sentir and sentirse

Question

I'm having trouble with sentir and sentirse, sentir is what you feel and sentirse is how you feel. I put "I feel scared" in Spanishdict translator and it said "siento miedo" but in Kwizik "I feel emotional" is "ME siento emocionada". Unless Spanishdict is wrong, I can't see how I feel scared and I feel emotional are different?

Answer

Miedo is a noun and emocionado is an adjective. We use sentirse with adjectives and adverbs and sentir with nouns.

Spanishdict is a good resource but the lessons on here give explanations - So have a look at the lesson Sentir vs Sentirse (to feel).

Answer

Thanks, I did look at the lesson but I just don't get it yet. They all seem the same to me. I'm not great with grammar anyway, I don't understand how scared is a noun and emotional is an adjective. Learning Spanish has shown me that maybe I should actually do an English course first.

Thanks again

Answer

Hola Peter
When we talk about sentir being followed by a noun and sentirse being followed by an adjective, we are referring to these being nouns and adjectives in Spanish, not English. Those two sentences you wrote are both using adjectives in English (emotional and scared); so, for example, in Spanish:
Siento miedo means I feel scared, but in Spanish what we are literally saying is "I feel fear" (fear = miedo,  being a noun)
You can say something similar using "sentirse":
Me siento aterrorizada
Here we are using "me siento" because we are using it with an adjective: "aterrorizada" meaning "terrified" - they are adjectives both in Spanish and English.
Saludos
Inma