"Me siento bien."
Translation:I feel fine.
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These object pronouns are the hardest part for me --- why would I just say "siento bien"? I translated this to I feel fine about myself -- because there is that "extra" "me" I felt I had to do something about..............isn't "siento bien" "I feel fine"?? Help. And very difficult to know where in the sentence to put the object pronoun - doesn't translate from English, of course
The infinitive (the root verb, not bound by time) is "sentirse." Remove the 'se' from the end of the infinitive and you have the verb "sentir." But feeling is an action that we call 'reflexive.' You do it to yourself. When we have reflexive verbs in Spanish we add the 'me' or 'se' or whichever proper clitic to the verb to express that it is an action you do to yourself. For example, if you want to say that you brush your teeth, you would say "yo ME lavo (lavarme) mis dienties (teeth)" to show that you brush your own teeth as opposed to you brush someone elses teeth. To an English speaker, it may not seem like 'feeling' is reflexive, but in Spanish, it is, so it becomes "yo me siento bien."
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But wouldn't it be "me lavo los dientes"? Like when we talk about pain, we say, "me duele la mano", not "mi mano".
There are a LOT of verbs that are reflexive in Spanish but not English. This is one of them. Often, it's because the verb can be transitive (has a direct object) or intransitive (has no direct object) in English, but only transitive in Spanish, so the intransitive form in English is reflexive (uses a "-self" pronoun) in Spanish.
In English, you feel good, feel bad, feel cold, etc. (intransitive) or you feel sadness, feel joy, feel the sand, etc. (transitive).
En espanol, te sientes bien, te sientes mal, te siente frio, etc. (reflexivo) o sientes la tristeza, sientes la alegria, sientes la arena, etc. (transitivo).
Hope that helps!
take a look here: http://www.studyspanish.com/lessons/reflexive1.htm
This is a good site have your grammar questions answered. Object pronouns are among the hardest parts for most of us. The short answer to where and how to use them is "it depends." :)