different shades or nuances

Question

The following words all mean "training", but I think they are not exactly the same, what are the differences?

1. capacitación
2. formación
3. adiestramiento

Good question, but someone else will have to answer. - Nicole-B, Sep 21, 2009

You really need to provide more context as they can be interchangeable in some contexts. - 0074b507, Sep 21, 2009

Answer 1

I can guess about the two words "formación" and "adiestrameinto" from entries found in my Gran Diccionario Oxford.

For example, the entry for "formación" leads me to think that the "training" that it represents is formal and takes place perhaps in conjunction with classes if not entirely in a classroom.

"Adiestramiento", on the other hand, might be used more in the sense of the Spanish "entrenamiento", which also means "training", by the way, but which training is done for sports.

"Formación" seems also to be able to be employed for an "education" in general, --intellectual education or even moral education -- but I do not believe that adiestramiento could be used in those contexts.

4 (educación recibida) education; (para trabajo) training;

Tiene una buena formación literaria. -- She has had a good literary education;

el período de formación the training period

and

formación profesional or (CS) vocacional professional o vocational training;

estudiantes de formación -- students at technical college

Adiestramiento, by the way, might also be able to be used in the context of training animals. There is the companion word adiestrador, -ora = trainer, too, but I don't imagine one would use any other word but "teacher" for "formación"...not formador, -ora, which refers to someone who shapes opinions, for example.

...

The words are synonyms in at least one of their several senses, but each then has other senses too.
...

Or so it seems to me reading my dictionary.

Now perhaps we should look in the RAE...:--)