Emotions and feelings

Emotions and Feelings in Spanish: Lesson Overview

This lesson introduces you to expressing emotions and feelings in Spanish, focusing on common vocabulary, sentence structures, and the use of the verbs sentirse (to feel) and estar (to be). Designed for beginners (A1 level), it provides practical phrases and dialogues for everyday situations such as work, health, and leisure.

Key Topics Covered

• Vocabulary of Emotions: Learn words for positive emotions like contento (happy), feliz (happy), tranquilo (calm), and sorprendido (surprised), and negative emotions such as cansado (tired), enfadado (angry), nervioso (nervous), and triste (sad).
• The verb sentirse (to feel): Learn how to conjugate this reflexive verb in the present tense and use it in sentences like Estoy contento (I am happy) or Me siento cansado (I feel tired).
• Differentiating ser vs. estar: Understand how estar is used to express temporary states or feelings, e.g., Estoy nervioso, while ser describes permanent characteristics.
• Constructing dialogues: Practice asking and responding to questions about emotions in various contexts such as office conversations, hospital visits, and post-exercise chats.
• Interactive exercises: Include sentence reordering, matching halves of sentences, verb conjugation multiple-choice questions, and fill-in-the-gap mini-stories to reinforce learning.

Important Expressions and Phrases

• ¿Cómo te sientes? – How do you feel?
• Estoy un poco cansado. – I am a little tired.
• ¿Por qué estás triste? – Why are you sad?
• Me siento feliz cuando trabajo con mis amigos. – I feel happy when I work with my friends.

Using Emotions in Context

The lesson offers realistic dialogues illustrating how to talk about feelings, ask others about their emotions, and respond appropriately. For example, in a work setting, you might say: Estoy un poco cansado, pero contento porque es viernes (I’m a bit tired but happy because it’s Friday).

Grammar Highlight: Ser versus Estar

In Spanish, ser and estar both mean "to be," but they are used differently. Ser describes permanent traits (e.g., professions, personality), whereas estar expresses temporary states or emotions. For example:

• Ella es profesora y siempre está feliz en su trabajo. – She is a teacher (permanent), and she is always happy at her job (temporary state).
• ¿Por qué estás triste? – Why are you sad? (temporary feeling)

Differences and Useful Phrases Compared to English

Spanish often uses reflexive verbs like sentirse to express feelings, which does not have a direct reflexive form in English. For instance, Me siento nervioso literally translates as "I feel myself nervous," but in English we simply say "I feel nervous." Learning this structure helps convey emotions naturally in Spanish. Also, remember that adjective endings change to match gender and number (cansado for masculine singular, cansada for feminine).

Common useful phrases include:

• Estoy feliz – I am happy
• Me siento confundido – I feel confused
• Nos sentimos cansados – We feel tired
• ¿Estás contenta? – Are you happy? (female)