Lesson 33: More Ser and Estar usage examples
Ser and Estar both mean 'to be'. We use Ser for characteristics and Estar for States. Some adjectives (describing words) can change their meaning depending on which one we use.
In the last lesson we looked at how using 'aburrido' with 'Estar or 'ser' can fundamentally change the meaning of the adjective.
 Spanish |  English |
|---|---|
| Está aburrido | He is bored |
| Es aburrido | He is boring |
Listo - to be ready ... or .... to be smart
Some adjectives actually change their meaning almost completely depending whether they are being used with 'Estar or 'ser'.
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Estoy listo | I am ready |
| Estamos listas | We are ready (all female group) |
| Soy listo | I am smart |
| Es listo | He is smart |
| Es lista | She is smart |
| Eres muy lista | You are very smart (talking to a female) |
The underlining above is just a reminder of how the adjective changes depending on who is involved and following the familiar pattern of 'o' being related to mascaline and 'a' being related to feminine.
Tan - So
"So" - as in "I am so tired" - is 'tan'
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Estoy tan cansado | I (male) am so bored |
| Estoy tan cansada | I (female) am so bored |
It will get very text heavy to show each male and female version and even to point them out all the time so now you know the difference just look out for them in the future.
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Estoy tan aburrido | I am so bored |
| Él está tan aburrido | He is so bored |
| Es tan aburrido | It is so boring |
| Son buenos | They are good (good people) |
| Es bueno | He is good (a good person) |
| Está bueno | He is attractive |
So there we have bueno changing its meaning quite dramatically between 'Estar and 'ser'
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Quiero saber comó está | I want to know how he is |
| Quiero saber comó es | I want to know how he is (what he is like) |
Feliz - Happy
Here is one you may have come across because of 'Feliz Navidad' - "Happy Christmas". We do have a very similar word in English - "Felicity" which means happiness - but we rarely use it.
Of course now we know the word and we can see it ends 'ity' we already know the Spanish for happiness because all we need to do is take of the 'ity' and add 'idad'.
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Felicidad | Happiness |
Another interesting thing we can take out of here is how the 'z' at the end 'feliz' has changed to 'c' when we extend the word. This is a common pattern in Spanish including when we extend the word to get the plural so just keep an eye out for it and you'll start noticing it everywhere!
Feliz with Ser and Estar
We say in the last lesson that you can't always use an adjective with 'Ser' even if it looks right. We can't say 'Soy ocupado' (or 'Soy ocupada' if you are a female) because it is bad Spanish while 'Soy aburrido is fine.
There are no rules here, its just something you will pick up over time and as we covered earlier if you want to make sure you get it right you can instead use the "persona" method for everything.
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Estamos ocupados | We are busy (at the moment) |
| Somos personas ocupadas | We are busy people |
But just for this exercise we can use 'Feliz' with soy
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Estoy feliz | I am happy (at the moment) |
| Soy feliz | I'm a happy person |
| Soy una persona feliz | I'm a happy person |