Misterioso cuenta y cuento
Shouldn't there be warning labels for Spanish as a second language readers?
Tengo un libro, "Cuentos de uno Minuto". I felt I understood cuento and counted myself smart. But I have found a lot more reading material and I am stumbling over cuenta, which is now how I remember the spelling of cuento. Dialogs like, "La cuenta por favor" are killing me. Looking up cuenta provides no relief because cuenta translates as calculations, the bill and a checking account! Nowhere is there any mention of stories. Then I read "..yo ya me daba cuenta que algún problema ...". This gives me a strong feeling that cuenta does mean a story despite my dictionary. Luckily later in the reading cuento appears and I'm joyous.
![Dancing Snoopy here][1]
I've trapped the mysterious a and o ending. Then by writing this out and checking my dictionary for the hundredth time. I see buried in the definition that cuenta after the verb dar means "giving an account of..". 
[1]: http://www.webmailtoday.com/images/General Images/Web Images/Snoopy Dancing.gif
2 Answers
No cuento and historia are story, cuenta is check/ bill etc...., and darse cuenta is to realize (sort of like "give an account to yourself") and cuenta is like account too, and it does not mean story, only cuento and historia.
Oh I get what you are saying. The construction of dar with cuenta is closer to an internal understanding. It is not a story about Jack and Jill, it is personal realization.
