English Distinctions Without Spanish Equivalents

[Fred]

I've noticed my little lady making some mistakes repeatedly, and it occurred to me why at some point. I didn't think much more of it until just now when I tried out a link Marcos gave me ont he word "ver". I had been told "ver" meant "see", however this site lists it as look. I thought "they lied!" for a second, then realised it was probably just like several othes. So I'm compiling a list here...

Make/Do
On/In/Off/Out
Listen/Hear
Borrow/Lend
Look/See? unsure, guessing...

Marcos, Isabel, anyone with good Spanish, please correct me if there are distinct seperate words for this stuff.

My reaction when seeing the output of this site for "ver" was quite simply "holy fcuk" :

http://www.conjugation.org

Fred.

[nitrousnrg]

Borrow/Lend

Me prestó/Le presté

I told you there is a difference between ver and mirar, but i'm not sure about it anymore, its too subtle to be useful. I think you choose one or the other depending on the sentence:

These are commonly used sentences:
mira eso!
viste aquello?
vi tu nuevo auto

In those, for examples, if you exchange mirar with ver, the sentences sounds awful. As I see it, ver means to to look at something in a more focused way, while mirar is like looking the big picture. Ves el cielo, miras tu mano. Again, too subtle to be useful.

For the other items of your list... not sure.

[Fred]

See, that's not what see and look mean.

To look is the action of looking the process of looking, to see is the result of looking

Look at that chick, what an arse!
<looks, then sees>Yeah, I see it, amazing!

Same distinction for listen and hear.

Listen to that sweet v12!
Yes, I hear it, wonderful!

Make is to create something, hence make and makefiles. Do is to perform an action.

Did a dance.
Made a cake.

On/off - on means applied to the surface of something or above it. (along with powered up) Off being the opposite of that.

In/out - in means surrounded by something, inside it. out means not inside it.

In a box, bag, cave, house, car, van.
On a bridge, cake, truck, table, chair.

In your borrow/lend example, it's the same word, with a different gendering and joined word, but the same. It's the context that is providing the difference, not the word itself.

Can you link Ceci to this? Perhaps she has some input :-)

Fred.

[Fred]

See, that's not what see and look mean.

LOL, I swear I didn't do that on purpose... it DID make me laugh, though.

Hah!

Make, create OR force. dual meanings, same issue in reverse ;-)
That, eso/que.

Made me laugh.
Made a PCB.

That is a nice car.
Which car?
The car that went sideways.

This could be a great reference!

Fred.

[Fred]

preocupado
preoccupied and worried are different, damn it! :-(

[nitrousnrg]

preocupado = worried

estoy preocupado por el cambio climático

afaik, no second meaning for preocupado.

[Fred]

How can I say that I'm preoccupied then?

[nitrousnrg]

mmm, being explicit?

No puedo pensar en otra cosa que no sea pagar mi deuda.

Ask Isa too, maybe she knows a word that fit.

[Fred]

Do you have ocupado?

[nitrousnrg]

yes, ocupado = busy.

Tengo mi agenda ocupada
Mi mente está ocupada haciendo planes.

You can see it in bathrooms too.