Incipiente e Insipiente
(Incipient and Insipient, stupid)

Spanish learning pill "Incipiente & Insipiente"

Incipiente 

Algo que recién empieza. 

Ej.: Los adolescentes lucen una barba incipiente. 

Insipiente 

Algo o alguien con poca sabiduría. 

Ej.: No quiero ser grosero, pero se me hace difícil hablar con una persona tan insipiente. 

Incipient

Something that’s just getting started.

Ex.: Teenagers have an incipient beard.

Insipient, stupid

Something or someone with little intelligence.

Ex.: I don’t mean to be rude, but I find it difficult to talk to such an insipient person.

This Spanish pill will bring you today aims to answer questions about two words that in Latin America sounds the same, but have different meanings: “Incipient” and “Incipient”. Remember the “ceceo” we talked about in the “Reciente and Resiente (Recent and Resent)” Spanish pill. This case is similar because in this part of the world we pronounce both “Incipiente” and “Insipiente” as if they were an “S”, which means that they are homophone words. So in a spoken conversation “cie” and “sie” sounds alike.

And because we know this is a real headache for people learning Spanish, here are some sample phrases to help you to know when we use “Insipiente” and when we use “Incipiente”:

 

Le despertó la claridad del incipiente día.

He was awakened by the clarity of the incipient day.

Me sentía un chico insipiente en el arte de la escritura.

I felt like an insipient boy in the art of writing.

Nuestra República aún incipiente adolece de la madurez para tomar algunas decisiones difíciles.

Our Republic, still in its incipient stage, lacks the maturity to make some difficult decisions.

No pienso permitir que un insipiente alumno me diga cómo dar clase.

I’m not going to allow an insipient student to tell me how to teach.

Cuando fui a consulta mi gripe todavía estaba en un estado incipiente.

When I went to the doctor’s office, my flu was still in an incipient phase.

Tras las elecciones, el perdedor declaró: “La democracia demostró que los votantes pueden ser insipientes”.

After the elections, the loser declared: “Democracy showed that voters can be insipients”.