El hombre dice: «¡Feliz cumpleaños!»

Because el hombre means the man. In Spanish, you usually need an article with a singular countable noun when you are talking about a specific person or thing.

So:

• el hombre = the man
• hombre by itself would usually sound incomplete here

Dice is the 3rd person singular present tense of decir, meaning to say.

It matches el hombre because the man = he.

So:

• yo digo = I say
• tú dices = you say
• él / ella dice = he / she says

Here, el hombre dice means the man says.

Yes, if the context already makes it clear who is speaking.

Spanish often leaves out the subject when it is understood, because the verb ending already gives information about the person. So dice can mean he says or she says, depending on context.

But in this sentence, el hombre is included to make it explicit who says it.

The colon introduces the exact words the man says.

This works a lot like English in sentences such as:

• The man says: Happy birthday!

In Spanish, a colon is very common before direct speech, especially in written narration.

They are called guillemets or angle quotation marks. Spanish often uses them for quoted speech, especially in more formal or traditional writing.

So «¡Feliz cumpleaños!» is just the quoted speech.

In modern texts, you may also see regular quotation marks, such as "...", but «...» is very standard in Spanish typography.

In Spanish, exclamations normally use both an opening and a closing exclamation mark:

• ¡ ... !

So:

• ¡Feliz cumpleaños!

This is not optional in standard writing. The opening mark tells you from the start that the sentence is exclamatory.

Spanish does the same with questions:

• ¿ ... ?

Because Feliz cumpleaños is a fixed greeting, like a formula.

Spanish often uses short expressions that do not spell out the full sentence. The full idea is something like:

• Te deseo un feliz cumpleaños
• Que tengas un feliz cumpleaños

But in real life, people simply say Feliz cumpleaños, just as English says Happy birthday rather than something fully expanded like I wish you a happy birthday.

In Feliz cumpleaños, cumpleaños is singular: it means birthday.

This is a very common point of confusion. Cumpleaños is an invariable noun, so the singular and plural have the same form:

• mi cumpleaños = my birthday
• los cumpleaños = the birthdays / birthdays in general

So even though it looks plural, it can be singular.

Also, the noun is masculine:

• el cumpleaños

Because in this greeting, cumpleaños is part of the set expression Feliz cumpleaños.

Spanish does not say Feliz el cumpleaños here. The phrase works as a fixed formula, just like English says Happy birthday, not Happy the birthday.

It actually does match in the way it needs to. Feliz is an adjective that has the same form for masculine and feminine singular.

So:

• feliz día
• feliz fiesta
• feliz cumpleaños

Unlike adjectives such as bonito / bonita, feliz does not change for masculine vs. feminine in the singular.

Its plural form is felices:

• felices fiestas

But in Feliz cumpleaños, the expression is singular.

A few useful pronunciation points:

• hombre: the h is silent, so it sounds roughly like OM-breh
• cumpleaños: the ñ sounds like the ny in canyon, so roughly koom-pleh-AHN-yos

More specifically:

• hombre → OM-breh
• cumpleaños → koom-pleh-AHN-yos

Also, in años, the ñ is very important. ano and año are completely different words, so learners should pay special attention to that sound.

Because in Spanish, ordinary phrases are not capitalized the way English sometimes capitalizes greetings or titles.

Here, Feliz cumpleaños appears after a colon as quoted speech, and standard Spanish keeps normal capitalization:

• El hombre dice: «¡Feliz cumpleaños!»

If the greeting started a sentence by itself, it would still only capitalize the first word:

• ¡Feliz cumpleaños!

Spanish generally uses fewer capital letters than English.