![]() ![]() I will include examples of each of all four combinations of ser and estar and the past simple and past perfect in the uses section below. ![]() Here are the conjugations of estar in the two past tenses: Estar Here are the conjugations of ser in the two past tenses: Ser You can also check out a podcast episode I dedicated to the four translations of ‘I was’. If you want to learn more about these two past tenses, check out these posts: phrases that trigger the past simple tense and the past imperfect irregular verbs. Past imperfect tense: for events that have no clearly defined start and end.Past simple tense: for events that have a clearly defined start and end moment in time.To prepare for such training, consider combining the shortcuts from the above section with the following rules to guess the past tense you need to use: If you want to excel with these four translations, you simply need to practice them over and over in the presence of a Spanish teacher or native. You’ll see here there are now four translations of the phrase ‘I was’. These two past tenses combine to create a perfect storm of confusion for an English student learning Spanish. To compound the challenge of ser and estar, there are the two main past tenses in Spanish: the past simple and the past imperfect. In this next section, you’ll see how to talk about ser and estar in the past, then after that we’ll start on the specific uses. Of course, if you guess with these rules you won’t be right all of the time, but you will be close. You now have two basic decision making frameworks for guessing the uses of ser and estar. If you want to talk about ‘who’ someone is, use ser. If you want to talk about ‘what’ someone is, use ser. If you want to talk about ‘how’ someone is, use estar. If you want to talk about ‘where’ something is, use estar. When you are thinking about whether to use ser or estar, consider which question the verb ‘to be’ is answering. If something seems temporary, use estar, if it is a more permanent quality, use ser.Īnother approach is to consider the answers to the following questions: If you are trying to decide whether to use ser or estar, and you can’t remember the rules below, ask yourself if you are talking about a permanent or temporary quality. That said, I still suggest you start with this basic rule of thumb. There are a lot of subtleties between these two verbs, subtleties you may not notice if it was your first language. They then quickly realise that it isn’t as obvious as they had first thought. “What about ‘hoy es lunes’ and ‘estamos a lunes’? Or ‘ella está en su casa’ and ‘la fiesta es en su casa’?” “Oh, that’s easy: ser is for permanent qualities and estar is for temporary qualities.” I have asked this question of a number of Spaniards. Try asking a Spanish person if they can quickly explain the difference between ser and estar. In this table, you can see a summary of all the main uses of ser vs estar with links to examples and explanations below. Next, I’ll cover how ser and estar are conjugated in the past. The first thing you should read is the decision making model for ser and estar. This is going to be a longer post so in this section I’ll provide shortcuts that will take you to the relevant sections of the post below. Printable Version: Download this PDF version of ser vs estar to use as a study reference. In this post, you’ll learn the main uses of ser and estar, you’ll also see how to conjugate these verbs in the past, and you’ll get a simple decision making model you can use to make a quick guess if you can’t remember a specific rule. To help you learn ser and estar, I’ve picked 14 of the most common uses of these Spanish verbs including some important exceptions to the usual rules. The rules for when and where to use each of these Spanish verbs aren’t routinely obvious.They are both a translation of the English verb ‘to be’. ![]() If you are just starting out, there are two reasons why these verbs are so difficult: If you have been studying Spanish for some time, you’ll already know how challenging these verbs can be. If you have ever been confused by ser vs estar, then this post will help you with a list all of the most common uses of these two important Spanish verbs. ![]()
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