On the agenda today is a critical review of the differences in usage between two more Spanish word pairs. Today’s It’s the turn of crítico and crítica.
Let’s start with the feminine noun crítica, whose pronunciation you can listen to here:
You sometimes have to steel yourself when you’re the object of una crítica as it’s a negative assessment or judgement of something you’ve done – a criticism:
Esto les valió múltiples críticas de los otros miembros.
This earned them a lot of criticism from the other members.
Me costó mucho la crítica, me deprimió muchísimo, no me gustaba salir.
I found the criticism really hard, became very depressed, and didn’t like going out.
No ahorra críticas a la conducta de Occidente.
She doesn’t hold back on her criticism(s) of the conduct of the West.
If you work in the arts, una crítica could be good or bad, as it’s a write-up (in a newspaper or magazine) assessing a piece of work, play, film, performance – a review:
Declaró en una entrevista que nunca leía las críticas a sus grabaciones.
He said in an interview that he never read the reviews of his recordings.
Aunque recibió buenas críticas, el CD no se vendió bien.
Although it got good reviews, the CD didn’t sell well.
La canción recibió críticas variadas.
The song received mixed reviews.
Animados por las críticas positivas en la prensa, el grupo firmó con un sello independiente.
Spurred on by the positive reviews, the group signed with an independent label.
In this world of newspaper and magazine reviews and of reviewers, by extension la critica can also mean the critics in general or else the reviews they write as a living:
La novela fue muy mal recibida por la crítica.
The novel went down very badly with the critics.
La película recibió elogios de la crítica por su dirección y cinematografía.
The film was praised by the critics for its direction and cinematography.
If you’re of an academic turn of mind, you may engage your grey matter and write una crítica of someone’s ideas or work, since it’s a scholarly analysis – a critique:
En este libro el autor ofrece una crítica del modernismo y el posmodernismo desde una perspectiva marxista.
In this book the author offers a critique of modernism and postmodernism from a Marxist perspective.
Desde 2014, Mazzucato ha desarrollado su crítica de ‘teoría de fracaso del mercado’.
Since 2014, Mazzucato has developed her critique of ‘market failure theory’.
Finally, una crítica is a woman who either writes reviews and commentaries professionally or else simply criticizes something – a critic:
Fue una compositora, profesora, escritora y crítica musical estadounidense.
She was an American composer, teacher, writer and music critic.
Trabajó como crítica literaria para un diario.
She worked as a literary critic for a newspaper.
Moving on to the masculine noun crítico, you can listen to its pronunciation here:
In the last feminine sense, we identified a woman who either writes reviews or who criticizes. Well, un crítico is her male counterpart – a critic:
Sobre su obra han escrito importantes críticos de arte.
Leading art critics have written about his work.
Fue un fuerte crítico a la monarquía.
He was a fierce critic of the monarchy.
Having picked apart the main noun uses of crítico/crítica, it’s time to turn to its use as an adjective (whose ending naturally varies to agree in gender and number with the noun it describes).
Bearing in mind that the English term comes from the same root, what is the most likely translation of the adjective crítico (or crítica, críticos, críticas)? That’s right, it’s critical of course.
Crítico might describe serious, delicate situations and moments where the outcome lies in the balance:
Todo esto ocurre en un momento crítico de Colombia.
This is all happening at a critical time for Colombia.
La situación llegó a ser crítica.
The situation became critical.
De los hospitalizados, 18 están críticos.
Of those in hospital, 18 are critical.
Crítico might equally identify something very necessary:
las infraestructuras críticas del país
the country’s critical infrastructure
Then again crítico might describe negative judgements and the people who make them:
Se mostraron muy críticos con el papel desarrollado por la televisión pública.
They were very critical of the role played by state television.
¿Por qué es usted tan crítico con su país?
Why are you so critical of your country?
Finally, crítico might refer to analytical evaluations or to the reactions, responses and reviews of critics:
un análisis crítico del pasado
a critical analysis of the past
la primera traducción a un idioma europeo, con un comentario crítico detallado
the first translation into a European language, along with a detailed critical commentary
¿Qué acogida crítica han tenido sus obras?
What kind of critical response has there been to her plays?, How have the critics received her plays?
Recibió comentarios críticos positivos.
It received positive critical reviews or positive reviews from critics.
To review the different uses of some more similar-looking Spanish words, come back next week.
