[throwaway626]

She had the humility to admit she knew little about ancient Chinese and the courage to go ahead and venture a translation anyway, striving to touch something deeper than language.

Her success is extremely laudable for this reason.

[stillconfused]

It's great that you've found something you like, but if you are interested in staying close to the text, a translation by a person that deeply understands Classical Chinese literature and philosophy is worth a read.

Please try Red Pine- https://www.amazon.com/dp/1556592906

To see the difference, let's compare her translation of 4 and 9 (Here, we have Stephen Mitchell and Red Pine's translations) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38058843#38095107

4: Sourceless

  The way is empty,
  used, but not used up.
  Deep, yes! ancestral
  to the ten thousand things.

  Blunting edge,
  loosing bond,
  dimming light,
  the way is the dust of the way.

  Quiet
  yes, and likely to endure.
  Whose child? Born
  before the gods.

9: Being Quiet

  Brim-fill the bowl,
  it'll spill over.
  Keep sharpening the blade,
  you'll soon blunt it.

  Nobody can protect
  a house full of gold and jade.

  Wealth, status, pride
  are their own ruin.
  To do good, work well, and lie low
  is the way of the blessing.

For 4, some of the concepts don't even appear in the original (quiet?)

For 9, it feels like there's a lot of overstepping and blank-filling.

[throwaway626]

I don’t judge scholarly translations by their poetics, so perhaps you shouldn’t judge poetic interpretations by their scholarly merit.

The world is big enough for both.

[Podgajski]

She understood that translating. The Dao is not so much about knowing Chinese, but knowing the Dao.

The most important part of translating the Dao De Ching is to be as close as possible to understanding Daoism as one can.