Ser vs Estar: What Something Is, Where It Is, How It Is Now

When do you use ser?

Use ser when you say who or what something is: identity, profession, origin, material, ownership, the time or date, and traits. FSI's course calls ser the link of identity, and it says a noun that names someone's identity always takes ser.

Read the table out loud once. Now cover the middle column and say each sentence from the English.

When do you use estar?

Use estar for where someone or something is, and for a condition or feeling. Location takes estar even when it never changes. It also builds the verb form that says an action is going on now, estar plus an -ndo word.

Watch the last row. English can use "are going" for a plan, but ¡Chévere! says the Spanish form always refers to an action in progress. For a plan, it uses the plain present or a future form: Vamos al cine este fin de semana. is about going to the movies this weekend.

Say the sentences again, and swap in your own word for Tom if you like. The adjective's ending follows the person or thing you describe, which ¡Chévere! covers in its unit on adjectives. Only with estoy is that person you: a woman says Estoy cansada de trabajar. and a man says Estoy cansado de esperar. About anyone else, match them, not yourself: Tom está enfermo., but Ella está enferma. (She is sick.)

Which question do you ask before you speak?

Run down this chart in order. The order is this site's own, but each answer comes from the two lists above and the exceptions below.

The last two rows are the hard ones. ¡Chévere! suggests asking whether the adjective names a characteristic or a state, and notes that feelings usually go with estar while personality goes with ser.

Two everyday questions carry the same split, so they make a good test. ¿Cómo es tu hermana? asks what your sister is like. ¿Cómo estás? asks how you are right now. If your adjective answers the first kind, use ser. If it answers the second, use estar.

Where does the shortcut fail?

"Ser is permanent, estar is temporary" will lead you wrong in these places.

Where an event is held. A thing's location takes estar, but FSI translates the ser version of this question as asking where a party is being held. So you can say ¿Dónde es la fiesta de cumpleaños? even though it asks "where." FSI also lists an estar version, glossed simply as "where's the party?", and it doesn't say which one people use more. Its day takes ser too, like the date row in the first table: La fiesta es el lunes. ¡Chévere! doesn't cover this case, so here the page rests on FSI's course from the 1950s and on sentences like this one.

Death. Nothing is more permanent, and it still takes estar: Está muerto. ¡Chévere! explains it as a change away from being alive.

Married. FSI's drills say es casada and es soltero with ser. Tatoeba has both Está casado. and ¿Es casado o soltero? The sources read for this page don't say which regions prefer which. Listen to the people you'll talk to, or ask a tutor in your first lesson.

Pregnant. ¡Chévere! lists this one with estar too: Mi compañera está embarazada. It's a state, even if it lasts for months, and it's only said of women.

The same thing on a good day. FSI points out that a Spanish speaker can't simply say a house is pretty. La casa es bonita. means it's a pretty house, and La casa está bonita. Built by this site to show the contrast means it looks pretty right now.

Which adjectives change meaning?

With these adjectives the verb changes what you've said, so learn them as pairs. The meanings come from ¡Chévere!.

One warning from ¡Chévere!: está rico or está rica said about a person has a sexual meaning and can offend. Keep it for food.

Age can go both ways too. La abuela está joven para su edad. says she looks young for her age. ¡Chévere! sets it against Tienes diez años, eres muy joven para mirar esa película. (You're ten, so you're too young to watch that movie.), where ser treats youth as a plain fact about someone.

What are the forms?

You need these forms before anything else on this page works. Both verbs are irregular, so learn them as sound, not as a rule.

¡Chévere! marks the vosotros row as used only in Spain, with ustedes son as the Latin American form. There's one more "you" to know. Trayectos, an open course from COERLL, uses vos for familiar "you" in Argentina and Uruguay, and vos has forms of its own: Vos sos estudiante. (You're a student.) If the people you'll talk to use vos, copy their forms.

You can check other tenses in the conjugation lookup. Say each one with steady vowels, and put the stress on the last syllable of está.

How do you train the choice out loud?

FSI's advice is plain: you build a feel for this by making many sentences your own, memorized in context. A rule alone won't do it. So train with sentences about people and things you know.

Start with one person. Say your sister is at home with a cold. Out loud, without writing anything, give two ser sentences about her and two estar sentences, with each adjective matching her. Who is she? Where is she from? Where is she today? How does she feel?

Then move on to the next person or thing: a friend, a coworker, your desk, your town. Give each one two sentences with each verb. When you run out of names, start the list again and change the details.

Count it in Spoken Minutes. On a 5-minute day, spend 1 minute on yesterday's Cold Say-Back and 4 on the people drill. On a 10-minute day, it's 2 and 8. On a 20-minute day, it's 3 on the Cold Say-Back, 10 on the drill and 7 on the self-test below, run twice. The self-test belongs to the 20-minute day, so skip it on shorter days. On your first day there's nothing to say back yet, so all of it goes to the drill. This split and the drill are this site's House routine, untested with learners. Add the minutes to your Mile Log.

On a 20-minute day, test yourself from English. Say each line in Spanish before you read the verb after it.

1. He is sick. (estar, a condition)
2. The party's Monday. (ser, a day)
3. Where's the zoo? (estar, a place)
4. Where is the birthday party? (ser or estar: FSI lists both, so either one counts)
5. My desk is made of wood. (ser, a material)
6. He is dead. (estar, even though it won't change)
7. The fruit isn't ripe. (estar, because ser would mean its color)

If you miss one, don't reread the rule. Go back to the sentence in the table and say it three times.

Once this feels easier, the same habit carries over to other choices that English hides, like por and para, the two past tenses and the subjunctive. If you're just starting, the Spanish starting plan shows where this fits.

Tomorrow, before you look at anything, run a Cold Say-Back: say how a person is boring, then how the same person is bored, then ask where a party is being held.