Front or forward translation

[Grey shifu]

I came across these two different movements in karate the other day and was confused from the spellings and meanings.

Zenkutsu dachi - meaning front stance
Mae Geri - meaning front kick

Why does both names mean front, or am I getting these translations wrong.

 

[Majestic]

Zenkutsu is spelled as 前屈 in Japanese. The first character, 前, maens front or before, and is pronounced as "zen" when used in a compound word.
When used by itself, it is generally pronounced as "mae".

So the answer is; different pronunciations of the same word for "front", depending on the context.

 

[nice gaijin]

Some kanji have multiple readings, which can make things difficult if you're only hearing the names or seeing them written in romaji.

Looking up the Japanese names you can look up the individual kanji. You can even search the romaji spelling on Jisho.org, try searching the words individually (zenkutsu works, but "dachi" is actually a version of 立ち, tachi, stance), or remove the spaces (works for "maegeri," but there's no entry for "zenkutsudachi").

As always, I recommend doing a little language study to help with the Japanese terminology and pronunciation. It's hard if you aren't already interested in the language, but it can help deepen understanding of your techniques, so that's a good motivation. It's always awkward when I talk to someone and can't quite work out what they're saying because they've been mispronouncing the Japanese words for decades. There's no retraining after a lifetime of saying "ooh-key" for uke.