A false friend is an expression whose
form is similar in two languages but whose meaning is different
This misleading similarity can result from a common etymology or may be caused
by chance. Endless lists of typical false friends can be found online but that’s
not the purpose of today’s post, which is just an informed
reflection on an intuition, to put it nicely.
So, I believe to have spotted one little
difference between the use of the English verb “to explain” and its Spanish
equivalent “explicar”. Setting aside idioms and expressions such as “explain yourself”
o “no sé si me explico”, I would tentatively argue the very core meaning of the
two words differs slightly in the two languages. While in English one normally explains
problems or things that are hard to understand, in Spanish it seems like
one can often explain things by merely presenting them.
The solely informative usage of “explicar”
is confirmed by the first and third meaning as presented in the official Spanish dictionary.
1. tr. Declarar, manifestar, dar a conocer lo que alguien piensa. U. t. c. prnl.
The usage is corroborated by the examples from spandict.com, where the English equivalents are rendered as “tell”
or “explain”.
¿te importaría explicarme qué pasa? would you mind telling me o explaining what's going on?explícame cómo funciona tell me how it works
Yet in English dictionaries, the outlook is fairly different with more emphasis on the revelation and clarification (1), the why
(2) and the how (3).
1 a : to make known <explain the secret of your success>b : to make plain or understandable <footnotes that explain the terms>2: to give the reason for or cause of <unable to explain his strange conduct>3: to show the logical development or relationships of <explained the new theory>to make something clear or easy to understand by describing or giving information about it:
All these reflections were triggered by a single
sentence in a medicine student’s essay, which I am not allowed quote for legal reasons.
When dealing with the importance of English for doctors, it that
most research in medicine was “explained” in English. It drew my attention,
because the student was referring to the process of publishing articles, not explaining solutions to specific
problems in seminars, for instance. Besides, I had already noticed the expression “explicar
la clase” and more contexts where “present”, “say”, “tell”, “teach” would sound
more natural. But “explicar la clase” is perfectly understandable when you take
a glance at the Spanish definitions.
Still, for me, explaining and explicar are more a matter of the “how” and “why” and not so
much of the “what”. So if I ask as friend to explain to me what is happening to them, I would expect some self-psychoanalysis,
not a simple report on a series of events or moods.
