English Sucks

Talking with my host dad today over lunch I figured something out. Americans, well all English speaking people, we’re selfish. Ok well not all of us, but our language sure as heck is. Now hear me out before you think that I’ve gone and changed my citizenship to Peruvian (I may have thought about it after this past election…but I’ll stay American for now).

We were talking about my “capacatacion.” It’s a Spanish word that means a capacatation. See, Microsoft Word hates me for even trying to turn that into English. “Capacitar,” Spanish for “to capacitate.” Word doesn’t hate me for that…to capacitate someone, that verb exists, but the noun doesn’t. Now that’s selfish. We’ll take the credit in English for giving the information, to capacitate them, but it just doesn’t have the same significance that it does in Spanish.

I looked it up in my University of Chicago Spanish-English dictionary.
Capacitar: VT to train, to qualify.

That’s the definition…sorta, ok not really. Here in Peru when we talk about capacitating someone it has a deeper meaning than training. Training someone has a different signification. To train someone implies drilling a concept in their head. You can train in a sport, but that usually gives the connotation of a fat old guy yelling at some slim athlete to do the things that he can’t do any more. You can train a dog to sit on command, but that involves a lot of treat giving and yelling and frustration before you reach the goal. Training just doesn’t cut it. It doesn’t paint the right picture.

To capacitate is more than to train. Yes it’s giving someone information, it is informing, but it goes so much further than that in Spanish. Capacatacion. To define it in Spanish is so beautiful. My host dad once said “capacitación es nada mas de brindar a la gente alguna información o técnica para mejorar su concomimiento o su vida.” Yes I will translate that for you all. “Capacatation is nothing more than to volunteer some sort of information or technique to the people.” Brindar is another one of these words that is just so much cooler in Spanish that in English that I won’t get into today, but literally it means to toast (like to give a toast).

So here in Peru to capacitate someone holds such a different meaning than in the states. It’s not just giving them the information, it’s a combination of that, giving information with the person WANTING to receive the knowledge and fully understand and take ownership of that information. See that, they took the instructor out of capacitating the people—now that’s selfless. The actual act of capacitating has next to nothing to do with the person who has the knowledge, and almost everything to do with the person wanting to receive the knowledge. Take that. We can’t even do that in English. It’s all verb, no noun exists. And certainly nothing exists that would take the do-er out of the situation like it does in Spanish.

It’s a common mistake made by most Peace Corps Volunteers when they return to the United States, to say Capacitation. We just get so used to the idea, to the concept, that we forget that our native language doesn’t have that concept, doesn’t have that word. So when we go to interviews and when we are looking for jobs I’m sure that some of the employers or the interviewers think that we’re we’ve forgotten how to speak English. While to an extent we have forgotten to speak English it’s more of English failing to reflect a concept so inherent in the Spanish language and us trying to relay that concept to people who may not speak Spanish and who don’t understand what we want to say.

**Note to Mr. Lang, my 12th grade AP English teacher who can attest to me being the worst student he’s ever had (ok that could be an exaggeration…but probably not) and to my Mother the walking grammar dictionary of my childhood:
I know, I’m probably the last person on Earth who should have tried to explain this concept. And there is a good chance that no one outside of the Peace Corps in a Spanish speaking country will ever understand what we’re trying to say when we say Capacitation. But it was worth a try. Sorry if you all have a headache.