When to use the verb "Ser" and when to use "Estar"
 

A quick comparison between Ser and Estar
Disclaimer: This is basically off the top of my head so some things could be missing. If you see something that should be here and it's not, please post it. In any case, it's a good start for learning when to use ser and when to use estar.

Ser is used for:

• Professions - Soy carpintero - I'm a carpenter
  
• Permanent conditions - La ciudad es muy sucia - The city is really dirty (A fact of life, unlikely to change)
• Permanent characteristics - Soy bajita - I'm short; El martillo es pesado - The hammer is heavy
• Definitive characteristics even if they're not permanent - El es nuevo aquí. - He's new around here.
• Where someone is from - Soy de España - I'm from Spain
• Telling time - Son las 3 de la tarde - It's 3 PM
• Saying what the date is - Es el tres de octubre - It's October 3rd
• Saying what day of the week it is - Es lunes - It's Monday
• Nationalities - Ella es francesa - She's French
• Possesion - La cámara es de Miguel - The camera is Michael's
• What something is made of - La pared es de ladrillo - The wall is made of/from brick
• Religion - Es católica - She's Catholic
• Size & Length - El palo es largo - The stick is long; El bolígrafo es pequño - the pen is small
• Colors - Las rosas son rojas - Roses are red
• To specify one of several object don't confuse this with the location criteria below - ¿Cuál es la casa de Juan? Es la casa de la esquina. - Which house is Juan's? It's the house on the corner.

Estar is used for:

• Changeable conditions - La calle está sucia - The street's really dirty (It just rained and there's mud everywhere, not a permanent condition)
• Changeable characteristics - Está enojado - He's angry
• Location/position of people/things Even if it's something permanent - Está en la recámara - It's in the bedroom; Londres está en Inglaterra - London is in England
• Temporary state of something - La luz está prendida - The light is on; La puerta está abierta - The door's open
• Used to form the "-ing" form of verbs - Estoy caminando - I'm walking

You can use either ser or estar for certain things, both are correct, but have different meanings:
There are many more examples of this. As I think of them, I'll try to add them.

Juan es aburrido - Juan is boring
Juan está aburrido - Juan is bored

María es nerviosa - Mary is a nervous person
María está nerviosa - Mary is nervous (right now, but not always)

El mango es bueno - Mangoes are good
El mango está bueno - This mango tastes good or The mango is good (as in not rotten or spoiled)

Es buena - She's a good person
Está buena - She's hot

Re: When to use the verb "Ser" and when to use "Estar"
 

This is a great tutorial, it cleared up alot of things for me. Thanks. ;D

Re: When to use the verb "Ser" and when to use "Estar"
 

Good one Tomisimo. It helped me a lot.

Re: When to use the verb "Ser" and when to use "Estar"
 

Glad to help guys :)

David, you wrote carpinter, instead of carpenter. I know it's a typo, but...

That's very helpful, David (says he whilst taking a screen shot).

I fixed the typo and I'm glad it's useful :)

Ser y Estar
 

It really helped me to see the sentences where ser and estar were switched.
Estar can be 'what is now', and, Ser can be 'what it is in itself', no?

-Chris

I think that's a helpful way to think about it, yes. :)

También:

SER: Tener lugar (take place).
p.e ?Dónde será la boda de Alberto?

Por favor. ¿Ser o estar con gerundios y participales de pasado? ¿Hay normas faciles?

Soy ....estoy casado Esta muerte ...... ¿Permanente o no?

Both soy casado and estoy casado are correct. There is a slight nuance in the meaning though:

Estoy casado = I am married.
Soy casado = I am a married man.

Estoy refers to your state of being married, and soy to your quality of being married.

Ser vs. Estar
 

My teacher gave us a formula that really helps:

When using estar, use x versus x, meaning you're comparing (insert whatever it is you're talking about) to itself.

When using ser, use x versus y, meaning you're comparing (insert whatever it is you're talking about) to a set of other things.

