Why "Python is slower than C" is really a question of whentranslation happens — not simply which language is "better."
Every program a CPU runs has to end up as native machine instructions eventually — there's no way around that. The entire difference between a compiled language and an interpreted one is whenthat translation from source code to machine instructions happens, and how much of it happens ahead of time versus while the program is actually running. That one timing decision — not some vague notion of language "quality" — is what produces the performance gap people notice between something like C and something like Python.