Have you ever heard of false friends before? I’m not asking about personal relationships but about vocabulary. When there are words in different languages that look similar but have different meanings, we call these false friends, because they are not what they appear to be.
Perhaps, the falsest of false friends are the adjectives sensible and sensitive. You see, sensible translates to sensato and sensitive into sensible in Spanish. First take a look at their definitions, and then look at them in context.
Sensible refers to something that is practical or functional, or to a person who has common sense.
He always has a sensible solution to problems; he finds the shortest distance beween A and B.
Be sensible, you can’t do it all by yourself!
Sensitive refers to someone or something that quickly reacts to change. It could refer to a person who can easily sympathize with how others feel, or who easily gets upset by other people’s comments or actions.
She is sensitive to my feelings; she knows exactly what to say when I’m sad.
She is really sensitive to negative criticism; so be careful what you say to her.
So as you can see, in order to avoid a sensitive situation in English, not translating literally from Spanish would be the sensible thing to do!
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