Example: Let's say we're talking about Paco. If I want to say that Paco is happy today, I would use estar, because Paco is happy compared to his usual emotional state. I would say, "Paco está feliz."

If I want to say that Paco is a happy person, I would use ser, because Paco is a happy person compared to everyone else. I would say, "Paco es feliz."

I hope this helped.

Gracias por la manera nueva:)

De nada. Estoy encantada de poder ayudarte.

VEry good Tomisimo

David - first of all, I like this thread ... I struggle with ser & estar ... and this helps.

Second, I appreciate your answer to his question about "soy/estoy casado". But what about his question about "esta muerte"? Would it ever be "está" with muerte? Or would it always be "es"? I mean, how can one be temporarily dead?

It is not "está muerte" (muerte means death), but "está muerto" (dead).

I'll never say "soy casada", but "estoy casada", not in modern Spanish Spain, at least.

@Lou Ann: David is right about "ser/estar casado". In Mexico is equally frequent to say one or the other.

--¿Ya conociste al nuevo gerente? (Have you met the new manager?)
--Sí, ¿sabes si es casado? / ¿crees que esté casado? (Yes, do you know/believe he's married?)


As for "estar muerto", "estar" is the right choice most of the times.
"Ser muerto" would mean some kind of zombie or so.

El médico no pudo hacer nada por Juan. Está muerto.
The doctor couldn't do anything for Juan. He's dead.


Someone joking in a graveyard:
¡Soy un muerto que sale de su tumba! ¡BU!
I'm a deadman coming out of his grave! BOO!

Well, not in Spain. La gente está casada, no es casada. Yo he oído "es casado" a gente muy mayor, quizá era antes, cuando no existía el divorcio. Ahora la gente está casada, soltera, divorciada, separada o viuda. Pero está, no es. Digo en mi país. :) . De hecho, a esto se denomina "estado civil".

Para mi son comunes sendas maneras:

"Es casado". ---que sería como decir---> Su estado civil es casado.
"Esta casado".

Sin embargo la segunda es la más aceptada y gramaticalmente correcta, como explicaron más arriba.


'No quiso la lengua castellana que de casado a cansado hubiese más de una letra de diferencia.' - Lope de Vega

Good! :applause:

Very good! :applause:

When to use the verb "Ser" and when to use "Estar"
 

Im not an expert, and I havent done Spanish grammar for a while; so any and all of this can be incorrect.

But I think what you were told, that there are no rules, is wrong.

As I understand it, in general, if the situation is temporary or referring to location it uses estar. "La puerta está abierta." And if the situation is more permanent "el gato es rojo," ser is used instead. Then there are nuances, exceptions, and further specificity, but that is the basic use that I was taught. I dont think the third person singular conjugations are magically different in their uses from the other 5...

I would use "es" for pesado. Am I confused?

Generally estar means: to be in the state of (in the state if sadness in the
state joy , illness, Kansas;), etc.)
Ser is less transient and more of an inherent characterisitic. Sometimes ser and estar can be interchanged but the meaning changes. Ella es rubia. Ella está rubia for example.
With that in mind there a also genuine solid rules which you need to know and practive. You can always pull them up on the internet.
Here's an example:
http://www.spanishdict.com/answers/100040/ser-and-estar
Most people who are not native Spanish speakers make mistakes with ser
and estar, and native speakers will, for the most part, understand anyway.

That's where I got confused when I first learned about ser and estar, for example:

Éllos son estudiantes. (Most people don't stay a student forever!)

I was told that the difference was permanent/temporary, but I wasn't told about exceptions.

Just curious... does "Ella está rubia" mean that she is blond because she died it blond, but "Ella es rubia" means that she is naturally blond?

You would use ser for a person with blond hair, natural or dyed. You would use estar if one day the person's hair looked more blond than usual (a surprise).

Excellent explanation from Rusty.

