Ser and Estar

Spanish version

“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.

Besides this, the verb ser can be used for building passive sentences, not much used today, but possible to see in examples like:

• 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).