Está

[Luckypenguin]

Hi everyone, this is my first post so go easy on me:P
last month I started studying spanish with Rosetta Stone V3 and I have a Question!

It's very hard for me to learn spanish because I think some words like esta have different meanings but I'm not sure.

"Ellas están comiendo sus manzanas"
Ellas = They
están = they are
comiendo = eating
sus = their
manzanas = apples
= "They are eating their apples" right?

If that's true then what does
"¿como está?" mean? = what he be?
or "¿Donde está?" =where he be?

Please help, thanks!

[Rusty]

Welcome to the forums!

Está is the third-person, singular, present indicative form of estar. The subject could be any referenced (third) person (él, ella, Juan) and the formal 'you' (usted - added to third-person status only because of its ending). We can only assume who you're talking about, since the third person is ambiguous (more context is needed). So, ¿Cómo está? (note the accent on the interrogative cómo) could mean "How are you?", "How is he?", "How is she?" and "How is John?". You either need to include who you're talking about in your question, or this person should have already been mentioned in the conversation.

Likewise, ¿Dónde está? (again, note the accent in the interrogative) can be translated as "Where are you?", "Where is he?", "Where is she?" and "Where is John?". Make sure it's clear who you're talking about.

¿Cómo está ella? = How is she?
¿Cómo están ellas? = How are they?
The last sentence shows the third-person, plural ending. This is used when you're talking about more than one person/object.

¿Dónde está él? = Where is he?
¿Dónde están ellos? = Where are they?