪. the three characters she omitted, つの指, are what turn seven and ring into seven rings rather than into a barbecue.
why she omitted them
the fix, which did not fix it
she had additional characters added underneath in an attempt to correct it. the result was still not the phrase she wanted — japanese speakers who looked at the repaired version reported that it now reads as something like a japanese barbecue finger, which is worse rather than better.
her own response to the whole thing was the best part of it. she asked people to leave her and her tambourine grill alone, which is a joke that concedes the error entirely and is why this never became a controversy rather than a story.
the serious version of the criticism
there was one, and it is worth recording. a white american pop star getting a kanji tattoo to promote a song already facing appropriation criticism attracted the argument that the language had been treated as decoration rather than as a language — which is exactly the failure mode a mistranslation demonstrates.
she did not respond to that, and it was largely drowned out by the joke.
the rest of the ink
she has a great many tattoos and this is the only one that is famous for being wrong. the tattoos page covers the others — the bee for manchester, the ones connected to mac miller, and the several that have been covered or altered as circumstances changed.
what it cost, and what it did not
nothing, in career terms. it produced a week of jokes, a good line from her, and no lasting consequence — which makes it a useful control against the criticisms that did stick. the difference is that a mistranslation is an error and the durable criticisms are about patterns.
it has, however, become the single most-cited fact about her tattoos, which is slightly unfair to the rest of them. the tattoos page has the bee, the ones connected to mac miller, and the several that have been altered as circumstances changed — all of which mean more than this one.
questions people ask
what does ariana grande's japanese tattoo say?
七輪, which reads as shichirin — a small charcoal grill — rather than seven rings.
what should the tattoo have said?
七つの指輪. she omitted the three middle characters, つの指, which are what make it seven rings.
why did she leave characters out?
she said the palm was too painful to sit through for longer.
did ariana grande fix the tattoo?
she had characters added underneath, but japanese speakers reported the repaired version still does not read as seven rings.
how did she respond?
with a joke — she asked people to leave her and her tambourine grill alone, which conceded the mistake completely.