The different ways to say "forever"


皆さん、こんにちは!

I have a somewhat basic but intricate question about the way the Japanese say
_forever_ or something close in concept (sayings, expressions or poetic ways
would work too).

The context is that my girlfriend would like to get a tattoo saying _forever_
in Japanese in memory of a late family member, but we hesitate as to what
words to pick.

My research got me so far and I managed to find these ones, please note that
my interpretation could be completely off:

  * 永遠に: closer to _eternally_ but would work in that case in my opinion
  * ずっと: more casual, and closer to _always_
  * いつまでも: closest yet

What other ways of saying _forever_ did I miss?

ご援助いただきありがとうございます.




Since this is a question about a tattoo, I'd recommend against anything other
than Kanji, unless you guys have a specific preference towards Kana's. That
said, let's examine the options:

Kanji term 永遠 is literally the one-to-one translation of "forever," and no you
do not add the に. Adding に would make it an adverb, and is required for
grammatical functions, but there is no reason to include a grammatical
particle in a tattoo. 永遠 is usually read as "ei-en", but in songs and poems
the same Kanji can be read as "to-wa" as well, meaning the same thing.

> 永遠な愛 Everlasting love (love that is forever)  
>  永遠に続く To continue forever.

The な and に are grammatical particles I do not suggest you include.

Another possible word is 永久, meaning "eternal" or "forever" as well, but it
sound more formal and are used in more serious, less poetic, less literary
situations. It's read as 'ei-kyuu'

> 永久保証 Life-time guarantee(eternal guarantee)  
>  永久脱毛 Complete hair removal (hair removed forever)

Then comes your hiragana options: ずっと means something very close to "always",
and is a very common word in speech that does not carry the artfulness nor the
poetic-ness of 永遠. It's just a plain word to anyone who speaks Japanese, and
frankly, a tattoo that says only ずっと and nothing else doesn't make much sense.
It's almost as random as someone getting an English tattoo that says "blue".

いつまでも literally translates to "until whenever", and is better than the former
option. It's used in a lot of art works, and seeing this phrase(not a single
word) on its own as a tattoo is not so out-of-place. There are actually songs
titled "いつまでも" so it's a good one if you prefer the look of the characters.

One more option, you could use the Hiragana とわ (to-wa) if you'd like, as
that's probably the most literary, poetic way to say "forever" in Japanese
among these options. To-wa could also be written with the Kanji 永遠 and 永久, but
conversely when people see 永遠 and 永久 the first reading that comes to mind is
"ei-en" and "ei-kyuu", unless they're told to read it as "to-wa". So, if "to-
wa" is what you want, it's better to render it in Hiragana as とわ to avoid mis-
readings. It all comes down to personal preferences.

