Note: this post is especially written for native Dutch speakers.
A common beginner mistake in Spanish is confusing aprender and enseñar. What’s the problem? Well, most people use aprender (to learn) to refer to ‘to teach’ as well (which is wrong).
Now, this problem may be less common in the anglosphere (where there are two words like in Spanish; ‘to learn’ and ‘to teach’), but I see it done often by native Dutch speakers (in Dutch we use one word for ‘to teach’ and ‘to learn’; leren).
A mnemonic I used when I started out with Spanish was to link enseñar to señalar. I already knew the word señalar (‘to point out’) very well, so creating a mental picture of a teacher pointing something out always helped me to use enseñar correctly as ‘to teach’.
Sentences
A Dixon le gusta enseñar en la escuela secundaria.
Dixon likes teaching in high school.
La Sra. Marquis enseña matemática.
Mrs. Marquis teaches mathematics.
Me gustaría que hubiese enseñado el año pasado.
I wished that she had taught last year.
Más enseña la necesidad que diez años de universidad. Idiom
Necessity teaches more than ten years of school.
Related Posts:
Spanish Word of the Day: necedad
Loading ...
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Some English people get this wrong- it’s generally considered to be a mark of poor education!
I am going to learn to speak Spanish. – Fine
Will you learn me to speak Spanish – Wrong – should be “will you teach me”.
There is another English word pair that has the same effect – borrow and lend.
I have no money. I need to borrow 10 Euros. Fine
I have no money. Can you borrow me 10 Euros. Wrong. Should be “can you lend me”.
No idea why these two pairs get so much abuse!
PS – anyone got 10 Euros?
“PS – anyone got 10 Euros?”
.
Haha, sorry mate, can’t help you
Anyway, never thought that native speakers of English would have trouble with this, because I only see Dutch speakers make this mistake (which is logical, regarding that many don’t use is correctly in English either because the leren thing always comes up).