"Darse cuenta" y "caer en la cuenta"

"Darse cuenta" y "caer en la cuenta"
 

¿Hay una diferencia entre "darse cuenta" y "caer en la cuenta"? Creo que hay algo porque darse es reflexivo.... Gracias!!

Darse cuenta. To realize. To notice . Depending on context
Caer en la cuenta to come think of it

Pero no tiene sentido en el enunciado en que lo encontré:
"Entonces ellos cayeron en la cuenta de que él no les prevenía contra sus enemigos, sino contra los líderes de la organización."

My dictionary gives them as overlapping a lot. darse cuenta de and caer en la cuenta de both mean to realize. It then dawned on them that....

So the first would be more like a simple realization and the second more like "doh!"?

Yes. :)

Yup!
After the crepuscule (sunset) I was wondering all night where the Sun had gone... then it dawned on me!

(Hard to translate that into Spanish... but there you have it.)

En Chile sería "...me cayó la teja/la chaucha"

:)

:) Claro, pero no es lo mismo que "amanecer" o "salió el sol", al no tener el sentido de "darse cuenta"... (alas!)

¿Eh? ¿No son lo mismo?

I've heard in English: It hit me in the head.

Yes. I've heard also "it hit me"

@laepelba
No, I meant, the expression used by Chileno "...me cayó la teja/la chaucha" are not the same, as it misses the second sense of the Sun appearing at dawn.

In English "it dawned on me" it means "I realized it" but also "the Sun came up after the long night..."

Hmmmm... Interesting. I don't know that I connected those idioms in English before... :)

Lo único más cercano a "the sub came up after the long night" sería , "me iluminó/iluminé"

;)

Para mí, no hay otra que no sea la que dije, a no ser otras que decimos como "me desperté" y otras.

Well, there you have it...

Funny... I think I got this from some ESPN news or probably "Around the Horn" (Sport TV program), were they are constantly making plays on words, with sports terms and things like that... you know, like "Linsanity" last year...

Or like when Roger Federer won some tournament... the headline said something like "Roger that..." (as in, "Acknowledge that... playing with his name...)

Well, some of these things may be a bit stretched...

:)

Hey, that's the way it goes. In Chile we know this kind of people (always making fun that way) by "cabeza de papa" :D

Mmmm...
And what does "cabeza de papá" actually mean? :thinking: (I think and think, but it's still not dawning on me...)

Hmm. Perhaps I'll keep them straight in my head by understanding caer en la cuenta to mean "to fall into the realization" -- Boing...

Maybe it's a reference to the pope's hat.....? Enlarged and elongated up...???