Ser vs. Estar
There are few things more confusing for beginning Spanish students, at least those who have
English as their first language, than learning the differences between ser and estar. After all,
they both mean "to be" in English.
And since both verbs are frequently used, they are as irregular as can be. Who would think
that fue would be the third-person preterite of ser?
In this lesson, we'll concern ourselves only with the present tense. After all, by the time
you're learning other tenses you'll have the two verbs mastered. They really aren't that
difficult. Just remember when learning a foreign language that we don't translate words from
one language to another, we translate meanings. And many of our English verbs, "to be"
among them, have a multitude of meanings.
When I think of the differences between ser and estar, I like to think of ser as the passive
verb and estar as the active one. (I'm not using the terms in a grammatical sense here.) Ser
tells you what something is, the nature of its being, while estar refers more to what something
does. I might use soy (the first-person present of ser) to tell you what I am, but I'd use estoy
(the first-person present of estar) to tell you what I am being.
Let me give you a few examples. I might say, "Estoy enfermo." That would tell you that I am
being sick, that I am sick at the moment. But it doesn't tell you what I am. Now if I were to
say, "Soy enfermo," that would have a different meaning entirely. That would refer to who I
am, to the nature of my being. We might translate that as "I am a sick person" or "I am
sickly."
Note similar differences in these examples:
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Estoy cansado, I am tired. Soy cansado, I am a tired person.
Estoy feliz, I'm happy now. Soy feliz, I am happy by nature.
Está callada, she's being quiet. Es callada, she's introverted.
No estoy listo, I'm not ready. No soy listo, I'm not a quick thinker.
One way of thinking about it is to think of ser as being roughly equivalent to "equals."
Another way of thinking about it is that estar often refers to a temporary condition, while ser
frequently refers to a permanent condition. But there are exceptions.
Among the major exceptions to the above way of thinking is that ser is used in expressions of
time, such as "Son las dos de la tarde" for "It's 2 p.m." Also, we use estar to indicate
someone has died — quite a permanent condition: Está muerto, he is dead.
Along that line, estar is used to indicate location. Estoy en casa, I am at home. But, soy de
México, I am from Mexico.
There are also a few idiomatic expressions that simply need to be learned, although that
comes naturally with time: La manzana es verde, the apple is green. La manzana está verde,
the apple is unripe. Está muy bien la comida, the meal tastes very good.
Note that sometimes estar is modified by an adverb such as bien rather than an adjective.
Estoy bien, I'm fine.
As I mentioned earlier, both ser and estar are irregularly conjugated. Here's a chart of the
indicative present tense:
Pronombre
Ser
Estar
Yo
soy
estoy
Tú
eres
estás
Él, ella, usted
es
está
Nosotros
somos estamos
Vosotros
sois
estáis
Ellos, ellas, ustedes son
están