jubilate — to rejoice and show great joy
jubilar — the Spanish verb cognate of the same meaning
The adjective “jubilant” has masculine, “jubiloso,” and feminine, “jubilosa,” (as well as plural — “jubilosos” and “jubilosas”) counterparts in Spanish. The noun “jubilation” is simply “júbilo” in Spanish. I chose the verb “jubilate,” which is “jubilar” in Spanish, because it means something else in Spanish — something that has brought me great “jubilation.”
“Jubilar” also means “to retire.” In that meaning, it is used in a reflexive sense to show that one has taken oneself out of employment to enjoy the well-deserved fruits of one’s labor. Thus, it would be “jubilarse,” and you would say “Me jubilé” to mean “I retired.” In other words, “I retired myself.”
Personally, I LOVE that the verb “jubilarse” means “to retire” because you’re essentially saying that you are rejoicing or entering a phase of your life that is full of joy. Retiring from teaching has brought me nothing but joy! And I now get to do the things that make me rejoice, “jubilate,” every single day — write, read, paint, walk my dog, travel, etc.
The verb “retirarse” also exists in Spanish, and you can see that it is a much more obvious cognate for “to retire,” but it also means things like “bowing out” of something or “removing oneself” from something, and those don’t always mean you are permanently leaving a career to focus on the rest of your life. Thus, if you use “jubilarse” in Spanish, you are ONLY referring to the act of retiring after a long career. “Jubilar” in a non-reflexive way means “to rejoice,” or “to jubilate.”
If you are listening to the audio version of this (click the arrow at the top to play it if you’re not), then you are hearing that the letter “j” in Spanish sounds more like an English “h.” It’s not a common letter in Spanish, but it does exist. It evolved from the letter “I” and took on a slightly different shape when the letter “I” began a word, so as a distinct letter, the “J” isn’t really all that old, and you will usually only find it at the beginning of words in Spanish.
Here are a few other “J” cognates: “judo,” “juvenil,” and “jaguar.”
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Thanks.
Tammy Marshall
Jubilate