The verb "estar" - Expressing emotions and states of being

Starting to learn a new language is always a challenge, so if you’re reading this, it’s safe to say you’re intelligent and inquisitive.

Learning a new language such as Spanish is an amazing adventure, so a big congratulations that you’re here on this adventure.

By the way, we’ve left you a gift at the end of this post. 😉

One of the most beautiful parts of learning a new language is being able to communicate our feelings and emotions.

Learning a language is not just about focusing solely on grammatical structures and the logic behind the language, it’s also about see the way in which the natives express sentences with emotions.

So, how do Spanish natives express their emotions?

There are many ways to study how Spanish natives express their feelings.

Such as, listening to the lyrics of songs, reading books, watching movies…

It’s simply not possible to separate emotions from language. We’re not robots! At least not for now.

We are humans and as humans, we need to express whats going on inside of us, what makes our heart skip a beat, even something like the emotions you feel when starting to study a new language.

It’s said that, "it's impossible to learn without emotion” and it is completely and utterly true.

A great way to learn Spanish is by watching movies and series.

We all love to spend a bit of time on the weekend watching episode after episode of our favourite series.

Getting sucked into the stories that we'll relate to forever and, without a doubt, make us empathise and feel what the characters are going through.

En our blog we have an article where we write tips with which to be able to improve our Spanish by watching movies and series. Study and enjoy at the same time, perfection!

In this article we talk about how to express emotions in Spanish. For this, we have a guest of honor: the verb “estar”.

The popular verb “estar”, that you have surely used and heard so many times is one of the main communicators when it comes to expressing our emotions in Spanish..

So, here we go! Let’s start at the beginning.

What are the emotional verbs

We've already mentioned that estar plays a big part when it comes to expressing emotions, but it’s not the only verb used.

The express what we are feeling are those verbs that are used to make emotions and feelings phrases. They serve to express everything that makes us feel a certain situation, a person or even something abstract.

Here in Spain, we like to call them, "verbs of feeling".

And what are these verbs of emotions in Spanish?

There are thousands, as many as feelings and emotions. In fact, sometimes you will see that it is not only a verb, we will find groups of words that help us to explain well what emotion expresses what we are feeling.

For instance, we have “alegrarse, ilusionarse, emocionarse, enfadarse, entristecerse, preocuparse” (to be happy, to be excited, to be emotional, to be angry, to be sad, to be worried)… We also have “ponerse contento, ponerse nervioso, dar pena y dar risa” (to feel content, anxious, sorry and to make laugh).

These are some emotional verbs with examples:

Me alegra que puedas venir a la fiesta. (I’m happy that you can come to the party)

A mi abuela le emociona que vaya a verla. (My grandmother is excited that I am going to see her.)

A Julia le entristece ver películas dramáticas. (Watching dramatic movies makes Julia sad)

A mí me da risa que cuentes un chiste. (You make me laugh when you tell me a joke)

As you can see, we are able to perfectly communicate how an emotion makes us feel by using these verbs.

Are you wondering how to express emotions in Spanish in a simpler way?

We’ll explain everything in the next section.

Verb - Estar

El estar vocabulary is one of our main verbs. In fact, it is one of the first verbs we learn when we start learning Spanish.

We can use the verb to be in many moments that we will see a little later, but today the one that interests us the most is to express feelings and emotions throughianyou them moods or physical states.

El state of feeling refers to an emotional feeling:

"ItI'm happy because I'm going on a trip, I'm nervous because I have an exam…”

El physical state refers to an body sensation:

“We are tired or we are sick…”

Now that you’re up to speed…

Let’s take a look at the form of the verb “estar”.

If you haven’t already learnt about the verb, we’ll explain it to you now.

We’ll explain it to you in two different verb tenses so that you can express yourself freely.

Both in present tense and past imperfect tense.

With the present you can express feelings and emotions at this very moment. With the imperfect tense, you can tell how you felt in a certain past situation.

Let's see the shape of the two-stroke!

Present tense conjugation

Here we’ll explain how to conjugate “estar” in the we have the conjugation of tense:

Person/Subject	ESTAR
Yo	estoy
You	estás
Él/Ella/Usted	está
Nosotros/Nosotras	estamos
Vosotros/Vosotras	estáis
Ellos/Ellas/Ustedes	están

Past imperfect conjugation

And here, we have the conjugation of “estar” in the past imperfect tense:

Person/Subject	ESTAR
Yo	estaba
You	estabas
Él/Ella/Usted	estaba
Nosotros/Nosotras	estábamos
Vosotros/Vosotras	estabais
Ellos/Ellas/Ustedes	estaban

Specific used for the verb "estar" – expressing emotions, states of feeling and being

As you can see, the conjugation of the verb estar is quite simple to remember, right?

In the present it is only irregular in the form of "yo" and in the past tense it is conjugated with the verb was.

However, we still have the most interesting thing to discover: What do we use this verb for? What are the uses of the verb to be?

Well, It is used to talk about emotions, physical states and being in Spanish.

Basic structure: be + adjective

To express states of feeling and states of being we are going to need to follow a very simple structure.

