THE VERBS SER AND ESTAR

Spanish has to forms of the verb BE. This often leads to confusion for speakers of langiages
where there is only one (French ‘Être’, German ‘Sein’, Dutch ‘Zijn’)

The Spanish verbs are SER and ESTAR

So, when do we use each one?

1) SER

In general, we use the verb SER when we tals about things which have a sense of permanence
or character

Characteristics: E.g. big, fat, old, young, blue, green, difficult, easy

Professions Doctor, teacher

Nationalities French, English

Examples:

El bar es muy grande

Mi profesor es inglés

David es profesor

Somos estudiantes

Los precios son muy altos

2) ESTAR

We usually use ESTAR when we talk about things which are NOT PERMANENT or only have
that characteristic at the time and it is possible that it might change´

We use ESTAR for location (NOT SER)

Estoy en Málaga

La comida está fría

Estoy cansado

Exceptions

El hombre está muerto

(the man is dead). Obviously we would consider Dead to be a permanent characteristic.

Perhaps for religious reasons it was considered that being dead was only a temporary stage.

Anway, we use ESTAR with Dead

COMPARE AND LEARN

Mi madre es muy guapa (my mother is very pretty)

Mamá, estás muy guapa hoy (Mum, you look very pretty today)

Juan está aburrido (john is bored) it is not a characteristic of Juan

Juan es aburrido (john is boring) John is a boring person, it’s a characteristic of Juan

Pedro está enfadado (Pedro is angry) – Now, he’s not always angry

Pedro es un hombre enfadado (Pedro is an angry man) – He’s always angry

Note: We also use ESTAR as an auxiliary verb in the present continuous and past continuous
tenses because they speak of a temporary action going on only at that time