Re: OT: Spanish "me da feliz"

Mark J. Reed wrote:
> I see a lot more Google hits
> in that lang than in Spanish.  Spanish results are mostly other
> phrases (... me da, feliz...) or e.g. "me da feliz cumple" for "told
> me happy birthday".  A few straight-up "me da feliz"es but look like
> non-native postings.
	Precisely what I said before. The sentence is not "me da feliz", but
"me da feliz <something>", or "...me da, feliz...", which is not the
same as "me da feliz" (as an expression in itself) at all. Maybe Stevo's
friend just heard it in the middle of a sentence and thought it was an
expression. Or maybe he simply asked what it meant, knowing the context
- in which case, the answer should have been "gives me happy". And then
he'd apply it where he needed it (for a sentence that read "gives me
happy holidays", for example).



>  I could swear I've heard both "me da feliz" and "me da triste", though.
	I really never heard it. I also asked another native-speaker, this time
a Spanish person, and she also agreed that the expression doesn't exist.
In her own words: "está errada" ("it is wrong").



 > Hm.  Was the video possibly Portuguese?

	That wouldn't explain it. Portuguese goes with Spanish on that one
(Portuguese is my L1). We would never say "me dá feliz". Only if it were
part of a larger sentence (like "me dá feliz aniversário" - 'wishes me
happy birthday'), like you said before, in the beginning of this e-mail,
when you commented on what you found when you googled the phrase.



 > The rest of the text was definitely Spanish.  I googled "dar feliz"
 > and got lots of both Spanish and Portuguese.

	Indeed. Though it doesn't mean the sentence is correct. Like I said
before, and like Mark confirmed, they're just part of a larger sentence,
not an expression. I don't think the idiom exists. Charlie
(caeruleancentaur) said he's heard local Mexicans use it, so perhaps
that's where it's used - Mexico -, even though two native Spanish
speakers (one from Argentina and one from Spain) whom I asked told me it
sounded wrong (which was my opinion in the first place). Charlie used
the following sentences to strengthen his point of view:

Hace frio.
Me alegra
Me encanta.

	Which exist in Portuguese as well:

Faz frio.
Me alegra.
Me encanta.

	However, that's not a solid reason for an expression like "me dá
feliz", which simply does not exist in Portuguese. So I don't think that
the existence of verbs in Spanish (or Portuguese) that can be used
without an expressed subject would be a good enough reason to say "me dá
feliz", since it does not exist in Portuguese.

	In any case, I won't rule it out just like that, since there indeed may
be native speakers who would make use of such an idiom. I can't help
feeling that it rings incredibly odd to my ears, however.

Peace,
Ken :)

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