“What’s the difference between ser and estar?” is one of those much discussed questions among teachers and
students. All the teachers try to search for a definitive formula which allows
them not to answer “Oh! That’s an exception, sorry” when their students ask
them about a difficult case. Students try to find something which allows them
to avoid studying all the exceptions to the rule.
If someone asks about the
difference, we frequently answer something like “ser refers to something permanent and estar to something temporary”. Permanent, temporary, and you’re
ready to get started speaking like a native… However, when push comes to
shove alguien no es muerto, no está
joven, hoy no está viernes y la Sagrada Familia no es en Barcelona.
I’m going to try to explain briefly
the characteristics of each verb, although I don’t establish a law or something
similar.
The verb “ser”
It identifies or classifies a
person, animal or thing. When we build a sentence with ser, we make the listener identify something unknown, get some info
about it. In this case, ser doesn’t
have any meaning and only links two words. Only the verb ser can link two nouns or a noun and an adjective that has similar
functions to a noun (e.g. Spanish):
- Mustafa is Moroccan.
- Who is he? He’s Pedro, the grandson of Pili.
- What day is today? Today is Friday.
- María is very smart if you compare her with her friends.
If we want to say where an event
will take place, we’ll also use ser,
with the same meaning as “happen”:
- The meeting will be in room 1.
- Our wedding was in the Cathedral of Our Savior.
- The Alcázar of Toledo was restored during the 16th Century.
The verb “estar”
Using the verb estar, the subject of the sentence will experience something. When
we use this verb, the subject is already known and we describe something that
it experiences.
- Today my son cannot go to class. He’s sick.
- The actor was nervous before starting his performance.
If we want to link the subject with
another noun, we have to use a preposition and the character of the sentence
will be temporary:
- Jacinto is playing as forward because his teammate got injured.
- The grandmother is being nanny because the parents have to work.
Estar will
be used for indicating the location of a place, not an event though:
- Santiago de Compostela is in Galicia.
- La Almudena is in Madrid.
It’s a verb that goes with the
participles (not in a passive sentence) and adjectives with the same functions
as a participle:
- His uncle is dead.
- The egg is not boiled yet. Put it into the pot.
If it’s
located before a gerund, it’ll indicate that an action or condition is
happening in the past, present or future, depending on the conjugation of estar:
- When I was going to buy some stuff, I came across a friend.
- What are you doing?
Ser and estar used with the same
adjective
There are two
cases in which we can use these two verbs with the same adjective, but with different
sense:
In the first
case, if we use ser we’ll refer to an
essential quality of the subject. However, if we use estar we’ll refer to something temporary:
- Paz Vega is very beautiful.
- You’re very handsome with that suit. How elegant!
In the second
case, using one or another verb, the word will have a different meaning. It
doesn’t have anything to do with temporality.
- Your boyfriend is a hot guy (Tu novio está muy bueno).
- Teresa de Jesus was a good person (Teresa de Jesús fue muy buena).
- The food is cold (La comida está fría).
- Machiavelli was very unemotional in Politics (Maquiavelo era muy frío en política).
