First class after Diwali. It didn't look like we had the full quorum of 35. But I would peg the class population at about 30. Not bad, not bad at all! The first half of the 2-hour duration was spent in going over the homework. Just when I was wondering if we are going to learn anything new today, the teacher wrote 'El Verbo "ESTAR"'. That means, well, To Be. Okay, but then 'SER' also means 'To Be', isn't it? I wonder if Shakespeare was learning Spanish when he wrote the famous 'To Be Or Not To Be'. ;-)
Our teacher has mastered the art of reading minds. These thoughts had barely come into my mind when she advised us to concentrate on the different forms of the verb for now and we will get to the usage soon enough. So we went from Yo Estoy, Tu Estas (I am omitting the tildes here!) down to Vosotros Estais and Ustedes/Ellas/Ellos Estan. Hmmm, except for the first 'Estoy', these look same as the forms for 'SER'. Cool!
And now for the usage patterns. SER is used for describing, let's see - Identity, Nationality, Profession, Colors, Material, Inherent Qualities and Possession (not of the supernatural type!). ESTAR is for describing moods/feelings, state of a place and where a place is situated. So far so good!
But then I hit a roadblock. The teacher took us through the list of adjectives that we had learnt earlier. Some adjectives are used with SER, some with ESTAR and some with both. The general rule of thumb is if something is of a permanent nature, you use it with SER, otherwise with ESTAR. Still, I found the usage pretty ambiguous. I mean, let's take something like clean - limpia if you are using it for a room - which is feminine in Spanish. This adjective, it seems, is to be used with ESTAR. But what if the room is always clean? How can it be used with ESTAR?
Must say this is the first ambiguous part that I have come across in this language. And I sincerely hope that it is also the last :-)
Our teacher has mastered the art of reading minds. These thoughts had barely come into my mind when she advised us to concentrate on the different forms of the verb for now and we will get to the usage soon enough. So we went from Yo Estoy, Tu Estas (I am omitting the tildes here!) down to Vosotros Estais and Ustedes/Ellas/Ellos Estan. Hmmm, except for the first 'Estoy', these look same as the forms for 'SER'. Cool!
And now for the usage patterns. SER is used for describing, let's see - Identity, Nationality, Profession, Colors, Material, Inherent Qualities and Possession (not of the supernatural type!). ESTAR is for describing moods/feelings, state of a place and where a place is situated. So far so good!
But then I hit a roadblock. The teacher took us through the list of adjectives that we had learnt earlier. Some adjectives are used with SER, some with ESTAR and some with both. The general rule of thumb is if something is of a permanent nature, you use it with SER, otherwise with ESTAR. Still, I found the usage pretty ambiguous. I mean, let's take something like clean - limpia if you are using it for a room - which is feminine in Spanish. This adjective, it seems, is to be used with ESTAR. But what if the room is always clean? How can it be used with ESTAR?
Must say this is the first ambiguous part that I have come across in this language. And I sincerely hope that it is also the last :-)
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