When one verb becomes two

Among all the challenges of learning a foreign language, this one is the most interesting to me.

What I’m referring to is the situation where one verb in your language becomes two in a foreign language.

Between English and Spanish there are lots of examples, but the most common must be how the verb “to be” turns into either ser or estar.

Out of all the things that we “are”– strong, tall, healthy, lost, happy, young– which ones are ephemeral (and therefor use estar), and which are more permanent (using ser)? Spanish forces us to confront this question!

There are some great exceptions to the “ephemeral” rule. We know that physical beauty fades, right? Therefor, “you’re beautiful” might best be expressed as “estás bonita“. Yet “eres bonita” is about nine times more common (according to total result counts of those Google links). Perhaps because it doesn’t force the recipient of the compliment to simultaneously confront their mortality!

There are plenty of great examples in the Spanish-to-English direction, too.

Try explaining the difference between “to do” and “to make” to a Spanish speaker, for which they use only hacer. Why do we (as English speakers) need to distinguish between activities that have some end product (to make) and those that don’t (to do)?

Another nice example is how probar in Spanish maps to “to try”, “to sample”, and “to prove”. A common English error among Spanish speakers is “Want to prove the sauce?” while holding out a spoon. Does the Spanish language embrace the scientific method so completely that proving something is the same as trying and sampling? Cool.