The Spanish Verb Estar

The Spanish Verb "To be" Part 2:
The Verb Estar

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A couple of chapters ago, we worked on the basic use of the verb “to be.” In this lesson we take a further look.

If you wanted to say, “I am sick,” or, “I am lost,” in Spanish, you’d be mistaken to use the “to be” verb that you learned in Chapter 1.5, ser. “Ser” only describes permanent or nearly permanent states, such as being married (casado) or being tall (alto) or skinny (flaco).

The second “to be” verb in Spanish, estar, is used to describe location, health, or any condition that is only temporary. In the above example, you certainly don’t expect to be sick or lost forever.

The verb “estar” has a straight-forward conjugation in the present tense:

Present tense of ESTAR

Note the placement of the accent marks as well. While está can mean he or she is or you are, esta means “this,” as in esta cosa or “this thing.” The accent marks, in addition to indicating the correct pronunciation, distinguish completely separate words.

 

Where am I?

The most common way of asking the location of an object, person or place is:

¿Dónde está…?

This means, Where is…?

For example:

 

¿Dónde está el baño? - Where is the bathroom?
¿Dónde está mi carro? - Where is my car?
¿Dónde está el hotel? - Where is the hotel?

 

If you want to understand the answer, you need to learn some basic direction and location words.

Important Direction Words

For example:

 

Forming DEL from DE and EL

Remember that the word de means of? Except for adelante, entre, and en, all the above direction words require de if they are followed by an object. For example:

Hint: The words “de” + “el” form the contraction “del.”

More examples:

You’ll get more practice with the verb estar in Chapter 3.2. Coming up next is a review of what you’ve learned in this part of the program.

 

How Do You Feel?

When you talk about how you feel—whether you be tired, sad, or sick--you are usually talking about a temporary state. Therefore, you should use the “to be” verb estar.

How do you ask others how they feel?

Por ejemplo:

 

In the next section we’ll work on describing things, using Spanish adjectives.

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