Unlock Your Emotions: Expressing Feelings in Spanish

To express emotions and feelings in Spanish, it is common to use a variety of verbs, adjectives, and expressions tailored to communicate different emotional states clearly. Here are some basic ways to express emotions in Spanish:

Verbs to Express Feelings

• Sentir (to feel) - e.g., “Siento alegría” (I feel joy).
• Estar + adjective - e.g., “Estoy feliz” (I am happy).
• Tener + noun - e.g., “Tengo miedo” (I am afraid).

Common Adjectives for Emotions

• Feliz (happy)
• Triste (sad)
• Enojado/enfadado (angry)
• Asustado (scared)
• Emocionado (excited)
• Cansado (tired)

Idiomatic Expressions and Phrases

Spanish often uses phrases like “me gusta” (I like), “me encanta” (I love), and “me molesta” (it bothers me) to convey feelings directed at things or situations.

Structure for Expressing Emotions

• Focus on using verbs of emotion followed by the subject or cause.
• Use pronouns like “me,” “te,” “le” to indicate who feels the emotion.
• Combine with intensity adverbs for more nuance, for example: “Estoy muy feliz” (I am very happy).

These forms help speakers communicate emotional states effectively in Spanish.

References

• Combining Machine Learning Techniques and Natural Language Processing to Infer Emotions Using Spanish Twitter Corpus

• Miłość w cieniu traumy w powieści Le mort qu’il faut Jorgego Semprúna i w jej przekładach na hiszpański i polski

• Evaluative language for rapport building in virtual collaboration: an analysis of appraisal in computer-mediated interaction

• Positive and Negative Feelings among Spanish Young–Old and Old–Old during the Lockdown of the COVID-19 First Wave

• Expression of Emotions in the Spanish and Italian Filmic Audio Descriptions of The King’s Speech

• Construction of meaning in survivors of suicide loss: A Spanish translation and application of the Meaning in Loss Codebook

• Emotions as a linguistic category: perception and expression of emotions by Spanish EFL students

• Social and emotional learning - Portuguese and Spanish teachers’ representations and classroom practices

• A sentiment analysis of Spanish and Italian news articles about COVID-19 : exploring the emotional reaction on government-applied restrictions

• Analysis of Emotions during Confinement: A Qualitative Study among Social Work Students

• Unlocking the power of emotion in L2 Spanish: a study of verbs of affection instruction

• Psycholinguistic and affective norms for 1,252 Spanish idiomatic expressions

• Spanish Emotion Recognition Method Based on Cross-Cultural Perspective

• Recognition of Emotions in Mexican Spanish Speech: An Approach Based on Acoustic Modelling of Emotion-Specific Vowels

• Recognition of Emotions in Mexican Spanish Speech: An Approach Based on Acoustic Modelling of Emotion-Specific Vowels

• LiSSS: A toy corpus of Spanish Literary Sentences for Emotions detection

• Statistical Relationships Between Phonological Form, Emotional Valence and Arousal of Spanish Words

• Spanish Emotion Recognition Method Based on Cross-Cultural Perspective

• The bright side of words: Norms for 9000 Spanish words in seven discrete positive emotions

• Word Affect Intensities