Writing in spanish as a second language. Aprende a escribir en español
Ser y Estar vs To be.
Difficulties in learning Spanish for English speakers I
Spanish language has two
verbs, Ser and Estar, to communicate what is said in English with the verb TO BE
And it makes things very
difficult. I know.
TIP. It’s not a trick, it’s an advice: don’t worry too much about it.
When
you say: Yo aquí estoy muy bien, you’re using the right verb (estar). ¡Bravo!
But if you say: Yo aquí soy muy bien, you’re doing a mistake. And…? A spanish speaker understands you perfectly. And do you know the reason why learning a new language? To communicate. In Escribe en Español we repeat it many times: the reason to learn Spanish (or any other language) is to communicate with others
Once this mysterious trick has been discovered, we will learn how to use SER y ESTAR properly.
In general, we can say that the verb SER is used to refer to permanent features and the verb ESTAR is used to refer to temporal features.
María es guapa (she’s always
beautiful, every day)
María está guapa (she’s
beautiful today because she’s dressed nicely, with make up on and a great
hairstyle…)
La piedra es dura (always)
La manzana está dura (that
particular apple, although apples are usually soft)
This rule is true but very generic. Let’s see specific examples of the use of SER and ESTAR.
