Sun Tsu: The Art of War

Hello!

I recently bought the classical book “The Art of War” by Sun Tsu, with the bilingual Chinese and English text, in order to improve my Chinese skills.

Therefore, I would like to know if anyone has ever read this kind of bilingual book in order to help to study it and how to profit the most out of it.

Thank you!

Hi Petros,

Not that I (a native) have read it in a bilingual setting, but we used to learn about Sun Tsu's strategies/tactics in history classes, and they were fascinating! 

A friendly reminder: if the book you purchased is written in “classical Chinese” 文言文 [wényánwén], it would be more difficult than the vernacular/modern Chinese taught in our lessons. Please don't feel discouraged if a familiar character takes up different meanings or part of speech (as is the usual case with 文言文 ) - classical Chinese is hard even for natives.

Hope you have lots of fun with it!

Thank you for your reply! It's interesting to think that in countries such as China, which have a very old culture, history can involve those millenial tactics!

Dao de jing is a short spiritual classic originally written in chinese with simple language. Then there is the long tradition of Zen poetry in simple, natural language. This also encourages an appreciation for the pictographic art of the language, and makes puts me in the mood for calligraphy practice.

If you are a gamer you can switch your language. I am hoping to do this for my story games in the next couple months once my Mandarin improves.