“The way that can be followed is not the unchanging way; the name that can be called is not the unchanging name.”
If that wasn’t trans enough, one translation renders the immediately following line as, “With your mouth unopened, things left undefined, you stand at the beginning of the universe; make definitions, and you are the measure of all creation” - although this seems like a pretty deviant translation from the original text.
Dao De Jing literally opens with,
“The way that can be followed is not the unchanging way; the name that can be called is not the unchanging name.”
If that wasn’t trans enough, one translation renders the immediately following line as, “With your mouth unopened, things left undefined, you stand at the beginning of the universe; make definitions, and you are the measure of all creation” - although this seems like a pretty deviant translation from the original text.
Here’s how Le Guin’s version renders these parts, just for fun:
Google translate has a different take:
I now understand how people thought the CPC announced a ban on femboys
To be fair, it’s much better for modern Chinese (most of the time) but this being so old and poetic yeah it just has no idea what to do with it lol
Google translate barely works for modern Chinese. and this is a company where half the employees have names like “Charlie Huang”. Biggest Bazinga L.
It works pretty okay at very stuffy formal stuff but it’s pretty bad at informal speech, in my experience
I’m cancelling Laozi for being a car brain.
lmao
道可道 the path you can take
非常道 is not the usual path
道 means road/path/way
可 means can
道可道 means the path/way you can go/take
非 means not, 常 by itself means normal/conventional/usual, but 非常 together means very (lit. unusual but common usage simply means “very”)
the translator interpreted it as 非常 道 “very road” lol when it should be 非 常道 “not the normal/conventional path”
名 means name
名可名 the name you can name
非常名 is not the usual name
NONBINARY REP LETS GOOOO
The gender that can be labeled is not the unchanging expression