An apprentice is a young person who is legally bound to a craftsman for a specified period of time in order to learn the skills of a particular trade [行业].

"The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (German: "Der Zauberlehrling") is a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe written in 1797. The poem is a ballad in fourteen stanzas [节]. sonnet: type of poem containing 14 lines, each of 10 syllables, and with a formal pattern of rhymes.

The poem begins as an old sorcerer departs his workshop, leaving his apprentice with chores to perform. Tired of fetching water by pail, the apprentice enchants a broom to do the work for him, using magic in which he is not fully trained. The floor is soon awash with water, and the apprentice realizes that he cannot stop the broom because he does not know the magic required to do so.

The apprentice splits the broom in two with an axe, but each of the pieces becomes a whole broom that takes up a pail and continues fetching water, now at twice the speed. At this increased pace, the entire room quickly begins to flood. When all seems lost, the old sorcerer returns and quickly breaks the spell. The poem concludes with the old sorcerer's statement that only a master should invoke powerful spirits.

Some versions of the tale differ from Goethe's, and in some versions the sorcerer is angry at the apprentice and in some even expels the apprentice for causing the mess. In other versions, the sorcerer is a bit amused at the apprentice and he simply chides his apprentice about the need to be able to properly control such magic once summoned. The sorcerer's anger with the apprentice, which appears in both the Greek Philopseudes and the film Fantasia (an animated musical film produced by Walt Disney in 1940), does not appear in Goethe's "Der Zauberlehrling".

disciple: 1. follower of a religious, political, artistic, etc leader or teacher; 2. one of the first 12 men to follow Christ

guild: an organization of people who do the same job, 协会; 行会