One day, many years ago, I asked a young monk ... - Dhamma by Ajahn Jayasāro
One day, many years ago, I asked a young monk who was learning Thai how much of my morning Dhamma talk he had understood. He replied. ‘80-90%’ But when I asked him to translate into English some of the key concepts of the talk he was unable to do so. I cautioned him about the dangers facing language learners. At a certain level of fluency, the temptation is to create meaning by passing over unknown words and stringing known words together in a plausible sequence. The fallacy lies in the assumption that the missing words are not vital to the overall meaning of the passage. Language learners can believe that they have gained a basic understanding of a matter when, in fact, they have developed a possibly serious misunderstanding.
In so many situations in life we lack access to all the information we need to fully understand what is going on. The danger is that we act like the young monk learning Thai and assume that our interpretation of a matter is essentially correct, and that what we don't know is not vital to understanding it. A wise person learns how to hold views and opinions lightly, and to be always ready to accomodate new information.
Source:
https://www.facebook.com/jayasaro.panyaprateep.org/photos/a.318290164946343/1804802976295047/?type=3&theater