Learn Hardcore Spanish (Spain): Me siento orgulloso cuando consigo hablar español sin vergüenza. - I feel proud when I manage to speak Spanish without embarrassment.

sentir (non‑reflexive) = to feel something (a noun)
- Siento vergüenza. = I feel shame / I’m ashamed.
- Siento frío. = I feel cold.
sentirse (reflexive) = to feel in the sense of “to feel + adjective/adverb”
- Me siento orgulloso. = I feel proud.
- Me siento bien / mal / cansado. = I feel well / bad / tired.

In your sentence, orgulloso is an adjective, so Spanish uses the reflexive form: me siento.
Using siento orgulloso would be incorrect in standard Spanish.

Could I say Estoy orgulloso instead of Me siento orgulloso? What’s the difference?

Both are correct, but they feel slightly different:

Estoy orgulloso = I am proud
- Focuses more on your state or condition at that moment.
Me siento orgulloso = I feel proud
- Focuses more on your internal perception or emotional experience.

In many contexts they are interchangeable. In your sentence, with emotions linked to a situation, Me siento orgulloso sounds very natural and perhaps a bit more emotional or subjective than Estoy orgulloso.

Why is it orgulloso and not orgullosa?

The adjective orgulloso/orgullosa must agree with the gender and number of the person who feels proud.

A man speaking:
- Me siento orgulloso…
A woman speaking:
- Me siento orgullosa…
Several men or a mixed group:
- Nos sentimos orgullosos…
Several women:
- Nos sentimos orgullosas…

So orgulloso in your sentence assumes the speaker is male. If the speaker is female, you’d say orgullosa.

Why is there no de after orgulloso? I often see orgulloso de.

You’re right that orgulloso de is very common:

Estoy orgulloso de ti. = I’m proud of you.
Me siento orgullosa de hablar español. = I feel proud of speaking Spanish.

You typically use de when it’s followed by:

a noun/pronoun: de ti, de mi familia, de mis logros
an infinitive: de hablar, de haber conseguido algo

In your sentence, orgulloso is followed by a clause with “cuando”:

Me siento orgulloso cuando consigo hablar español…

Here cuando + clause works more like a time expression, not like the direct “object” of the pride, so “de” is not needed.
You could say:

Me siento orgulloso de hablar español sin vergüenza. ✔
Me siento orgulloso cuando hablo español sin vergüenza. ✔

Both are correct, they just structure the idea differently.

What does consigo mean here, and why not puedo?

Consigo is the yo form of conseguir, which means:

conseguir + infinitive = to manage to / to succeed in (doing something)

So:

cuando consigo hablar español ≈ when I manage to speak Spanish / when I succeed in speaking Spanish.

Poder (puedo) just expresses ability or possibility:

cuando puedo hablar español = when I can speak Spanish (when circumstances allow it).

Your sentence emphasizes that it’s an effort and an achievement (you have to overcome embarrassment), so conseguir is more expressive than just poder.

How is conseguir conjugated, and is consigo irregular?

Yes, conseguir is irregular in the present tense:

yo consigo
tú consigues
él / ella / usted consigue
nosotros conseguimos
vosotros conseguís
ellos / ellas / ustedes consiguen

Two main changes:

e → i in the stem (conseguir → consigo, consigues, etc.)
In yo consigo the g stays but is pronounced softly; spelling helps with pronunciation.

Why is it cuando consigo (indicative) and not cuando consiga (subjunctive)?

With cuando, Spanish uses indicative or subjunctive depending on the meaning:

Habitual / general / past reality → indicative
- Me siento orgulloso cuando consigo hablar español sin vergüenza.
  = Any time this happens in general, I feel proud.
Future or hypothetical action → subjunctive
- Me sentiré orgulloso cuando consiga hablar español sin vergüenza.
  = I will feel proud when (the day comes that) I manage to speak Spanish without embarrassment.

Your sentence describes something that already happens repeatedly, so indicative (consigo) is the right choice.

Why is it hablar español and not hablo español?

Here you have conseguir + infinitive:

conseguir hablar = to manage to speak

Spanish uses the infinitive after verbs like conseguir, poder, querer, saber (to know how to), etc.:

Quiero hablar español. = I want to speak Spanish.
Puedo hablar español. = I can speak Spanish.
Consigo hablar español. = I manage to speak Spanish.

If you said:

cuando hablo español sin vergüenza, me siento orgulloso

that’s also correct, but it’s a different structure: “When I speak Spanish without embarrassment, I feel proud.” It doesn’t highlight the idea of “managing/succeeding” as much as conseguir hablar does.

Why is it hablar español and not hablar el español?

With the verb hablar plus a language, Spanish usually drops the article:

Hablar español / inglés / francés
Sé hablar español. = I know how to speak Spanish.

You normally use the article el with language names when:

The language is the subject or object of the sentence:
- El español es difícil.
- Me gusta el español.
After some prepositions (especially de, en), depending on style:
- El libro está en español.
- Una clase de español.

But with hablar + language, the default in modern usage is no article: hablar español, not hablar el español.

What exactly does sin vergüenza mean here?

Sin vergüenza literally means “without shame”, but here it’s best understood as:

without embarrassment / without feeling shy or self‑conscious

So hablar español sin vergüenza = speaking Spanish without being embarrassed.

Be careful with:

sin vergüenza (two words) = without shame (adverbial phrase)
un sinvergüenza (one word) = a shameless person, a scoundrel (a noun, sometimes affectionate, often negative)

Your sentence uses the normal, literal sin vergüenza (“without shame/embarrassment”), not sinvergüenza the insult.

How do you pronounce and spell vergüenza, and what’s that two-dot mark?

Spelling: vergüenza

The two dots over the u (ü) are called a diéresis (in English: diaeresis or umlaut).
In Spanish, gue / gui normally sound like “ge / gi” (the u is silent).
- guerra = ge-rra
But güe / güi make the u pronounced:
- vergüenza → ver-GUEN-za
- pingüino → pin-GUI-no

So vergüenza is pronounced roughly: ver-GWEN-tha in Spain (th like in think), ver-GWEN-sa in most of Latin America.

Why is there no yo at the beginning? Could I say Yo me siento orgulloso…?

You can say Yo me siento orgulloso…, but Spanish usually drops the subject pronoun because the verb ending already tells you the person:

(Yo) me siento = I feel
(Tú) te sientes = you feel
(Nosotros) nos sentimos = we feel

Using yo is normal if you want to emphasize contrast:

Yo me siento orgulloso, pero ella no.
= I feel proud, but she doesn’t.

In your sentence, there’s no contrast, so just Me siento orgulloso… is more natural.

Could I move the cuando clause to the beginning of the sentence?

Yes, Spanish allows flexible word order here:

Me siento orgulloso cuando consigo hablar español sin vergüenza.
Cuando consigo hablar español sin vergüenza, me siento orgulloso.

Both are correct and mean the same. Putting cuando… first can slightly emphasize the situation (the moment you manage to speak without embarrassment); leaving it second keeps the focus on the feeling first.

What’s the difference between orgullo and orgulloso?

orgullo = noun → pride
- Siento mucho orgullo. = I feel a lot of pride.
- Mi orgullo es muy grande. = My pride is very big.
orgulloso / orgullosa = adjective → proud
- Estoy orgulloso de ti. = I am proud of you.
- Me siento orgullosa cuando hablo español. = I feel proud when I speak Spanish.

Your sentence needs an adjective to describe how you feel, so it uses orgulloso, not orgullo.