|ESTAR is a Spanish word for 'to be'.
It is the most important verb in the Spanish language, and is the most sought after for its conjugations in terms of number of searches on the internet.
Estar means 'to be' in the sense of HOW something is, and learners of Spanish need to learn the difference between it, and the other main word for 'to be' which is 'SER'. It is also very important because it is used to make verb phrases like 'I am running, I was playing, to be swimming.'
SER means 'to be' in the sense of WHAT something is. What are its inherent characteristics, its true being, its character.
If you can grab and understand these two differences early you will have much less trouble in understanding the differences. These two verbs confuse the living daylights out of many students of Spanish. Read the two sentences above again ten times, and write them down, because they explain the fundamental differences between the two verbs. Once you understand that we can go on to flesh out the details of what these concepts mean. But as you learn the details you can keep returning to the two above concepts which summarize the differences.
The Best Tools for learning the differences between SER and ESTAR!I say again, understanding the differences between these two most important Spanish words can confuse the blazes out of many students of Spanish. One student who had a Bachelors degree in Spanish told me she had never really grasped the difference between the two. For people who really, really want to master this there are two suggested courses of action:
We talk a little more about this below but first ... work your way through the verb table below. Do the verb drills aloud -
Learn the Tenses of ESTAR with our Verb TableOur 2 Tier Verb Tables are much more effective than most traditional verb tables because you can learn all the tenses both by
(1) tense and by
It takes about three minutes to practise your Spanish verb drills both by BOTH:
PRONOUN (vertically) - that is I, you, we, he, she, they etc, through the tenses, AND also by:
TENSE (horizontally) through the pronouns, which is the normal way that students learn verb tenses.
Learning the drills vertically (which is less commonly taught due to the tendency to teach tense by tense) will teach you the different endings for each pronoun, deepening the depth and breadth of your knowledge of the verb.
By learning the whole verb table you will be exposed to ALL the different words for the different tenses (called conjugations) very early.
Don't worry if you are not too sure of the exact use of each tense. You can use these words anyway, and they will help you with consolidating any knowledge that you already have.
Start with the simple tenses, then the compounds.
Memorize them, and many teachers will be astounded that you can recite so called 'complex tenses' at an early stage of your learning.
BE careful of the 'Temporary and Permanent' explanations of the differences between SER and ESTAR!There are of course many, many more uses of these two 'easily-confused' verbs, but understanding the core concepts of:
One of the things that the Serranos explain in their book is that many students are taught the differences between these two verbs by stating that one is for 'temporary' things and one is for 'permanent' things. They argue (... and remember these guys have both taught Spanish for decades ...) that this explanation is part of the root cause of the biggest stumbling blocks to understanding these two 'troublesome' verbs, as they call them.
This is because such an explanation does not teach students the fundamentals of the two verbs. The 'whatness' and 'howness' explanations however cover these. If you have had trouble grasping the differences of these two important but tricky verbs, start putting your knowledge of the verbs into the two categories and you will start to see where each fits ...
This is a very big topic ... and more is covered elsewhere on this site ... but only some hours of comprehensive study will really allow you to cover all the bases.
Many Common Idiomatic Expressions use the verb Estar¿Como estás?
- How are you?
- I am happy.
Estamos a regimen.
- We are on a diet.
No estoy para bromas!
- I am not in the mood for joking around.
Do the verb table every day for a week to consolidate your knowledge of it. There is a growing list of fully conjugated Spanish verbs like estar here.
Check out our DAILY SPANISH VERB lessons also where a new fully conjugated verb appears on the webpage - 365 days of the year. Doing these every day will really consolidate your knowledge of Spanish verbs.
You can learn the details of each tense in more depth as you progress.
The more often you do our Verb Tables for each family of verbs the more they reinforce each other.
Do a verb table in full each day. (More if you can ...) Each takes about 3 minutes.
To get advised AUTOMATICALLY (free) of all updates and changes to this website click on one of the little buttons like the one labelled 'RSS' in the yellow box titled 'Subscribe to this Site' at the top, left of this page. A text message gets sent to your computer whenever there is a new webpage, blog or comment on the site, telling you what change is, and offering you a link to it. This allows you to keep up to date and not miss any new webpages.
200 Words a Day! Free Spanish Lesson Online - one of the verbs in Spanish for 'to be' is estar - fully conjugated
200 Words a Day! and Exceltra
©Copyright 2004-2023 All Rights Reserved
Serving fast language learning to the world including Europe, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, Asia and the Americas.
Spanish Learning Made Fun, Fast and effective.