Why use deportista for athlete when it actually means sportsman and atleta means athlete?
I find this bad grammar. In English a sportsman is simply someone who enjoys or takes part in outdoor sports, whereas an athlete is someone who undergoes high levels of training in order to compete. This would include high school, college and professional sports. We think of these as athletes. We think of hikers, mountain climbers, fishermen, as sportsmen. I also don't get why you say in spanish you "see" TV rather than "watch" TV. Ver and mirar. To "see" something usually occurs by accident or coincidence "watch or watching" is intentional as to see a shooting star while watching the sky.
2 Answers
In English a sportsman is simply someone who enjoys or takes part in outdoor sports, whereas an athlete is someone who undergoes high levels of training in order to compete.
That's how those terms work in English, but considering that English is not a perfect language, one should not assume that a language that uses those words differently is an illogical language (or a wrong one!) English is not the absolute measure of perfection. Sportsman literally means man and sport, but different languages are likely to link these words in different ways. Where does it say that the man should enjoy the sport to be a sportsman? Why not "a person who practices sports" or "a person who teaches sports? Also, "athlete" is a Greek word implying that the person seeks a prize in a contest, so the term has nothing etymological suggesting "high levels of training". Surely in English you can be an athlete even if there is not prize, right? Well, can we say that English is using "bad grammar" because it does not precisely agree with the original Greek term?
I also don't get why you say in spanish you "see" TV rather than "watch" TV. Ver and mirar. To "see" something usually occurs by accident or coincidence "watch or watching" is intentional as to see a shooting star while watching the sky.
Again, you are making up inferences that don't exist. "Mirar" means originally to wonder at something (confer "mirage" and "mirror" in English), and "ver" means to see (confer "video" in English). The modern meanings, according to the dictionary, take "see" for the ability to capture images with your visual senses, or with your intelligence, and "mirar" for directing your sight towards something. None of these definitions include -etymologically or otherwise- any reference to accident or coincidence. You are, once more, measuring Spanish using English as a "perfect canon" of reference, assuming that anything different from English has to be wrong.
Or maybe I am making assumptions about you too. Who knows?
I think the answer is in your clue "In English". Which words or phrases are used or what nuances that they carry in Spanish has absolutely nothing to do with how we use them in English.
I think that your point is that the Spanish is being translated poorly, not what nuances deportista or ver should carry in Spanish based on which ones that they carry in English.