An example of when you can use estar:

(dos amigas hablando)
A: Hace mucho que no veo a Sofía
B: Esta rubia ahora.
A: ¡¿Enserio?!

I'm reading a book about Spanish grammar. In the section on present indicative verbs, this statement is made: "Verbs with irregular first-person singular only; all other forms in the present are regular: ......." and it goes on to list a bunch of verbs like caber and traer, etc. It also includes estar on the list. Is the present indicative conjugation for estar really considered regular except for the first-person estoy? So, the accents don't make it irregular: estás, está, están, etc... :?:

Most grammar books do not consider accentuation as part of the infectional change, so yes, estar would be in that group. It depends on how you want to define 'regular' and 'irregular'. :rolleyes:

No one has asked me what I want. :) I suppose that I want all "regular" verbs to conjugate exactly the same without any exceptions whatsoever, in an expected way so that I don't have to consult a chart, but can just hear "blahblahblahar" and be able to conjugate it "blahblahblaho, blahblahblahas, blahblahblaha, blahblahblahamos, blahblahblaháis, blahblahblahan", etc.... :D

:lol::lol::lol: Here we come to the difference between mathematical exactness and the kind of exactness expected of a spoken language and the associated fuzzy thinking. It's tough out there. :D

Sometimes I wish I had a different brain................... :yuck:

That's why I've been telling you are doing this the other way around. I have never told you not to learn Spanish grammar. :)

High school rappers explaining ser y estar!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY10_...eature=related

Very good:D

There's some really helpful information here. "Ser" and "Estar" can be quite confusing. I was always taught in school that "ser" was more used for permanent like conditions, (Yo soy fuerte.), while "estar" was more for temporary conditions (Estoy cansado.).

Ser is used for permanent traits, estar for temporary things. Locations should always use estar.
Classic Ex: El está borracho (hoy temporalmente)
El es borracho (He is a drunk, I don't expect that to change, therefore permanent)

Or
el es un borracho

I am continuing to make errors in my ser/estar choices, so I have taken some time to do some reading online about the subject.

First, let me share some points that I found to be very helpful:

• One author says that he thinks of ser as a more passive verb and estar as a more active verb (NOT in a grammatical sense). Ser tells you what something is by the nature of its being. Estar refers to what something does. "Soy" = what I am, "estoy" = what I am being.
• The same author compares the use of ser as roughly equivalent to "equals" in a way that links nouns/pronouns to the subject of the verb.
• Another author points out that ser + participle is typically understood as the passive voice (and a compound verb), while the combination of estar + participle is not a compound verb, but the participle is understood to be an adjective referring to a previous action.
• Another author over-simplifies things by saying that a good rule of thumb is as follows: "The verb estar is used for health and location while ser is used for everything else."
• And yet another author specifically talks about estar being used to describe an ongoing action using the present progressive tense. He makes a specific note that "death is an ongoing action - in Spanish, death is seen as an ongoing action, not a permanent state, thus you use the verb estar and not ser." (MOST helpful to me, even though I see that "muerto" is not progressive tense, it helps a lot to think of death this way!)

Now I still have just a couple of quick questions:

• One of the authors says that you can use "either SER or ESTAR ... with locatives, with a consistent difference in meaning." He then goes on to give examples, which include the following: "(al taxista) Pare, pare, mi casa es aquí. (= mi casa es ésta)". I don't at all understand this. I don't see how this is any different than needing to use "estar" for location. :?::?::?:

• The next question has to do with the choice of imperfect vs. preterite than with ser vs. estar. An author of one of the articles writes the following:

I sort of get this, but not entirely. Would someone kindly comment on this a bit further? Thanks! :)

• When talking about the use of ser vs. estar + adjective or participle changing the meaning of the sentence, I don't see "sentado" on any of the lists. Doesn't "ser + sentado" mean "sensible" and estar + sentado" mean "to be seated"?

Thanks SO much!!

