One linguistic phenomenon that has always interested me is how different languages have formulated “standard” expressions to communicate the same concept.
For example, in English if you want to express how somebody is acting in a disorganized way, instead of saying just that, you might say that the person is “running around like a chicken with their head cut off.” This communicates your thoughts in a very effective and colorful way, even though neither you nor your audience have probably ever actually seen a decapitated chicken.
In reading Los Informantes, by Juan Gabriel Vásquez (an excellent book by an excellent author: http://www.amazon.com/informantes-Spanish-Juan-Gabriel-Vasquez/dp/9587048687/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262108424&sr=1-1) I was reminded of one way that Spanish speakers express that someone is very much like their parents (something akin to the English phrase “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree): “de tal palo, tal astilla.” Literally, “from such a stick (comes) such a splinter.” Palo means stick, rod, pole, etc, and astilla is the word for splinter. Tal is one of those common but hard to define words that you should definitely work into your vocabulary; here, it means “such.”
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Accesible or Asequible?
This morning I was reading an article in a Madrid newspaper about the healthcare reform issue here in the United States. The article began by giving a little background on the current problem of access to healthcare among the uninsured.
The specific phrase that caught my eye was “Para la gran mayoría de personas sin seguro médico, atención médica simplemente no es accesible.” What the author was trying -- but fails -- to say is that healthcare for the great majority of people without insurance is not affordable.
Because she used the word “accesible” -- instead of “asequible” -- what the sentence truly says is that healthcare is not physically available (such as in the geographic sense: no doctors for miles, or something like that…).
“Para la gran mayoría de personas sin seguro medico, atención medica simplemente no es asequible” means that atención medica is not affordable, not within reach economically…
“Para la gran mayoría de personas sin seguro médico, atención médica simplemente no es accesible” translates to “for the majority of people without medical insurance, healthcare is simply not available (because there are no doctors for one hundred miles – which indeed might be the case, but not because they lack insurance)
Asequible = affordable (or also obtainable or available, more in the economic sense)
Accesible = reachable, accessible, “handy”
For example, to play with words and say something like, "Here is a Porsche, within my reach but out of reach", you could say "Aca hay un Porsche, accesible para mi (beacuse I'm standing right beside it), pero no es asequible (because it costs to much).
The specific phrase that caught my eye was “Para la gran mayoría de personas sin seguro médico, atención médica simplemente no es accesible.” What the author was trying -- but fails -- to say is that healthcare for the great majority of people without insurance is not affordable.
Because she used the word “accesible” -- instead of “asequible” -- what the sentence truly says is that healthcare is not physically available (such as in the geographic sense: no doctors for miles, or something like that…).
“Para la gran mayoría de personas sin seguro medico, atención medica simplemente no es asequible” means that atención medica is not affordable, not within reach economically…
“Para la gran mayoría de personas sin seguro médico, atención médica simplemente no es accesible” translates to “for the majority of people without medical insurance, healthcare is simply not available (because there are no doctors for one hundred miles – which indeed might be the case, but not because they lack insurance)
Asequible = affordable (or also obtainable or available, more in the economic sense)
Accesible = reachable, accessible, “handy”
For example, to play with words and say something like, "Here is a Porsche, within my reach but out of reach", you could say "Aca hay un Porsche, accesible para mi (beacuse I'm standing right beside it), pero no es asequible (because it costs to much).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)