Today we´re adding one more word to my special list of untranslatablesterms, which is more like a list of words and sentences for which the translation from Spanish into English (or vice-versa) is neither very accurate nor very elegant, in my opinion.

Today´s word is escarmentar, and it´s very closely related to learning. It basically means learning something the hard way: having a bad experience as a result of your behaviour or action that causes you to never feel like doing that thing again. For example, when you´re leaving the house, and you put your wallet in a pocket with no zip, making it easy for it to fall out, and later that day, you realize you´ve lost it...

The official definition from the Spanish RAE dictionary is "to learn from one´s experience or somebody else´s in order to avoid making the same mistakes". The translation into English that I´ve found is "in my opinion,", and yes, I understand it conveys broadly the same idea, but I don´t think the English phrase is as strong as our beautiful Spanish verb.

Interestingly, the RAE dictionary contains a second definition of "escarmentar" as a transitive verb: "to impose or apply a punishment to someone, or correct them with rigour due to them having committed a foul." It seems like, apart from learning the lesson for oneself, one can also teach lessons to others. I have to say I had never heard this second use of the word, and I´m unsure whether it´s widely used. But leaving linguistics aside, I don´t know up to what point this is really possible...

Up to what point can we learn from other people´s mistakes, or from the "lessons" some teach us in the hope that we will learn? My mum always used to say that nobody learns the lesson in somebody else´s head ("nadie escarmienta en cabeza ajena"), and I agree; I think this quote summarizes it really well:

We cannot teach people anything. We can only help them discover it within themselves.

Galileo Galilei

What about you, what lesson have you learned recently?

P.S.- This was one of the 30 quotes from my September challenge; we´re almost at the end! You can see them all on Instagram.