SER y ESTAR
Whatness and Howness
a) El azucar es dulce.
b) El café está caliente.
a) The verb used is SER because we are dealing with the inherent quality / attribute / essencial characteristic of sugar.
The verb implies it is sugar's NATURE to be SWEET, if it were NOT SWEET, it wouldn't be sugar.
b) The verb used is ESTAR because we are talking about the state of the coffee is in at the moment: a state of "hotness".
This is a quality / an attribute totally accidental and circumstantial. It doesn't tell us about coffee's inherent characteristic or nature. It doesn't indicate what it is, but HOW the coffee is under particular circumstances.
Different interpretations of SER and ESTAR depending on the language we use:
| Meanings in English | Meanings in Spanish | ||
| Juan is very cold. | a) to be - He is a cold sort of person. It's his nature / characteristic. | Juan es muy frío. | a) ser - The verb referes to the person's defining characteristic / nature. It tells us WHAT he is like. WHATNESS |
| b) to be - He is behaving like that, he is being cold (today). It's referring to specific accidental circumstances, the result of something. | Juan está muy frío. | b) estar - The verb indicates the state of being at a particular time, under certain circumstances. It tells us HOW he is feeling. HOWNESS | |
| c) to be - He feels cold. It's referring to the way he feels physically at the moment. | Juan tiene mucho frío. | b) tener - The verb indicates how his body feels. "He feels cold". |
Why we should avoid the "Permanent vs. Non-permanent" rule:
| - Yo soy estudiante. | (Shouldn't it be "estoy" since being a student is not permanent?) |
Now think of the questions: (¿Cuál corresponde?) |
|
| - El abuelo de María está muerto. | (Shouldn't it be "es" since being dead is "very" permanent?) |
| Now think of the questions: (¿Cuál corresponde?) What is she? WHATNESS -----------> SER HOW is she? HOWNESS -----------> ESTAR |