Translations
Translations articles and guides
AI vs. Human Translation of Chinese Poetry: A 2024 Comparison
Can GPT translate Li Bai? We compare AI and human translations of classic poems to see what machines get right and wrong.
Best English Translations of Tang Poetry: A Comparative Guide
Ezra Pound, Arthur Waley, or David Hinton? Comparing the master translators who brought Chinese poetry to English.
Why Some Chinese Poems Are Untranslatable: The Beauty That Gets Lost
Tonal wordplay, visual character puns, and structural symmetry — the elements of Chinese poetry that resist translation.
Ezra Pound and Chinese Poetry: Beautiful Mistakes
Ezra Pound couldn't read Chinese. He translated Chinese poetry anyway, and the results changed English literature forever. Some of his 'mistakes' turned out to be more interesting than accuracy.
Translating Chinese Poetry: Why Every Translation Is Wrong (And Why That Is Fine)
A Chinese poem has tone, rhythm, visual beauty, and layers of allusion that no translation can capture. But translations can capture something else — the emotional truth that transcends language.