The Book: Sun
Tzu's The Art of War
Book Overview
Book Summary
Overview
History of the Text Overview
Comparing English Versions Overview
Translation Challenges Overview
Common
Translation Errors Overview
Comparing With Chinese Overview
Reading Challenges Overview
Special Adaptations
Comparing English Versions Overview
All of the many different English translations face
a series of challenges translating Sun Tzu's work, not the least of which is
that the original Chinese was more like mathematics than English sentences. Sun Tzu took a very scientific approach to his work,
but he wrote in terms that were well understood in his era but mysterious in ours.
We provide examples of five common errors in translation.
Translators often invert Sun
Tzu's meaning, make "slight" mistakes leading to complete confusion,
opine rather than translate, choose vague words,
and lapse into "fortune cookie" talk.
Different authors have very different approaches that can be seen
objectively when comparing each author's translation of the same stanza of the
original Chinese. This
comparison of popular versions is a good illustration of those differences.
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