Human Feelings

Human feelings are emotional states that describe how people react to events, situations, or thoughts. This vocabulary set covers common emotions and ways to express intensity, cause, and reactions in professional and everyday contexts.

• Feelings can be expressed with adjectives (e.g., anxious), verbs (e.g., to worry), or nouns (e.g., anxiety).
• Many feelings have similar meanings but different strengths (e.g., sad vs. devastated).
• Choose words that match formality and context in business communication.

Common patterns and collocations for feelings:

• Use 'feel' + adjective to describe current emotions: I feel anxious.
• Use 'be' + adjective for states: She is relieved.
• Use nouns with verbs like 'experience' or 'show': They experienced frustration; He showed excitement.
• Modify intensity with adverbs: slightly, very, deeply, extremely (choose appropriately).

Match the word choice to context: formal (experience, relieved) vs. informal (upset, thrilled).

Avoid these universal errors when using feeling vocabulary:

• Confusing adjective and noun forms (e.g., confusing 'anxious' with 'anxiety' in the wrong place).
• Using an inappropriate intensity adverb (e.g., 'very devastated' can be redundant or awkward).
• Choosing synonyms without checking nuance — words like 'happy', 'content', and 'ecstatic' differ in intensity.
• Mixing registers — using informal words in formal business writing.

When in doubt, check collocations (which adverbs commonly go with the adjective) and formality.