Ser and Estar

For this post I made reference to A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish (Fifth Edition) by John Butt and Carmen Benjamin (Chapter 29 – Ser and Estar) 

If you don’t already have this book I would recommend buying it as although it is quite expensive it is really helpful.

There really is no easy way to explain when to use ser and estar. You must just learn a few key rules.

Ser and estar both translate into English as “to be” but they are used in different instances.

Ser is used to answer questions about who or what something is.

For example, “Soy ingles.” – “I am English.” Ser is used here because being English is a permanent state.

Estar answers questions about where, how or in what condition something is in.

For example, “Estoy en el colegio.” – “I am at school.” Here estar is used because the person will not always be at school and it is therefore a temporary state.

However, ser and estar cannot just be sorted into permanent and temporary states. That would be too easy :) 

For example, ser is used with some adjectives such as ‘feliz’ (happy), ‘pobre’ (poor), ‘rico’ (rich) but for the most part these are exceptions to the rule so do not assume that similar adjectives take ser. 

The majority such as 'contento' (happy), 'animado' (full of life), 'deprimido' (depressed) take estar.

Location:

Ser must be used for the location of events: 

“La fiesta es en la casa de Juan.” – “The party is at John’s house.”

But estar must be used for the location of people or inanimate objects: 

“El bolígrafo está en la mesa.” – “The pen is on the table.”

Passive and continuous phrases:

Ser is used to form the passive: 

“El libro fue escribido por mi amigo.” – “The book was written by my friend.”

Estar is used for continuous verbs: 

“Está cantando.” – “He’s singing.”