Learn English – What’s a word for being proud of another that doesn’t suggest you had anything to do with their actions

word-choice

I'm looking for a word to suggest that I'm very pleased with somebody's commendable actions. It keeps coming up for me. A friend or family member does something awesome. Then what I feel like saying is "I'm proud that you made that decision" but that feels so condescending in many contexts. I need something more outwardly directed.

Best Answer

I don't think you're going to find a single word, because pride has two aspects to it:

1) Feeling pleasure or satisfaction 2) about an achievement (your own or someone else's).

I think the easiest thing would be to use a word that means pleasure/satisfaction and then just say why this feeling has been elicited.

You could use the word from your own post: pleased:

I'm pleased you made that decision.

Or perhaps the word glad:

I'm glad you made that decision.

Both of these avoid the gushing nature of proud.

Depending on context, you could use an intensifier such as really glad.