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Old November 03, 2015, 11:08 AM
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AngelicaDeAlquezar AngelicaDeAlquezar is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Mexico City
Posts: 9,047
Native Language: Mexican Spanish
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You are confusing the location of a building for its description.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Desmond View Post
This doesn’t work as in ...
Giving direction

Estar is used for: Location/position of people/thingsEven if it's something permanent
Ese es el ayuntamiento. [Ser] (Description)
Allí está la catedral. [Estar] (Location)

Bot are buildings and are perminant fixtures. The scentance is about location.

Also
Estación de RENFe, Teatro, Aeropuerto, Catedral all use the Verb Estar
Oficina de turismo, Ayuntamiento use the Verb Ser

Estar (Location)
Allí está la estación de RENFE.
El teatro está allí.
El aeropuerto está por allí.
Allí está la catedral.

Ser (Description)
Esa es la oficina de turismo.
Ese es el ayuntamiento.
In English, the location is given by a sentence like "the airport is there" and the description is expressed by a sentence like "that is the airport". Both kind of sentences have different meanings and therefore, different constructions. It's the same in Spanish: "estar" is for locations and "ser" is for descriptions.

The use of the verbs "ser" and "estar" is not defined by the kind of building.

You can perfectly say:
- Ésta es la estación de RENFE.
- Ése es el teatro.
- Éste es el aeropuerto.
- Ésa es la catedral.
All these sentences are describing what the buildings are.

And also you can say:
- Ahí está la oficina de turismo.
- El ayuntamiento está aquí.
And these sentences are saying where the buildings are.
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