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I've been learning japanese for quite a few weeks but I'm still pretty new to
it so maybe this question will sound silly, if that's the case, I'm sorry.

Because I really love the way it sounds and looks, I tryed learning japanese.
And now, I'd like to get myself a tattoo.

"Look at the sky" (which is one of the last things someone told me before
passing away).

Then again I'm learning with books (not the best way, is it?) so I'm running
into a doubt.

Would you rather spell it :

空を見て - Sora o mite

or

空を見上げて - Sora wo miagete

I'm having a hard time figuring out the difference (as I'm still a newbie in
japanese) and as it's an important decision (the tattoo I mean) I'd really
like if someone could explain the difference.
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2017-04-13T16:26:06.653
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2017-04-14T04:43:32.137
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question
translation word-choice
Proper way to say "Look at the sky"
空を見て is "Looking at the sky," and 空を見上げて is "Looking up at the sky". Both are
grammatical and make perfect sense as a Japanese sentence.

They are reasonable choices for a book title or a line in a poem, for example.
This may also be acceptable on a souvenir T-shirt, a mug or a fan. However, I
have to say such a tattoo looks weird and funny to the eye of Japanese people
for several reasons.

First of all, [Japanese people are very wary of tattoos in the first
place](https://travel.stackexchange.com/q/3631/28968), and [traditional
Japanese tattoos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irezumi) do not have any
readable character. But I won't go into detail about cultural things for now.
Even if we accept the idea of readable character tattoos, this sentence may
not be suitable as the design of a tattoo. People usually expect something
that looks cool and exotic in a tattoo. However 空を見(上げ)て is a very plain,
casual and easy sentence even a 3-year-old Japanese kid can make. In general
hiragana has [a cute and/or childish image as a design
element](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/15108/5010), which is probably
not what you want for a tattoo. If you used this sentence, it might end up
looking as if it were a tattoo in [Comic
Sans](http://comicsansproject.tumblr.com/) to those who can actually read it.
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2017-04-14T02:48:05.737
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answer
A good word/verb for "Look up" is 仰(ぐ) [(see
here)](http://jisho.org/search/%E4%BB%B0) You could try a combination like 空仰
or 天仰. They are not words that I can find in a dictionary though. Would like
to know what native Japanese speakers think of this.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-04-14T04:43:32.137
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answer