Today I’m discussing another cognate duo that never came up as such in all the 30 years in which I taught Spanish because the English word is rarely used.
antipathetic — an adjective meaning “arousing antipathy, which is a strong feeling of dislike”; essentially it describes someone who is unfriendly or an unpleasant thing
antipático — the masculine Spanish cognate that is always translated as “unfriendly” but that means the same thing as antipathetic
antipática — the feminine Spanish cognate
The noun “antipathy” is fairly well known and commonly used in English. Its Spanish cognate is “antipatía.” These words come from Greek’s combination of the prefix of anti- plus the word pathos which means “experience.” The combination essentially meant “opposite feelings” and the word created by this combination later made its way into Latin where it is antipathia.
If you are a person who has a strong dislike for something, or it’s part of your general makeup to be someone who dislikes things, you might be an “antipathist.” That word translates into the same words in Spanish as “antipathetic” does.
Those words — “antipático” and “antipática” — come up very early in Spanish textbooks and language lessons when you learn how to describe people. Their opposites are “simpático” and “simpática” which translate to “nice,” “friendly,” or “pleasant.” While those words clearly are not cognates, students instantly see that the Spanish words are cognates for “sympathetic” — another use and meaning of the Spanish words. They see that a “friendly” or “pleasant” person is someone who is “sympathetic” or “compassionate” and then they more easily learn and recall the words “simpático” and “simpática.”
The same cannot be said for the words “antipático” and “antipática” because most teenagers (and I’d bet most adults, too) have never heard of or used the word “antipathetic.” They may have heard of the word “antipathy,” but they don’t really know what it means, so they don’t make the connection between that word and the commonly used Spanish word to describe an unpleasant person.
I wish Spanish textbooks would take advantage of learning opportunities like this and explain where the words come from and that we do, in fact, have English cognates for these Spanish words. If students could improve their own English lexicons in the process of learning Spanish (or another language), they would also then have an easier time learning and remembering what words like “antipático” mean.
My students would simply compensate when they couldn’t recall the word “antipático” by saying or writing this instead:
Miguel no es simpático. — Miguel is not nice.
That works, of course, until you’re taking a quiz and must come up with the word that means “unfriendly, unpleasant, not nice” in Spanish.
Miguel es antipático.
Marisa es antipática.
If you happen to be someone named Miguel or Marisa, I’m certain that you are quite “simpático” and “simpática” — I was only using the names as examples. Ha ha.
Until next time. Don’t be someone that others would describe as antipático. And if you’d care to be super-simpático, become a paying subscriber today, so you don’t miss the next few weeks of “Cognate Cognizance.”
Tammy Marshall
P.S. if you happen to follow me as a novelist, I’ve completed the first full draft of novel number seven, another mystery/suspense. Now, I’ll be working hard to edit, rework, rewrite it in the hopes of having it out sometime early in 2025. Wish me luck. Visit my website to see my other six novels: Tammy's author site
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