Feelings and sensations
| Spanish | what it usually describes |
|---|---|
| el sentimiento | an emotion: love, fear, jealousy |
| la sensación | something felt in the body, or a vague impression |
| notar | to notice or sense something, often a change |
Fear is an emotion, so it is un sentimiento:
| Fear is a very human feeling. | El miedo es un sentimiento muy humano. |
Cold water on your skin is physical, so it is una sensación:
| I love the sensation of cold water in summer. | Me encanta la sensación del agua fría en verano. |
Tener la sensación de que… is the everyday way to say to have the feeling that…: an impression, not an emotion.
| I have the feeling that someone is looking at me. | Tengo la sensación de que alguien me mira. |
Who feels it, who causes it
With hacer gracia (to amuse) and decepcionar (to disappoint), the cause is the subject, and the person who feels it is usually a pronoun before the verb (me, te, nos…), much like fastidiar or dar pena. Followed by que, they take the subjunctive, as fastidiar does.
| Your brother really amuses me. | Tu hermano me hace mucha gracia. |
| It disappoints me that you're not coming to the party. | Me decepciona que no vengas a la fiesta. |
The noun for the feeling is la decepción, disappointment (not deception).
Getting tired, being drunk
Cansarse is the change: you get tired. Estar cansado is the state you end up in. Cansarse de + infinitive means to get tired of doing something.
| My son got tired of waiting and left. | Mi hijo se cansó de esperar y se fue. |
Estar borracho is being drunk right now; un borracho is a drunkard.
| Don't drink any more: you're drunk. | No bebas más: estás borracho. |
