[MrBritish]

After reading the thread that recently been bumped I became skeptical of a few ways I could help deepen my understanding of what the the teachings within the Tao Te Ching mean to me on a personal level. As someone who is an English only speaker I was also wondering whether it would be within my best interest to at one point in my life try at a personal translation. However I fear that If I do any misunderstanding of the Chinese characters and the way their language is written as a completely different paradigm of my own may get many of the teachings twisted. I understand the task of learning in part a whole new language may be a little unneeded but would it not be beneficial to any person truly wanting to learn more to discover their own perceived meaning behind the original writings. If anyone has dabbled in translation themselves I would love to know if their knowledge of what they read in different languages gets unconsciously translated into more natural phrases? I just worry I will misinterpret. (Yes, I do understand that daoism/taoism can be interpreted in infinite ways.) I simply don't know if what I feel the teachings mean is being guided in some small part by the original translators use of western phrases, punctuation and tenses.