Present Tense Verb Estar

In these past few weeks your child has learned regular Present Tense -ar Verbs as well as the Present Tense Ser Verb and now we are touching base with the Present Tense Estar Verb. This verb comes with many complications. I'm pretty sure that with a lot of practice and notes your child will be able to master this verb as well as the ones we have already learned. The first complication we have to tackle is that Estar has the same meaning as the verb Ser. The second complication is that the verb Estar does not have a pattern to remember when conjugating so your child will need to memorize the conjugation. The final complication is one which they have yet to see but have known that it was coming. This complication is that the verb Estar has accents on some of its forms.


****Notes*****

Here is a simple acronym to help remember when to use the verb Estar.
C- Condition (sick-enferma)
L- Location (school-escuela)
A- Action taking place now
S- State of Being (tired-cansada)
S- State of Mind (loca-crazy)

Estar is used to describe something temporary.


Estar

yo= estoy tú= estás él, ella, ud.= está nosotros= estamos ellos, ellas,uds.= están

Because this is very confusing I suggest to use the following websites for extra practice and notes.

You have already seen the website businessspanish.com before with the verb Ser but this is an excellent website it gives a short lesson over Estar and gives a detailed description on the difference from Ser and Estar.

ZADOR Spanish Schools in Spain also gives a short detailed lesson over the verb Estar.


The Conjuguemos website offers a great activity which will help your student distinguish when to use Estar and when to use Ser in the Present Tense. Try it!