In Front? Way over there? The far front?

Today I found out just how different "in front" is in English from the Chinese "qian mian" ("前面“)。In English, "in front" means close to the speaker... but in Chinese, it means the direction you are facing. But I learned when going to swim laps at the pool, that the lanes "in front" actually meant the far lanes. In English, the lanes in front would have meant the close lanes, closer to, well, right in front of me.

Different perspective!