We will use the verb ESTAR followed by an ADJECTIVE.

The adjective must agree with the subject who lives the emotion So if the subject is feminine, the adjective will appear in the feminine form. If the subject is plural, the adjective will also be plural.

Here are some adjectives in Spanish with the verb to be:

Estoy contento porque he conseguido mi plaza en la universidad. (I am content because I managed to get a place in University.) The subject of “estoy” is singular, therefore, the adjective “content” is also singular.

Los amigos de Pablo están felices porque han aprobado el examen de español. (Pablo’s friends are happy because they passed the Spanish exam). The subject of the sentence are “los amigos de Pablo” – plural – thus, the adjective is also in plural: “felices”.

Alicia está preocupada, ha perdido el colgante que le regaló su abuela. (Alicia is worried, she has lost the pendant that her grandma gave ger). The subject of the sentence is feminine, so, the adjective is also feminine.

Adjectives to express emotions in Spanish and moods

There are many ways to reply when a friend asks:

“Oye, ¿Cómo estás?”.

Generally, we reply saying “bien” or “muy bien” and that’s correct! It’s perfect!

However, we can express feelings and emotions in many other ways without sounding repetitive: I am great, wonderfully, fantastically, regular (neither good nor bad), bad, quite good / bad, superb / bad...

Additionally, we can add adjectives that express more specific moods in Spanish.

Here are examples of emotions in Spanish with other adjectives: sad / happy, happy / unhappy, angry, worried, motivated, excited, disgusted, bored, surprised, annoyed...

Estamos emocionados porque nuestro equipo ha ganado la copa. (We are excited because our team won the cup).

Paula está disgustada porque ha roto con su novio. (Paula is down because she broke up with her boyfriend).

Although remember, for the Spanish, the question “how are you?” or "what's up?" on many occasions it is a way of greeting. They are not expecting you to really explain how you feel by using a lot of adjectives with estar. It's kind of a courtesy question.

Adjectives to describe states of being:

The structure of the verb estar + adjective is also used to explain how our body is in a certain moment. This is what we are referring to when we say, “states of being”.

Some adjectives in Spanish that we can use to express how our body feels are, for example: sick / healthy, nervous / calm, dizzy, stressed, asleep, tired, strong.

Equally we also use expressions like, estoy en forma (I’m in shape), estoy hecho un chaval (I look young for my age), estoy como un roble (I am fit as a fiddle).

Mi abuelo tiene 100 años, pero está hecho un chaval. (My Grandpa is 100 years old, but he looks young for his age).

Paula después de subirse a la montaña rusa, está mareada. (Paula is dizzy after going on the roller coaster).

Ayer no vine porque estaba enferma. (I didn’t come yesterday because I wasn’t feeling well).

Next, we leave you an infographic as a way of emotions list which will help you remember some vocabulary.

Activity – practising new vocabulary

Now that you know a lot about how to express feelings and emotions, your moods and how your body feels, let's practice a little. You fancy?

Rellena the gaps using these emotion words and the verb to be in present or on an pretérito imperfecto.

ENAMORADO- ENFADADO- CANSADO- CONTENTO – NERVIOSO – TRISTE

Esta noche me quedo en casa, he tenido mucho trabajo en la oficina, ¡ __________ __________ !

Cuando iba al colegio __________ __________ de una chica que se llamaba María. Tenía el pelo largo y rubio. También tenía los ojos azules como el mar.

Mi hermano y yo nos llevamos bien, ahora nunca peleamos, pero en el pasado siempre __________ __________ por tonterías.

Tengo un examen y aunque he estudiado mucho, __________ __________ .

Cuando éramos pequeños, mis amigos y yo jugábamos en el parque y solo por eso __________ __________ .

Antes __________ __________ porque había escuchado una canción de desamor.

Answers

estoy cansado
estaba enamorado
estábamos enfadados
estoy nervioso
estábamos contentos
estaba triste

How have the activities gone? That sure is cool!

In this article you have learned a lot of things: the morphology of the verb to be and the uses of emotions, some verbs of emotion, vocabulary of adjectives of moods...

Surely now you can perfectly express your emotions in Spanish, as in the infographic of drawings of emotions above. What happiness!

Do you know that we also have adjectives that change?ian of meaning with ser and estar? Although that is another topic that we will see in another article.

If you want to continue learning and keep that restless mind reading and looking for information, you can come to our school Hispania, escuela de español and consult our face-to-face Spanish courses or take a look online through our online Spanish courses

You’ll learn everything we have looked at today in depth and in a dynamic atmosphere with classmates from all over the world. If you’re looking for mixed cultures, you’ll be sure to find that in class.

oh! And you will learn with funny, charismatic teachers with a great knowledge of the language. Your oral expression and all the communication skills of Spanish will improve enormously, I guarantee it.

We look forward to seeing you in class soon! In the meantime, enjoy our useful blog articles.

Until next time 😊

PS. Here’s the gift we promised you at the start of the article: an activity for you to practice at home or with friends.

Article written by Laura Cabrelles for Hispania, escuela de español