Buy a Custom Carpe Diem Chinese or Japanese Calligraphy Wall Scroll

This is the closest and most natural way to express this idea in Chinese.

The first two characters mean "to seize" but can also be translated as "take control of".

The last two characters mean "today".

This is not really an eastern concept, so it does not translate into a phrase that seems natural on a wall scroll. However, if this is your philosophy, the characters shown here do capture your idea of living for today or living in the moment. These characters literally say "Live in today" and they are grammatically correct in Chinese.

Note: This kind of makes sense in Korean Hanja, but the grammar is Chinese, so it's not that natural in Korean.

This is how to say "live without regrets" in Mandarin Chinese. This also makes sense in Japanese, but I don't yet have the pronunciation info.

See Also...  Live For Today

This Japanese phrase can be translated as "live for the day", "live for the moment", "seize the day", or "make the most of the present".

This came from a customer's request, but it's not too bad. These three simple characters suggest that you are born, you learn to love, and then exit the world.

In English, the word order shown in the title is the most natural or popular. In Chinese, the natural order is a little different:

The first character means laugh (sometimes means smile).

The second character means love.

The last two characters mean "live" as in "to be alive" or "pursue life".

Please note: This is not a normal phrase, in that it does not have a subject, verb, and object. It is a word list. Word lists are not common in Asian languages/grammar (at least not as normal as they are in English). We only added this entry because so many people requested it.

We put the characters in the order shown above, as it almost makes a single word with the meaning, "A life of laughter and love". It's a made-up word, but it sounds good in Chinese.

We removed the Japanese pronunciation guide from this entry, as the professional Japanese translator deemed it "near nonsense" from a Japanese perspective. Choose this only if your audience is Chinese and you want the fewest-possible characters to express this idea.

This is a very short way to write "live in the moment" or "live in the now" in Japanese.

This short word is open to interpretation. It's used in Japanese Buddhism to mean "the current epoch" or "the current age" (the current age is but a brief moment in the greater scope of existence). When used in that context, this is pronounced "utsushiyo" or "ustusiyo" in Japanese. Otherwise, it's pronounced "gensei" in Japanese.

Other translation possibilities include:
Live for now
Earthly world
This world
This life
Earthly life
Present life
Present generation
Present incarnation
Current age
This existence
This (momentary) reality

Note: This is also a word in Chinese and old Korean Hanja. While the meaning is more or less the same, this is not recommended for a wall scroll if your audience is Chinese or Korean. This selection is best if your audience is Japanese.

This is how to say "no regrets" in Mandarin Chinese. This also makes sense in Japanese, but I don't yet have the pronunciation info.

See Also...  Live For Today