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June 26th, 2008 by Lyda
¿Eres o estás? What a good question!
Let’s start with the verb ‘ser‘. We talked last week about ‘ser‘ to express essential qualities:
Él es alto. (He is tall.)
Ellos son hombres. (They are men.)
Remember: You can be using present, preterit or any other tense. But if you are expressing essential qualities, you have to use ’ser’:
Ella era una mujer bonita. Ella era rubia, delgada y pequeña.
[She was a pretty woman. She was blonde, tiny and small.]
We were talking about ‘estar’ to express condition. Change the tense, but not the verb:
He estado feliz esta semana.
[He has been happy these week.]
Hace un mes estuve enfermo.
[One month ago I was sick.]
¡Hoy estoy bien!
[I’m fine today!]
¿Estabas triste cuando murió tu hermano?
[Were you sad when your brother died?]
Step by step we are going to study some other uses of ’ser’ and ‘estar’. Today we are going to review two more:
Yo estoy en Bogotá. Bogotá es la capital de Colombia. Aquí son las dos y catorce minutos de la tarde. ¿En dónde estás tú? ¿Qué hora es en tu ciudad?
[I am in Bogotá. Bogotá is the capital of Colombia. Here it’s 2:14 in the afternoon. ¿In what city are you? What time is it in your city?]
We use ’ser’ to express time: day, date, and hour. We use ‘estar’ to express location:
Ayer eran las 2:00pm y yo estaba en la biblioteca, cuando mi papá llegó en su coche.
[Yesterday it was two o’clock and I was at the library when my father arrived in his car.]
Some examples with ’ser’ to express day, date and hour:
La boda fue a las seis en punto.
[The wedding was at 6:00 o’clock.]
Ayer fue lunes, hoy es martes y mañana será miércoles.
[Yesterday was Monday, today is Tuesday and tomorrow will be Wednesday.]
Some examples with ‘estar’ to express location:
Yo he estado en París, Roma y Madrid.
[I’ve been in Paris, Rome and Madrid.]
Yo no he estado en Argentina.
[I’ve not been in Argentina.]
El año pasado yo estaba en Grecia cuando conocía Mónica.
Last year I was in Greece when I met Mónica.]
I want you to keep in mind a couple things:
1. We use ’ser’ to express essential qualities and time.
2. We use ‘estar’ to express condition and location.
3. The tenses change but the specific use for ’ser’ or ‘estar’ is the same with all the different tenses.
4. Usually we talk about ’ser’ like a verb to express something permanent and ‘estar’ to express something temporal. Temporal and permanent in general are a good rule, but don’t forget languages are not exact sciences and in some point this rule is not going to apply. Everything depends! Depends on the situation, depends on the country, and depends on the speaker.
You will need a lot of practice, you will make a lot of mistakes, and you will need to be exposed to many different situations. It’s not easy, but you will use ’ser’ and ‘estar’ better with time and experience.
Good luck! We have a lot to talk about with ’ser’ and ‘estar’ and we are just at the beginning.
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