BASIC SPANISH: A GRAMMAR AND WORKBOOK

How pretty you are! (i.e. at the moment)

Este café está muy rico.

This coffee is delicious. (i.e. it is not always delicious)

¡Qué simpático está el jefe hoy!

How nice the boss is today! (i.e. he is not usually so nice)

These are all subjective statements.

Notice the difference between these two questions:

¿Cómo está Juan? and ¿Cómo es Juan?

The first is asking about how Juan is feeling at the moment, the second is asking what
Juan is like as a person.
Some adjectives change their meaning according to whether they are used with ser or
estar and these will be indicated in the dictionary. The most common examples are:
ser aburrido to be boring
estar aburrido to be bored
ser consciente to be aware
estar consciente to be conscious
ser inconsciente to be irresponsible
estar inconsciente to be unconscious
ser listo to be clever
estar listo to be ready

These examples illustrate again the general principle that ser is used for characteristics
that are more or less permanent, while estar is used for temporary states.
As you continue with your study of Spanish you will come across more uses of ser
and estar, e.g. the use of estar in continuous tenses and the use of ser to form the
passive, but the above distinctions should help you to avoid too many pitfalls in the early
stages.

Exercises

1 Complete the following sentences with the appropriate form of ser:

1 Ella _____ estudiante de francés.

2 Uds. _____ estudiantes de ingeniería ¿verdad?

3 Nosotros _____ estudiantes de español.

4 Yo _____ de Madrid.

Basic Spanish: A grammar and workbook 62