Spirit in Japanese

Spirit in Japanese is 精神, romanised as seishin and written in hiragana as せいしん. 気 (ki) underlies many Japanese martial arts and aesthetics — 合気道 aikido literally means the way of harmonising ki. 精神 is more cerebral and modern.

精 means "spirit, essence, refined" (14 strokes; on'yomi: sei, shou; kun'yomi: —). 神 means "god, spirit, mind" (9 strokes; on'yomi: shin, jin; kun'yomi: kami). Together the word reads as seishin.

精神 (seishin) is the standard form: 気 (ki) underlies many Japanese martial arts and aesthetics — 合気道 aikido literally means the way of harmonising ki. 精神 is more cerebral and modern.. 気 (ki) is different — single-kanji: vital energy, spirit, mood — the qi/chi concept. Pick based on the exact nuance you want to convey.

精神 means spirit in the sense of mind, mentality, or willpower — it is the standard word in martial arts and self-discipline contexts. 気 (ki) is the single-kanji choice and refers to the vital life-energy concept (Chinese qi). For a fighting-spirit tattoo, 闘魂 (toukon) is also popular. Pick based on whether you want mental discipline (精神), life energy (気), or warrior soul (魂).

In hiragana, spirit is written as せいしん, which represents the sound seishin. The kanji form 精神 is used in everyday writing; hiragana is used when the kanji is too difficult, for emphasis, or in children's text.