Confessing, it's different in Spanish

Question

I got in a conversation at work in which a person used "confesar" ------- "lo confesó"? to mean, she told you she was abused? And I got to thinking about how in English when you confess, you are guilty. If you "confess" love you are professing it, if you confess to a crime you are guilty, if you confess you were lying, same deal, but you wouldn't really confess that you had some money stolen from you, there is nothing to confess there. And I got to thinking, confessing in Spanish must really mean just "to tell" but in a private way, like "tell privately" something that is almost a secret, but not really needing to be "confessed" as there is no implied guilt. Interesting huh?

I had these same thoughts when I was copying out the word from my Collins desktop dictionary after reading the word - even in a sense that makes sense in English:) -- and copying ALL its various meanings, not just the one I was looking for for my book. - Janice, Feb 5, 2011

Answer 1

In the example you use many people might say "she admitted to being abused". Confess is offered as a synonym for admit in the SD dictionary. Admit would fit in the other phrases you suggest as well. You might admit to being in love or to being robbed.

Answer 2

I found this in a Vicon Spanish-English dictionary.

confesar v. confess, admit; acknowledge, recognize; avow

The three highlighted words are ones I might not have expected to find. But I looked up the word in a Spanish-German dictionary and found the same sort of entry.

The words in the two languages cannot be considered "false friends". But there do seem to be subtle differences. People seldom use confess in one of its English senses in speaking because it sounds very formal:

1. to own or admit as true: I must confess that I haven't read the book.

Back to the Spanish, though, I found this meaning in my Gran Diccionario Oxford:

(hacer confidencias) to open up one's heart to somebody

For the sense of confess marked (Rel), my Collins desktop dictionary provides not confesar alone, but rather the pronominal confesarse.

Here is what the dictionary at the Real Acadamia Español (RAE) site shows.

confesar.

(De confeso).

1. tr. Dicho de una persona: Expresar voluntariamente sus actos, ideas o sentimientos verdaderos. U. t. c. prnl. (Usado también como pronominal)

2. tr. Dicho de una persona: Reconocer y declarar, obligada por la fuerza de la razón o por otro motivo, lo que sin ello no reconocería ni declararía.

I am not sure I understand the second entry completely. Bu I also found that the RAE gives an entry for "confesar de plano":

~ de plano.

1. loc. verb. Declarar lisa y llanamente algo, sin ocultar nada.

I checked how "lisa y llanamente" modify declarar and found that the phrase is a "modismo" and particularizes the verb "declarer" this way --> (= en términos sencillos) plainly, in plain language (= evidentemente) quite simply

Answer 3

But I told her I thought she was lying about the abuse, and she still used confesar to say she told you that she was?