“Ser” or “Estar”?

THE TWO WAYS OF SAYING “TO BE” IN SPANISH, AND

WHEN TO USE EACH ONE

Unlike English, Spanish has two forms of the verb "to be".

The two forms of "to be" in Spanish are Ser and Estar.

I'll explain when to use each one in a moment, but first let's see what they
look like. Here's how to say "I am...", "you are...", "they are..." etc, using
both ser and estar.

PRO/VERB SER ESTAR

 I am yo soy yo estoy

 You are tú eres tú estás

 He /she/ is él, ella es él. ella está

 We are Nosotros somos nosotros estamos

 You all are ustedes son ustedes están

 They are ellos son ellos están

 When to use "ser"

You'll use words from the "ser" column when you're talking about
permanent states or characteristics.

 Maria es inteligente maria is intelligent

 Jose es un arquitecto José is an architect

 Nosotros somos hermanos we are brothers

 Yo soy un professor I am a teacher

Our girl María is smart. Not just today, but all the time. So we use ser,
because we're talking about a permanent characteristic.

Likewise, Jose is going to stay an architect, I'm going to continue to be a

teacher, and I will always be brothers with my brother. So in all these
cases you would use ser

But when I'm talking about my friend who is in the hot air balloon (a
distinctly non-permanent situation) I would use estar instead.
 When to use "estar"

Estar (and its various forms) is used when talking about something that is
a non-permanent state or location.

 Maria está enferma  María is ill.

 Juana está en su casa  Juana is at his house.

 Los perros están en mi casa  The dogs are at my house

All of these situations are not permanent states or characteristics, so we

use estar. Maria has been well in the past and will hopefully get better,
so that's not permanent. Juan isn't nailed to his floorboards, so that's not
permanent either.

In particular, you would always use estar when you're talking about
someone being at a particular location — since people can and do move
around!

Mi amigo está en la oficina

Correct. "My friend is at the office"

Mi amigo es en la oficina
Nope. This loosely translates to "my friend exists at the office" which is a
weird thing to say.
A good way to see the difference is to pay another visit to Maria:

María es bonita
Maria is pretty
María está bonita
Maria looks pretty today / at this particular moment

If you use ser, then Maria is a pretty girl in general. If you use estar, it
might be because she's dressed up for a party. One is a permanent
characteristic, and the other is a temporary state.