Hacer oídos sordos
To make deaf ears.
to turn a deaf ear; **to turn a deaf ear**; **to ignore**; **to pay no attention to**; **to disregard**
Hacer oídos sordos means to deliberately ignore advice, warnings, requests or criticism.
Hizo oídos sordos a todos los consejos.
He turned a deaf ear to everyone's advice.
Siempre hace oídos sordos cuando le hablo.
She always ignores me when I speak to her.
El ayuntamiento hizo oídos sordos a las protestas de los vecinos.
The council turned a deaf ear to the neighbours' complaints.
The speaker hears the message but chooses not to respond or act upon it.
A teenager may hacer oídos sordos to their parents' advice.
A government may hacer oídos sordos to public criticism.
An employee may hacer oídos sordos to repeated complaints from colleagues.
The idiom always implies intentional disregard rather than inability to hear.
- ignores advice
- refuses to listen to warnings
- pays no attention to repeated requests
- disregards criticism
- pretends not to have heard something
The expression is based on a simple metaphor.
Rather than becoming physically deaf, the listener behaves as if their ears were deaf.
Spanish expresses this by saying that someone makes their ears deaf.
Over time, the metaphor became completely fixed and is now one of the most common ways of describing deliberate indifference.
Spanish culture traditionally places great importance on listening to advice from family, teachers and older people.
For that reason, accusing someone of hacer oídos sordos often carries a mild criticism.
It suggests that the problem is not lack of information but lack of willingness to listen.
This explains why the expression appears frequently in discussions about politics, education and family relationships.
Many languages use parts of the body to describe attitudes rather than physical abilities.
English speaks of turning a deaf ear.
Spanish says hacer oídos sordos.
Although the wording differs, both expressions recognise the same human behaviour: hearing the message perfectly while pretending not to listen.
Do not translate the expression literally.
English speakers would not normally say:
to make deaf ears.
Instead, the natural equivalent is:
to turn a deaf ear.
Interestingly, both languages use deafness as a metaphor for deliberate refusal to listen, although they construct the image differently.
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