I have had many martial arts teachers in my life, most of whom were Chinese. Even those Chinese teachers who could speak a little English did not have a total command of the language, so communication was always a challenge. I could only copy what the teacher showed, leaving most questions unanswered. The questions had to wait until a Chinese student who understood English was able to translate for me.

grandmaster However, even when answers were obtained, they were not detailed answers. There are terms in Chinese that are difficult to translate into English. I have seen even Chinese teachers differ in their opinions on the translation of a Chinese character. You see, Chinese characters don’t always translate to a single word, but rather to many various symbolic meanings. With over 50,000 characters in the Chinese language, perfect translations can become a near impossible task.

read the rest http://www.kungfu.org/messagegm7.shtml