Reunir vs. Encontrar
Rosetta Stone gives the sentence, " El gerente se reúne con el hombre en la fábrica." Correct me if I am wrong, but I assume it means, "The manager meets with the man in the factory." RS also uses the sentence, "La mujer se encuentra con su esposo en el parque." Again, correct me if I am wrong, but I think the English translation is, "The woman meets with her husband in the park."
In the above sentences, is there any reason why one verb is used over the other? Or can reunir and encontrar be used interchangeably when meaning "to meet?" Am I getting the translation wrong? Do they mean something other than "to meet?"
Also, what is the significance of the word "se" that immediately precedes both conjugated verbs?
Thank you!
4 Answers
Encontrarse means to meet or bump into, while reunirse means to meet with, including having a business meeting.
Most words in Enlglish and Spanish have more than one meaning, and words that agree on one defintion often don't on others. It is best to avoid trying to translate word for word from the outset, because iwill only lead to trouble. Instead, you should concentrate on sentences where hrases are used in context.
In English, "I met with my boss this morning" and "I met my girlfriend at a party last night" mean very different things--Spanish is the same.
I agree with Lorenzo. My understanding is that encontrarse is to meet someone in the sense of encounter them by accident /unexpectedly, whereas reunir carries with it the sense of being a planned, purposeful meeting; similar to the English word reunite to indicate friends who might meet up for a drink, or after many years of not having seen each other.
Update: You asked about the se endings! Sorry, I should have made reference to them to fully answer your question at the time! As Lazarus, a native from Spain, has pointed out many a time,in reality there's no such thing as a reflexive verb but these are pronominal verbs (Don't worry about what the name means!) with reflexive endings me , te, se etc...
I think that Paralee and other teachers have used the term: reflexive verbs to simplify understanding of these verbs when first introducing them to beginners of Spanish, like in these short video teachings. Infact, I admit I used to refer to them in this way, myself, until Lazarus's comments challenged me but this wrong term; reflexive endings has, on occasion , led to some confusion for many people!
Some pronominal verbs, which have reflexive endings: me te se etc...do refer to an action that the individual does to himself, herself, themselves etc...and these actions can truly be said to be reflexive in the sense that the action is done to themself/ves rather than to another person! These verbs include:
bañarse, =to bathe oneself/to take a bath
ducharse - to shower oneself/to take a shower
despertarse = to wake up
and levantarse = to get up
These are only a few examples among many.
In the first two examples it is obvious that the individual is doing the action to him/herself but in the last two examples the action is more or less implied unless , in the case of despertarse the sentence makes clear that someone else has woken the person up! After all, In English we would not say I woke myself up, or I got myself up but simply, I woke up or I got up. This confusion partly arises due to the fact that there is no direct equivalent to the Spanish reflexive endings in English
I hope this helps
Corrijan mi Español, por favor 
reunir = meet/gather/reunite
encontrar=find (meet)/encounter
Does that make sense?
One thing that wasn't answered was your question about the "se" in the beginning. Both reunirse and encontrarse are called "reflexive" verbs. In a nutsell it is just an added part of conjugating the verb. Me if the subject is yo, te if the subject is tu, se if the subject is any 3rd person (singular or plural) and nos if the subject is nosotros.
me encuentro te encuentras se encuentra nos encontramos se encuentran
