English is Hard! - Soon, recent, when?

I know I've been very lucky to have learned English as a native language (yes, even though I'm Indian; it is our native language!).  As I've spent more and more time with people who are still learning English, I am exposed to concepts that I thought were easy but really weren't.  Why are they fun to blog about?  Because it's sweet revenge for the all of the Chinese concepts that I can't grok but the Chinese this are second-nature.

Recent vs. Soon: With differing concepts of time, the idea of expressing recent vs. soon is quite difficult.  Strangely enough, the words just don't translate cleanly and this leads to lots of people saying, "I'll do that recently."  If you think that's funny, the Chinese probably hear much funnier things out of my mouth when I try to say the same sentence in Chinese.

Soon always applies to events in the future but translates as:

• 不久- not long 
• 很快 - very fast
• 早 - early

Recent always applies to events in the past:

• 最近的 - most close - must be connected to a specific instance of time (e.g. year, epoch, etc.)
• 全新世 - I have no idea about this one, don't know what it means.
• 今 - close or near

No wonder the Chinese get this wrong all the time.  It's obviously not a simple concept.  I'm beginning to the think that the english concept of soon and recent is extremely simplified and ambiguous.