| ¡Hola! Soy Brenda tu profesora de español. |
| Today, we’re going to talk about the difference between ser and estar, but more specifically, talking about personalidad versus emociones or estados, so specifically to talk about personality traits versus or compared to emotions and states. |
| Remember that in English, we have only one verb which is the verb “to be.” But in Spanish, we have two very distinctive verbs for the same “to be” in...that we have in English. We’re going to have el verbo ser and estar. So when we learn Spanish, we have to learn when to use ser and when to use estar because in English, it’s always the same. |
| One of the main differences between these two verbs and when to use them is that we’re going to use el verbo ser to talk about characteristics such as personality traits versus estar where we’re going to use this verb to talk about emotions or emotional states. |
| Vamos a ver algunos ejemplos. |
| “Let’s have a look at some examples.” |
| Soy divertida |
| Soy activa |
| Soy sociable |
| Soy responsable |
| Soy amable |
| As you can see, all these examples, we are talking about or describing my personality, what am I like. And all these personal traits, we’re going to use el verbo ser and not estar. If we use el verbo estar in these examples, it will just not make sense because we are describing the personality and characteristics, so it just doesn’t really quite work if we use el verbo estar. |
| Some examples with estar… |
| Estoy cansada |
| Estoy bien |
| Estoy enferma |
| Estoy feliz |
| Estoy triste |
| As you can see in all these examples, we’re talking about an emotional state. It’s not my personality trait. I could be a very happy person, but I could be feeling sad at this moment and therefore, it’s an emotional state and that’s why we are going to use it with el verbo estar and not ser. |
| Sometimes, like I said before, if you use… if you pick the wrong verb, it will just simply not work, it wouldn’t make sense. It will be like choosing a completely different verb, “I have sad” or something like that. It would mean something like this when you pick a different verb that it just doesn’t make sense. |
| But there are instances in which, depending on the adjective, it will… we’ll be able to use both verbs, but we’ll be saying different things because one is going to be describing a personality trait and the other verb is going to be describing an emotional state. |
| Let’s have a look at some examples… |
| Soy divertida vs Estoy divertida |
| Soy aburrida vs Estoy aburrida |
| Soy lista vs Estoy lista |
| Soy borracha vs Estoy borracha |
| Have a look at these examples. Can you actually see what the difference is between… They’re all correct. They’re grammatically correct. We’re saying things with these two verbs, but we’re saying different things. |
| So when we use it with el verbo ser, again, we’re going to be describing a personality trait. When we use it with el verbo estar, we’re going to be talking about an emotional state. |
| Por ejemplo… |
| Soy divertida means “I am fun.” |
| Estoy divertida means “I am having fun.” |
| Can you see the difference there? One is a personality trait, the other one is a state, right? I’m actually having fun right now. |
| Same with aburrida. |
| Soy aburrida “I am boring” vs “I am bored.” |
| One is a state, the other one is a personality trait. |
| Soy lista significa “I am smart.” |
| In this case, if we say it with estar, estoy lista significa “I am ready” and you can see that here, the verb is changing entirely the meaning of lista, from “smart” to “ready.” One is a state, “I’m ready,” the other one is a personality characteristic. |
| Soy borracha means “I’m a drunk,” right, and estoy borracha “I’m a little tipsy.” |
| So you can see there, if you actually use the verb wrongly, you can either be saying to someone “you’re drunk” or “you are a drunk,” right? So, it’s very… that’s why it’s so important to actually learn when to use ser and when to use estar. |
| Muy bien. So remember, if we are using… if we are describing a characteristic or a personality trait, we’re going to use ser and when we want to describe a state or an emotional state, an emotion, we’re going to use el verbo estar. |
| ¡Muchas Gracias! Thank you so much for watching and I will be seeing you in the next class. Adiós. ¡Hasta luego! |
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