• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Interfluency

Tagline
  • +1-901-288-3018
  • Contact
    • English

Mobile menu contact icon

Mobile menu contact information (EN)

  • Telephone: +1-901-288-3018
  • Contact Us
  • Home
  • About
    • What We Do
    • The Word “Interfluency”
    • Our Team
    • Clients
  • Services
    • Linguistic
      • Translation
      • Interpreting
      • Writing/Editing
    • Cultural
    • Consulting
  • Resources
    • For Translators
    • For Clients
    • General Interest
  • Testimonials
  • Blog
  • Search

felicitaciones

2013-01-01 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

Two kinds of congratulations… and how Spanish expresses them

Dear reader,

For some weeks now, the air has been filled with greetings and good wishes: “Happy Holidays”, “Merry Christmas,” “Season’s Greetings” and, for a few days yet, “Happy New Year”.  In Spanish: Felices Fiestas, Feliz Navidad, Feliz Año Nuevo.

There’s one Spanish greeting, though, that English can’t quite reproduce: “¡Felicidades!”

Many English speakers (and even some native Spanish speakers) confuse this interjection with the similar-sounding “¡Felicitaciones!” English routinely expresses both ideas by the single word: “Congratulations!”

The felicitaciones/felicidades pair offers a beautiful example of the subtle shades of meaning that a language (in this case, Spanish) can express.

The distinction is significant: felicitación is an act of praise or congratulation, while felicidad refers to that sublime and blessed state of the human heart, happiness.

Thus a graduation, a promotion, an award, indeed any achievement or victory, merits a congratulatory“¡Felicitaciones!” (An alternative particularly common in Spain: “¡Enhorabuena!”)

On the other hand, transcendent moments of the human condition, the annual cycle, or the great life passages—the birth of a child, a birthday, a wedding, or, indeed, a New Year—inspire the warmer and more elevated“¡Felicidades!”: a wish for much happiness.

It’s fascinating to speculate on the cultural source of this distinction, absent from English. Is Spanish more emotive? Perhaps. We propose, instead, that the answer lies in a stronger sense of ritual and ceremony in the tongue of Cervantes.

¡Buenas palabras… y felicidades!

Pablo

Copyright ©2013 Pablo J. Davis. All Rights Reserved. This essay was originally written for the January 6, 2013edition of La Prensa Latina (Memphis, Tennessee), as part of the weekly bilingual column Mysteries & Enigmas of Translation/Misterios y Enigmas de la Traducción.

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Pablo J. Davis", certificado, certified, comparative, congratulations, cultura, culture, diferencia, difference, English, English-Spanish, español, felicidades, felicitaciones, Hispanic, Hispano, inglés, interpreter, Julián, Latino, Pablo, Pablo Julián Davis, Spanish, traducción, traductor, translation, translator

Primary Sidebar

Interfluency Translation+Culture

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address, then click on Follow! to follow this blog and receive email notification of new posts.

    First Name *

    Last Name *

    Email Address *

    Latest Posts

    • Tonight, sometime around midnight, will mark the 300th anniversary of… well… how shall I put it?
    • Drinking a unique toast
    • The violent alienation of “ajeno”
    • No “mere drudge” or slinger of words: Our teacher and friend, Samuel Johnson

    Tags

    "Pablo J. Davis" cultura culture Davis English español inglés Julián Pablo Spanish traducción traductor translation translator
     

    About Us

    Interfluency Translation+ Culture offers top-quality, reliable, professional services in two broad areas: linguistic and cultural. We also consult to help organizations identify and implement meaningful, quality solutions to cultural and language-related challenges.

    Latest Posts

    3.4.18 Tonight, sometime around midnight, will mark the 300th anniversary of… well… how shall I put it?

    By PABLO J. DAVIS Sunday, March 4, 2018 Tonight marks an extraordinary anniversary… of an extremely ordinary event, one that occurs millions of times a day around the world. ...

    12.20.17 Drinking a unique toast

    Enlace para español/ Click here for Spanish Dear reader, In this season, many a glass is raised and “toasts” offered. The word seems to come from an old custom of using spiced ...

    12.10.17 The violent alienation of “ajeno”

    Enlace para español/Click here for Spanish Dear reader, Recently your faithful servant stumbled across a recording of a song he had heard from time to time, but has now had a chance ...

    Latest Tweets

    Tweets by Interfluency

    Contact Us

    • +1-901-288-3018
    • info@interfluency.com
     

    Copyright © 2022 Interfluency™ Translation+Culture

    Website by John Gehrig

    • Copyright Notice
    • Privacy Policy
    • Site Map
    • Contact Us