'The Art of War' - best english translation...

[sh00ter01]

There are soooo many publishers putting out copies of 'The Art of War' it's hard to keep them straight. Like the title says, I'm looking for the best straight up translation of Sun Tzu work. Don't really need/want translator's comments or analysis, just the best translation of his words.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

-sh00ter

[gadgetgeek]

The Lionel Giles translation is public domain, and available on Gutenberg for free. I'm not sure how it differs from the others.

[Gollnick]

I'm not sure how it differs from the others.

That's where translator's notes come it.

This is a tricky translation because first it translates between two very different languages. Second, because it translates between two very different cultures. And third, because it translates across some 2000 years.

[sh00ter01]

That's where translator's notes come it.

This is a tricky translation because first it translates between two very different languages. Second, because it translates between two very different cultures. And third, because it translates across some 2000 years.

This is the problem, Amazon lumps a lot of the translations together, so while some are 5 star and people claim are great, other are 1 and say the translation missed it by a mile, but NO ONE states which publication they have

Would prefer a hard copy; call me old fashioned but I still like flippin' pages.

-sh00ter

[SeaxyBeast]

Did some quick poking around on the service academy websites and almost all of the courses that teach Sun Tzu list the Oxford University Press version translated by Samuel B. Griffith as their recommended text. If Oxford University Press is still selling this edition after almost 50 years and professors are still recommending it you know that it's a good one.

[sh00ter01]

Did some quick poking around on the service academy websites and almost all of the courses that teach Sun Tzu list the Oxford University Press version translated by Samuel B. Griffith as their recommended text. If Oxford University Press is still selling this edition after almost 50 years and professors are still recommending it you know that it's a good one.

Thanks for the info. I'll check it out.

-sh00ter

[sh00ter01]

Did some quick poking around on the service academy websites and almost all of the courses that teach Sun Tzu list the Oxford University Press version translated by Samuel B. Griffith as their recommended text. If Oxford University Press is still selling this edition after almost 50 years and professors are still recommending it you know that it's a good one.

Thanks for the info. I'll check it out.

-sh00ter

Looks like it has a lot of added fluff to it with an introduction from the translator and analysis (seems to be the best option thus far though).

Might just have to learn Chinese and get a copy of the original text... or I'll just keep looking...

-sh00ter

[SeaxyBeast]

Looks like it has a lot of added fluff to it with an introduction from the translator and analysis (seems to be the best option thus far though).

Might just have to learn Chinese and get a copy of the original text... or I'll just keep looking...

-sh00ter

A translater's intro is usually a good thing. Translation is never a matter of finding simple one-for-one correspondences and it's important to know what sort of approach the translator took to difficult passages. You can ignore both intros and analysis, but if done well they will add to your understanding far more than the straight text will because they will give you important cultural context -- both for the original culture and for the translator's culture -- that you need to understand the concepts that do not translate well.

[sh00ter01]

A translater's intro is usually a good thing. Translation is never a matter of finding simple one-for-one correspondences and it's important to know what sort of approach the translator took to difficult passages. You can ignore both intros and analysis, but if done well they will add to your understanding far more than the straight text will because they will give you important cultural context -- both for the original culture and for the translator's culture -- that you need to understand the concepts that do not translate well.

In my searching, which includes reading small portions of chapters from different translators/publishers (and comparing), I've found that it seems there always some meaning lost in the translation, hence my joke about just learning Chinese.

Like I said, Griffith is looking like the best option thus far, and will be what I probably end up with. Thanks for pointing me to his work

-sh00ter

[Gollnick]

You'd not only have to learn Chinese, but 2000-year old Chinese.

[SeaxyBeast]

Glad I could help.

[sh00ter01]

You'd not only have to learn Chinese, but 2000-year old Chinese.

Pssh, how hard can it be... says the man who struggled through 2 years of basic Spanish in high school

-sh00ter

[Les Snyder]

I'll second the Samuel Griffith translation....FWIW, if you had been a radio traffic analyst with an Asian suffix, you would have been given a background in the Wade-Giles (Lionel's father) Romanization of the Mandarin Chinese language... prior to being replaced by PinYin...

northern capital... Peiching (Wade-Giles....P's are B's, ch is J), Beijing (PinYin)

[Peak_Oil]

Read Sun Tzu, Sun Pin, read current US armed forces manuals on land navigation, do some navigation yourself, orient yourself by the stars, just keep going and going and going. There is no end to what you can learn. Read about water, read about salt, read about trees, soil...