Use of enterar

Question

My lesson book gives the sentence "Ellos ___________ (enterarse) de todos mis secretos". It asks for the correct reflexive verb and reflexive pronoun. The answer given is "Ellos se enteran de todos mis secretos."

Can someone please explain how that works?

Answer 1

With reflexive verbs the action is somehow returned to the subject. In this case (Ellos se entreran - present, or Ellos se enteraron - preterite), they (ellos) just found out or were just informed about something. The passing of the new knowledge came back to the subject - ellos. Think of it this way: If they just passed information on to someone else, they would not be receiving the action, hence it would not be reflexive: so you would say "Ellos enteraron a sus padres que hoy no habían clases." They just informed their parents that they didn't have classes today.

Answer 2

That explains the present compared to the past (preterit) form.

But to me the meaning of enterar is either "to inform somebody", or "to find out" (from somebody). Doesn't that make the meaning of this sentence ambiguous?

Answer 3

se enteraron.