Many respected translations of “Sun Tsu’s (Sunzi’s) Art of War” look like they came out of a fortune cookie. The following new translation (with commentary) attempts to instead show you what I actually see when I read “Sunzi,” as a translator of Classical Chinese. In this article, I start from the beginning with the first chapter of “Sunzi” on “Initial Calculations.”

Do translations of spiritual texts have to be so foreign-sounding? Do non-literal translations distort the words of the prophets and sages? A translator of Chinese Buddhist and Taoist scripture weighs in on the subject.