Winning Without Conflict

Common Translation Errors

Common Translation Errors Overview
Reversing Concepts   
Defective Part of a Whole
Commentary in Translation
Vague, Meaningless Language  
Stilted, Flowery Language

Defective Part of a Whole

There are hundreds of examples of where a "slight" misreading of a single word completely confuses what Sun Tzu said. Even a "slight" mistranslation makes whole sections of the text impossible to interpret. Each Chinese character has a whole array of meanings. We have similar problems in English with words having many different meanings, but in written ancient Chinese, variations of meaning are even greater and often more subtle. This creates difficulty—especially when the translators are not willing to spend the time necessary to master Sun Tzu's system. 

We offer two examples. The first is the "persistent" mistake. This example is from Chapter 2 of one of the most popular older translations. The chapter deals with the cost of war and, in a larger context, the economics of success. Toward the end, this particular translation offers this quite remarkable statement:

"So the important thing in military operations is victory, not persistence."

Certainly victory is important, but how do we account for the statement that persistence is not important? For those who have studied Sun Tzu and know anything about competition, persistence is a critical element of success. In a later chapter, Sun Tzu says that you can win some battles and lose others, but, if you keep to his methods, over time you will win every war. This is because of the cumulative affect of persistence. Why would Sun Tzu ever say anything against persistence?

He didn't. The original Chinese says: "Make victories in war profitable; it is expensive if they last a long time." This is very much in keeping with the economic message of the chapter. So how did "persistence" get in there? The Chinese character for "long time" can also mean "persistence."

This particular case is an easy one. The translator could have gotten the context from the surrounding stanzas and was simply careless, using modern dictionaries instead of researching the historical meaning of the character.

Let us look at a second good example that literally makes a "mountain" out of a molehill. This is the only example taken from our "stylistic" comparison where translators almost all agree on the general meaning of the stanza, but important differences can still exist.

One translator translates the Chinese phrase from the end of Chapter 7, "High mound do not face ," as " Do not approach high mountains." Most translators choose the more practical "Do not face the high ground" as a general admonition against fighting uphill—that is, fighting against both the enemy and the natural forces of gravity, a concept supported in dozens of other places in the text. 

This mistranslation is an interesting example because the topics of mountains and high ground are covered in so many other parts of the Bing-fa. The author almost has to reject any concept of consistency to come up with this translation. First, translating the character as "mountain" is odd since the whole issue of fighting in mountains is addressed extensively in Chapter 9, using the usual Chinese character () for "mountain." That section specifically says that while it is preferable not to battle in mountains, if you control the high ground you can win mountain battles. The same chapter also contains an extensive exposition on "dead-end" areas that should not be approached, and this list does not include "high mountains." Actually, the character   is also used in the same chapter in a short list of places you can defend. This makes sense if you understand it as "high ground," but how can you use an area as a defensive position if you cannot approach it? 

This a great example of the type of "lazy" translation in which the translator's focus on individual characters instead of on Sun Tzu's entire system leads inevitably to missing the point of the text over and over again. These kinds of inconsistencies obviously do not bother the academics, but they are fatal if you want to understand Sun Tzu's methods.