Today we’re lining up another two similar-looking Spanish words with different uses as part of our compare-and-contrast language strategy. These are táctica and táctico.
Starting with táctica (feminine) you can listen to how it’s pronounced here:
Una táctica is a method or plan for achieving a particular aim – a tactic (or sometimes tactics):
Será necesario repensar las tácticas y la estrategia.
We’ll need to rethink tactics and strategy.
Deciden utilizar la táctica del policía bueno/policía malo.
They decide to use the good cop/bad cop tactic.
El arresto fue solo una táctica para evitar que los activistas protestasen.
The arrest was just a tactic to avoid the activists protesting.
Después, cambió temporalmente de táctica.
Afterwards, she temporarily changed tactics.
La táctica is also the science of deploying and manoeuvring forces and hardware to achieve a military aim – tactics:
Allí estudió táctica militar.
There, he studied military tactics.
Turning to the masculine táctico, you can hear how it’s pronounced here:
Un táctico (and in fact also the feminine una táctica) is a man (or a woman) whose job or skill is to plan tactics – a tactician:
Actualmente es el táctico del equipo.
He’s currently the team’s tactician.
Having laid out the main noun uses of táctico and táctica, it’s time to turn to their use as an adjective (whose ending naturally varies to agree in gender and number with the noun it describes). Táctico is used to describe all things tactical:
Esta decisión podría ser un error táctico.
This decision could be a tactical error.
Esta fue una prueba de misiles tácticos.
This was a tactical missiles trial.
DID YOU KNOW?
In Spanish estrategia (strategy) and táctica are two nouns that are similar in meaning. However, while sometimes used interchangeably, una estrategia tends to be a carefully thought-out plan of action to achieve a major long-term aim, whereas una táctica is a plan to achieve a shorter-term goal, perhaps as part of la estrategia. This is much the same as the difference between strategy and tactic in English:
Las tácticas navales son distintas de la estrategia naval.
Naval tactics are different from naval strategy.
estas estrategias y tácticas de márketing
these marketing strategies and tactics
Idearon una estrategia para proteger a los pingüinos.
They devised a strategy to protect the penguins.
To study the differences in usage between some more similar-looking Spanish words, join us again next week.
