I was at our company Xmas party last night which was surprisingly good. At one point I found myself talking to a younger colleague about a bit of a professional dilemma he was in. He is wanting to move into planning and yet has found himself working as an account person. I gave him the benefit of my small amount of wisdom as to what I thought he should do. I realise now that what I was actually doing was translating the experience that I have had in my career into useful nuggets for him. ie. always sell the benefit, make it easy for your boss, decide what kind of person you want to be and be it. etc. I also realised that I was translating and interpreting situations and comments in his life for him. ie. if your boss says to you "Maybe you should think about that some more," that can mean you haven't thought enough or you should think some more because it might be worthwhile.
An ex colleague of mine was very good at this. She was able to extract herself from the detail and talk about the meta level. She could therefore explain how someone was positioning themselves in a meeting and why.
I also thought that anyone who is interested in training and mentoring might find "translation" a useful metaphor. You take something you know and translate it into someone's elses language or frame of reference.
Don't know whether my comments helped my colleague though. I was slightly inebriated and very convinced I was being brilliant. 