"desafortunado" ?

Question

¿Que se debe decir de una persona que se murió? ¿Es adecuado "desafortunado", o hay otra palabra mejor?

Answer 1

"Mis más sinceras condolencias" es común en lenguaje escrito.

"Lo siento" o "Lo lamento " (to express empathy) es normal en lenguaje hablado, but you may also say "Me entristece recibir esa noticia" or something like that if that one who gives that bad news isn't a relative of the one who died, just to express your sadness.

Answer 2

If I'm right nomdeploom, you are not asking how to pass on your condolences to family members or friends of the deceased but are looking for an adequate means of expressing distress at his/her demise. It's not an easy one.

I think you're right in suspecting that "desafortunado" serves your purpose rather feebly. To improve on it is not easy as "unfortunate", in English, is also the standard cliché and right now it's giving me a headache trying to think what other response I've thought of when my various family members have passed on.

Let's hope that we have a genius on board who can not only understand but solve your problem. I'll keep on trying but I just lack that spark.

Good luck.

Later. I know that this is cowardly on my part but here's a link to a Spanish thesaurus that has quite a lot of suggestions (mostly irrelevant although some better).

Spanish Thesaurus

Thanks for the link - very helpful! - nomdeploom, Nov 17, 2012

The thesaurus is great. Thanks. - gringojrf, Nov 17, 2012

Answer 3

Lo lamento

Answer 4

Mi pregunta no fue bien dicho. Quiero expresar mi tristeza de aprender que él murió. No sé si "desafortunado" es una palabra bastante fuerte en este contexto. Quiero responder a la noticia con simpatía.

I think that you wanted to say "con empatía", "de saber que él murió". - -cae-, Nov 17, 2012

Gracias. Aprendo poco a poco. - nomdeploom, Nov 17, 2012

Answer 5

Fallecido/a:

Both noun and adjective: deceased, deceased person

Answer 6

Geofc is close in his guess as to my intention. Actually, I had already reponded to someone who had apologized for a late reply to an inquiry. I have never met the person, nor the deceased, but I wanted to express sympathy, and referred to the person as a "desafortunado". Later I started to wonder what would be a more sympathetic term. It turned into quite a good learning exercise, thanks to all who responded. This is my first question to the forum, but I'm very encouraged.