Polite way to ask 'do you understand?'
Someone once told me it's more polite to use "me hago entender?" than "me entiendes?" They thought the later phrase was rude. Does anyone know if this is true? I can see how 'me hago entender' has an implied nicety but I had never heard that 'me entiendes' was impolite before that discussion. Thanks!
7 Answers
HI Laura, welcome to the forum 
it is good to see such a nice post early in the morning
Me hago entender would actually be rude in Spain. It sounds very much like giving emphasis to the sentence and not a simple:
¿me entiendes? ¿me comprendes?
In any case, me hago entender sounds like a direct translation from English, it is not used in Spain.
Well, not used...jeje, that was not the correct way to put it, but in any case...it is definitely less used than elsewhere.
In Spain: Resultados 1 - 10 de aproximadamente 12.700 de "¿me hago entender?
In Spanish: Resultados 1 - 10 de aproximadamente 79.800 páginas en español de "¿me hago entender?
OK, I don think there is a magic recipe for this expression, because there are so many countries and cultures speaking Spanish that whatever is correct in one place might be not so much in another.
Regardless, as a rule of thumb, you can remember that Spanish is a language somehow less literal than English, in which the intention of the speaker can make a big difference.
In particular, to ask someone if he or she is understanding me, I can find basically three ways in which I could say this, each emphasizing who is responsible for understanding (or not) what is going on:
1) Me entiende¨ / me entiendes¨ - this will emphasize a little bit the fact that the other person is the one that is suppose to understand something. I imagine in specific cases, it could be consider somehow rude by putting the ?esponsibility of understanding on the other person. something like "if we don understand each other is because of you". Depending on the context, this is a goodl candidate to sound condescending
2) "Me hago entender?" or more commonly "me explico?" On the other hand, this expression tries to move the responsibility to the speaker, so as in "ïf we don understand each other, it can be my fault"
3) Finally, we can say "Se entiende?" This would be a very neutral way of saying it, and doesn't put the responsibility of understanding neither on the speaker or the listener, "If we don't understand each other, is because whatever we are saying is not easy, and not your or my fault" sort of thing. I personally would consider this a polite way in cases in which the context requires to be careful or very sensitive.
Anyway, these are subtleties of the language that no one will expect you to know unless your are a native speaker, It is a question of style more than grammar, I would say. As always, if you can make clear what your intention is by other communicational means (body language, entonation, etc ) the exact way in which it is said should not be an issue. I could sound sarcastic, condescending or candid using either way.
The only way we were taught in school was ¿Comprendes?
Another way, very common in Mexico to put responsibility on the speaker rather than the listener and very polite, is to start or either end a sentence with: "A ver si me explico bien ..............."
"me explico?" (present tense) or "me expliqué?" (past tense) are polite forms too.
"me entiendes?" is a little ruder that "me hago entender?"
I have also used me entiendes and no one has said that was rude. Anyway it still better than assuming that someone understands when you are not sure.
Just for the record, my friend in Argentina says 'Me hago entender' also means 'I can make myself understood'.
So using yourself as the subject of the question 'Do I make myself understood?' sounds more polite than questioning someone's comprehension with 'Do you understand me?'.
