Hi!
Well, I'm struggling with these words; thus, it cannot be that easy! ;) How do you say "I don't know this word?" Is a word a thing or is it a fact? There is a discussion on wordreference about this. Someone recommended: "no conozco esta palabra" but "no sé lo que quiere decir esta palabra".
Then I suddenly realized that the difference is obvious for me because in German I would say "ich kenne dieses Wort nicht" but "ich weiß nicht, was dieses Wort bedeutet", i.e. there is a very similar between the German words "kennen" = "conocer" and "wissen" = "saber".
So, I guess the difference is a lot easier to understand in German than in English. It's never bad to know more than one language. ;)
Martin
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Hi Martin!
ReplyDeleteIn my mind, when 'to know' means 'to be acquainted with', the equivalent in Spanish is 'conocer.' For me, it's an easy semantic carve-out. It is all the other shades of meaning of 'saber' and 'to know (exluding to be acquainted with)' that do not map readily to one another. That's why 'conocer' is a flashcard type of word and 'saber' is not. To manage the semantic sprawl of 'saber,'there's nothing to do but learn to speak the language! :)