The use of "mi casa es aquí" is to relate immediately say, to the taxi driver, that you home is in this location. Just like you might say "it is here!" to tell the driver to stop.


Correct. You can use both to say the same thing, but generally you use "fue" to give a "short" answer.

Correct again, but consider the following:

Be seated at theater (instead of standing)

Be seated by your host.

Sorry, Chileno - I don't always follow your explanations. I feel here like I'm not getting any more information than what was in my original question. I don't understand why it's more correct to say to the driver "mi casa es aquí" than it would be to say "mi casa está aquí".... :?::?::?:

I know, that's what the paragraph says. But could you expound on that a bit. I don't really exactly follow that......

Huh?? :thinking:

Ser is the only verbo sustantivo in Spanish, that is, it's the only verb that asserts about the subject what the complement declares:

La leche es buena para los huesos.

Estar only can refer to attributes of the subject, but mainly it's not a verbo sustantivo (what is beyond obvious; the beyond part being the important one)

Just to add that you can say "está a 1000 millas de aquí" or "está delante de tu nariz", but when you say "es aquí" as well as "es ésta", the thing must be on sight or you must be on the spot.

The author is just referring to the expectation about the nature of the speech that follows one declaration or the other. In real Spanish you have the short answer ("Un general.") or the long answer that uses to mimic the verb within the question, that is "Fue un general que..."

I don't know "ser sentado" with that exact meaning. It could be "ser sensato" (to have good sense) or "ser sentado" (dated: to be thoughtful, wise). Your question involves the fact that sentado as an adjective is more than sentado as a participle. DRAE is a good guide as you won't find "abrazado" in it because as an adjective it gets the meaning from "abrazar", but when a past participle has gotten its own meanings, you will find it in DRAE, as it happens with "sentar" and "sentado".

The problem is that you are looking for correctness (is that a word?!) :)

I said only correct because i was agreeing with you, and told you that could use it like when you see the taxi driver is going to go past your home. If you ask at that moment the driver which one is your home we won't know, just it is somewhere very near. (that is with "es aquí") whereas, with "this is my house" the driver knows exactly which one. Does that make sense?

Wouldn't it be the same in English "it's here" and "this is my house/home"?


The termination "aba" in a verb which I don't remember if it is the perfect or imperfect is used to tell tales, stories, generally... So when someones says, "it was a long day..." in Spanish can be just "fué un largo día" which could be used to start a story, but generally when you say "era un largo día..." you know that this is going to be a story for sure.


You mean to tell me that I don't have that in English either, or by now you are just shut to me?

Please explain.

Thanks.

Hernan.

Just a small point, but the substantive verb never has an object, just a complement in the same grammatical case as the subject. :)

Thank you. I guessed it was an O as in DO -in Spanish, CD-

I most definitely look for correctness. Just like I seek to speak English more correctly every day. I don't see that as a *problem*.

I'm not sure that you were agreeing with *me*, but with the person who I was quoting. I was only quoting these authors when asking these questions because I don't UNDERSTAND what they've said. So I quote an author and then say "I don't understand this quote" and then I'm told that the quote is correct.

I just don't understand WHY "mi casa es aquí" is better than "mi casa está aquí". :(

Okay - that makes sense....

Neither. I have no idea what your getting at with those two sentences. You say "consider the following...", and I agree that those two sentences are English sentences using the word "seated", but have no idea what they have to do with my original question.

"mi casa es aquí" is not better than saying "mi casa está aquí"

The first one states a somewhat general location of the home, but the second states it exactly where it is actually.

The last two sentences about "seated" will have to wait. :)

Tell me - you use "estar" with "muerto", but you use "ser" with "calvo", right? "Está muerto ese hombre." "Es calvo ese hombre." Right?

Setting aside any possible jokes that can be made here ... it has made sense to me that death is the end of a process, thus the use of "estar". But isn't baldness the end of a process in the same way, too? :?:

Ser calvo is a definitive characteristic.