saber vs conocer three tough examples

Question

Hi, all,

First of all, I would like to remark that this site is fantastic and has been immensely helpful to me as a Spanish teacher and student.

I am teaching my students the differences between saber and conocer. I know the basics, of course, but there are a few examples in our textbook that I am not sure about. Here they are:

Directions: Complete the sentences with the correct form of either saber or conocer.

**

1. Yo _________ unas historias muy divertidas de deportes.
2. ¿Ustedes ________ muchos países donde jugan al beísbol?

**

For both examples, I feel like either verb could be used. For the first, using "sé" would indicate that the speaker knows about some sports stories, but using "conozco" would indicate that he/she is familiar with them.

For the second sentence, using "saben" indicates that the subjects could name a few countries that play baseball (USA, Japan, etc.), and using "conocen" indicates that they are familiar with these countries´ culture, history, and baseball traditions.

Please provide clarification. I feel like there is no correct answer here, but then again, I don´t know everything about Spanish, so maybe there is something I am missing.

Thank you! My students thank you too!

Eric Jensen

Teachers rule! :P (I work in the education field as well) - ZooZoo, Feb 17, 2011

Answer 1

As a native speaker the difference I recognize between the two is that "Saber" is something I truly understand, while "Conocer" is something I know about but I may not be knowledgeable of it.

For example, your sentences:

Yo _________ unas historias muy divertidas de deportes.

Grammatically speaking I can use both, "You se de unas historias muy divertidas de deportes" or "yo conozco de unas historias muy divertidas de deportes"

What would be the difference? If I were to use SE, it would be because I have probably watched them on television or lived through them somehow. They were meaningful experiences and I could probably remember every single detail of them. I know them. If I use CONOZCO it means that I am not very familiar with it and only know of it due to overhearing it, or being told about it. I am aware of it happening, but I don't know much other than that.

¿Ustedes ________ muchos países donde jugan al beísbol?

Also, I could apply both in this sentence like this: "¿Ustedes conocen muchos países donde juegan beisbol?" or "¿Ustedes saben de muchos paises donde juegan beisbol?" And it works the same way, conocer as in I am aware of the countries that have baseball as a popular sport and saber as in to have been in the place and know the cultural impact of baseball in that place.

I hope I explained the noise inside my head properly. Either way, feel free to ask further questions. I'll do my best to assist you.

Answer 2

I agree with you about the first one. I do believe that both sé/conozco could both be correct given the context (one reason why I hate textbooks!) For the second one, ¿Ustedes ____ muchos países donde jugan al beísbol? I think conocen is correct because it sounds like they just want to know if they know of countries where they play baseball, not necessarily anything about them. Personally, I had an incident with conocer when I first got to Argentina (it was two days of hectic traveling and I was going on like 5 hours of sleep in a 48 hour period...in my defense). Anyway, at 3:00 a.m. the driver asked me, ¿Conoces Argentina? I took it to mean, what are you familiar with of Argentina (ie. the history, culture, etc.../¿qué sabes de Argentina?) WRONG- he wanted to know if I had been to Argentina before! Maybe this example might be useful in a class discussion.

I hope this helped. Good luck with the lesson!

Kerri

I heard Argentina is beautiful! - ZooZoo, Feb 17, 2011

Answer 3

I would say:

Conozco unas historias muy divertidas de deportes.

Sé contar una historia.

¿Conocen muchos países donde jugan al beísbol?

¿Saben que jugan al beísbol en los Estados Unidos?

Answer 4

Hi, all,

Thank you for such quick, thorough, and thoughtful responses. I had hoped for a quick and easy answer, but, like many things in language, the answer seems a lot more complex. Contrary to Zoozoo´s comment, I had always thought that saber was for basic knowledge--Yo sé quién es Brad Pitt, and conocer was for more familiarity, more in-depth knowledge--Yo conozco las películas de Brad Pitt muy bien. This seems to be the mistake that Kerri made, where she assumed that "conoces Argentina" meant to be knowledgeable about the culture. The bottom line is that I´m still confused, and I have been studying Spanish for many years.

So:

saber means intimate, deep knowledge of something

and

conocer means basic familiarity, or experiential familiarity (like having visited a place)?

I would love some further clarification.

Sorry if I´m being slow and not getting this.

Thanks otra vez!

Eric

Answer 5

Contrary to Zoozoo´s comment, I had always thought that saber was for basic knowledge--Yo sé quién es Brad Pitt, and conocer was for more familiarity, more in-depth knowledge

In my limited experience, Zoozoo is correct. Saber is for deeper knowledge and conocer is for familiarity. However, what does it mean to have deep knowledge about a story? It certainly doesn't mean that you know how to tell it: it means you have knowledge about the circumstances of it and why it is a story and what all of the cultural references mean. Being able to tell the story is conocer, understanding what it means is saber.