Telling us to use the verb form "emocionarse" was misleading?

Question

The hint: "to be excited = emocionarse" suggested to me that "Me emociono saber que Zoe..." would be the right form, but no - the correct answer was:"Me emociona saber que Zoe ..."

I have the impression that both versions are correct, are they?

Accepted Answer

Hola David
Both "me emociono" and "me emociona" are grammatically correct if we use them as such. But in this sentence you'd either need "Me emociono al saber que Zoe..." or "Me emociona saber que Zoe..."; two different structures with this verb. 
In the second one the subject of the sentence is the clause "saber que Zoe..."; the same structure that we'd have with "Me gusta saber que Zoe..." - the verb emocionarse is used in the 3rd person singular. The first opcion using "Me emociono al saber que Zoe.." would be the same as saying "Me emociono cuando sé que Zoe..."; this would be a time clause, so here you need the verb emocionarse in 1st person singular "Me emociono..." (I get excited when ..."
I hope this clarifies it.
Inma

Answer

I believe ‘me emociona ‘ means I am excited/it excites me, whereas ‘me emociono’ means I get excited.

Answer

Thank you Inma, and thank you Susan ...It did, however, strike me as [slightly] misleading to give us the hint "to be excited = emocionarse" when we were supposed to answer using "Me emociona ..." - because this latter phrase is not actually utilizing the "...se" form of the verb... [the "Me" is a direct object, not a reflexive pronoun?]

Answer

Yes, you're right, David. One structure is using the reflexive pronoun and the other is using the indirect pronoun. The problem is that there is no equivalent for each of our Spanish structures in English. We had to choose one. If you had gone for the sentence starting with "me emociono..." we would have given it as correct, but only if you had continued with "al saber que..." - this would have been grammatically correct too.

Inma