profundizar
verbCEFR B1
What does “profundizar” mean in English?
to go deeper into, to study in depth
to go deeper into, to study in depth (a topic or subject area) — profundizar en
Example sentences
Si te interesa la historia de América Latina, este libro te permitirá profundizar en los procesos de independencia del siglo XIX de forma accesible y bien documentada.
If you are interested in Latin American history, this book will allow you to go deeper into the 19th-century independence processes in an accessible and well-documented way.
En la asignatura de lingüística, profundizamos en las diferencias entre el español peninsular y el latinoamericano, algo que me resultó muy útil para mi investigación.
In the linguistics module, we went deeper into the differences between Peninsular and Latin American Spanish, something I found very useful for my research.
El tutor me aconsejó que profundizara más en la bibliografía antes de escribir el marco teórico, ya que las fuentes que había citado eran demasiado generales.
The tutor advised me to go deeper into the bibliography before writing the theoretical framework, since the sources I had cited were too general.
How to use it
Profundizar means 'to go deeper' into a topic or subject — to study or analyse something more thoroughly beyond a surface level. It is intransitive at B1 and takes the preposition en: profundizar en un tema, profundizar en el uso del subjuntivo. It is slightly formal and academic in register — more appropriate for essay writing, academic discussion, or tutorials than for everyday casual speech. The noun form is profundidad (depth), and the fixed phrase en profundidad (in depth) is extremely common.
Common mistake
Profundizar is intransitive — always use en before the topic: 'profundizar en el tema', not '*profundizar el tema'. Don't confuse profundizar with approfondire (Italian) or approfondir (French) cognates — the preposition pattern is the key trap. Also, don't use profundizar when you simply mean 'study more' — for that use estudiar más or repasar.