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I'm going to do a tattoo, so I'd like to know how to write "free yourself" in mandarin; I'd like to write it in mandarin, first because I'm a mandarin student, so I'll know how to read it and also because I don't want that everybody knows what's written.

As a mandarin student, I know that the word for "free" is 释放 and for "myself" is 自己, however I'd like to know if the sentence meaning is correct:

释放自己

I'm not a prisoner, so the meaning of this "free" is to live your life, enjoy it, and so on; I want the word "free" just like in Avicii's song "I could be the one". In a certain moment "free yourself" appears on the actress computer screen. The "free yourself" meaning that I want is the Avicii's song meaning, "free yourself, live your life, etc," and not "free yourself from a place because you're a prisoner, you're in jail..."

Peace XD

4 Answers 4

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You can use 釋放自己, It's OK. Similar: 釋放自我, 解放自己(我), 開放自己(我), etc...

You could use 釋放 based on context.

  1. Release from Prison, you can use 釋放. e.g. 他剛從牢裡釋放出來。

  2. Release the Pressure, you can also use 釋放. The Pressure could be mentally or mechanically(like tire pressure) e.g. 他用大吃大喝釋放工作壓力. 這輪胎必須釋放一點過高的胎壓.

  3. Release something, e.g 這公司有新的工作機會釋放出來了. (This company has released new job opportunities.)

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Do you know Bob Marley's 'Redemption Songs'? (Love that song!)

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery,
把自己从精神奴役中解放出来,

Free (emancipate, liberate) yourself
解放自己(出来)

出来: out from

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放飞自我 is often used to express freeing oneself from restrictions.

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"Free yourself" is actually a vocabulary item in a textbook I'm studying (发展汉语 高级口语(I) p.46), and they use the term 自拔 (zìbá):

自拔: to free oneself; to extricate oneself from a difficult situation

It's used in the sense of freeing oneself from addition:

photo of textbook with 自拔 highlighted (quoted below)

烟、酒能使人上瘾,赌博、吸毒能使人上瘾,同样,上网也能让人上瘾。网络极大地丰富了人们的生活,面对网上的种种诱惑,很多人,特别是青少年,沉迷在网络的虚拟世界中不能自拔

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  • 自拔 is often used in a negative sense. It implies that you are overwhelmed by some kind of addiction so you can't quit or come out of it. Typical phrases: 不能自拔,难以自拔。
    – dan
    Aug 25, 2020 at 10:32

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