What is the best way to translate sentences like:
Do emocionado and entusiasmado convey the same sentiment as excited, or are there subtle differences in meaning?
"emocionado" sounds a little less formal, just a little. But they both have the same meaning when they are used to translate "excited to" or "exited about"
As long as you don't translate it as "estoy muy excitado de verte la siguiente semana" it should be fine XD
However, to express a strong feeling (or emotion) you can only use "emocionado". For example, you could say:
"la pelicula fué muy emocionante" or "La película me dejó emocionado"
but you can't say:
"la película fue muy entusiasmante" nor "la película me dejó entusiasmado" (it's correct but it doesn't make much sense)
I'll tell you one secret - at least from a linguistic point of view, Spaniards are really not likely to convey their emotions as directly as English speakers do.
Rather than
Estamos muy emocionados de que vengas por navidad
(which is absolutely correct Spanish), we would avoid words such as being emocionado, encantado, entusiasmado, or even estar deseando algo, and do some unconscious "workaround" instead, like:
¡A ver si nos vemos ya pronto, en Navidad!
¡Nos vemos la semana que viene!
This doesn't mean you can't use an affective intonation, of course :)
Just to add another option, in Spanish (at least in Spain) you can use the word ilusión:
- f. Esperanza cuyo cumplimiento parece especialmente atractivo.
You can use it by saying that something te hace ilusión. So, taking your examples:
In English, one of the meanings of to excite is to cause feelings of enthusiasm in (someone). In Spanish, hacer ilusión means roughly the same. You can also say estar ilusionado, but the expression hacer ilusión sounds more natural for me.
Note that not every instance of excite can be translated this way. For instance, you can't use ilusión in the movie was very exciting. The problem with excite is that it implies "to arouse an emotional response", but that emotion can be any. The direct translation (excitar) carries a bit of a sexual meaning in Spain. So we try to translate it by using the particular feeling the original text refers to.
I think emocionado is a internal feeling:
Entusiasmado is a feeling that you can't help but show:
