Los sentimientos, mas a fondo

The first feelings session gave you querer, miedo and triste. This one is about a pattern rather than a list: Spanish turns most emotions into reflexive verbs, so the emotion becomes something that happens to you at a moment rather than something you simply are.

Enfadarse is to get angry. Enamorarse is to fall in love. Calmarse is to calm down. Preocuparse is to worry. Each one is an event with a beginning.

English needs a helper verb for all of these - get, fall, become - and Spanish folds it into the verb itself.

The three-way split

Take anger. Enfadar is to make someone angry. Enfadarse is to get angry. Estar enfadado is to be angry, the resulting state.

Cause, change, state. Spanish keeps all three separate and you can say precisely which one you mean. Me enfadé is I got angry, at a moment. Estaba enfadado is I was angry, throughout.

That is the same preterite-imperfect logic you have been drilling for thirty chapters, now applied to feelings, where it does its most useful work.

enfadarse and enojarse

Both are to get angry. Enfadarse is Spain; enojarse is Latin America. Neither is wrong anywhere, but each sounds foreign in the other's territory.

alegria, alegre, contento

Alegría is joy, the noun. Alegre is cheerful as a characteristic - es alegre is a description of someone's nature. Contento is happy right now - estoy contento.

Feliz sits between them and takes either verb, with the usual shift: es feliz is a happy person, está feliz is having a good day.

The ones that are not what they look like

Ilusión is not illusion. It is excitement or eager anticipation: me hace ilusión is I am looking forward to it, and it is warm and completely positive. This is one of the loveliest false friends in the language and there is no clean English equivalent.

Lástima is a shame or a pity, not lastingness. ¡Qué lástima! is what a shame.

Vergüenza is embarrassment and shame both, and me da vergüenza is I am embarrassed - the dar construction again, giving you the feeling rather than you having it.