An Exit

  

I remember one time during residency,  I was rotating through the VA Hospital in Manhattan. The office I worked out of was right next door to the senior resident’s room.  He was seeing his post-op day 1 cataract surgery patient and during the evaluation, he asked the patient how he felt about the results of the surgery.

The patient spoke in English, but his primary language was Spanish.  I listened intently, and heard him say, “I feel O.K. The surgery was a.....an.....an exit!”

The senior resident responsed: “An exit?”

I laughed to myself and went into his room interrupting the conversation. 

“He is trying to tell you that the surgery was a success!  He is using ‘exit‘ from the Spanish word for success, ‘éxito’!”

“Oh.” 

And on the exam went.

I thought it was funny how this patient, not remembering the English word for “success”, tried to use the Spanish word in its place, imagining English speakers use the same root word “exit”.   How many times have you done the same in Spanish and the meaning of intent was completely changed?!

“Estoy embarazado.”  Trying to saying you’re embarrassed, but instead saying you’re pregnant.

Correct translation: Tengo verguenza.

“Me pasé un grande tiempo.” Trying to say you’ve had a grand time, but in fact you’ve had a big time.

Correct translation: Me pasé un buen tiempo.

“No puedo esperar a ver la película, estoy excitada.”  You’re excited to go see the movie, but “excited” has different implications in Spanish.

Correct translation: No puedo esperar a ver la película, ¡estoy muy emocionada!

“Cuando llueve, es obvio que tenemos problemas con el roofo.” Surely the word for ‘roof’can’t be too different in Spanish? It is: Techo.

Correct translation: Cuando llueve, es obvio que tenemos problemas con el techo. 

To highlight my point about using word roots to make an educated guess as to the equivalent vocaculary word in another language, I came across the blog Íngles Latinos which has the goal of teaching English vocabulary to Spanish speakers:  http://duplicatuinglesya.com/blog/2026.html

 

This wonderfully helpful blog opens by telling the Spanish speaking reader that understanding the origin of a word in Spanish helps in learning English vocabulary words because many words in both languages share the same root. Therefore, all one needs is to learn the key word root and apply that knowledge to decoding the meaning of other English words.    It goes on to say that many English and Spanish words have the same origins. An example is the word ‘unilateral’ which not only has the same meaning in each language, but also the same spelling.  

Medical English and Spanish vocabulary are very similar as well. Take the following examples from ophthalmology:

Retinopatía diabética for Diabetic Retinopathy

Cristalino or lente  for Crystalline Lens 

Catarata for Cataract

Retina for Retina

Degeneración macular for macular degeneration

Estrabismo for strabismus

Conjuntivitis for conjunctivitis, and the list goes on...

So the patient's surgery was indeed an éxito--a success! And after his exam, the patient left by means of the exit, or el salido.  Obviously, not all words between the two languages share similar roots, but when they do, it makes learning and using new vocabulary all the more easy. 

                                                                    

                                                                  The end.  El Fin :)

Courtesy: D. Hromin