4.6.0: Gramática
Estar
You have already learned the verb ser, and you’ve used it to do the following:
- introduce yourself and others
- to describe physical characteristics and personality traits
- to indicate place of origin or nationality
- to tell time
- to give dates
Ser is a very flexible verb to have in your tool belt!
Spanish has another verb that also means “to be” – estar . You used estar at the beginning of this course to indicate how you are feeling (¿Cómo estás? Estoy bien, gracias). In addition to indicating how you and others are feeling, estar is used to express location. So, if you are talking about where a person or a thing is located, you will use estar :
| Yo estoy | Nosotros/as estamos |
| Tú estás | Vosotros/as estáis |
| Él/Ella/Usted está | Ellos/Ellas/Ustedes están |
Notice that e star has an irregular yo form along with accented endings in all but the yo and nosotros forms.
Estar y la localización
To use estar to express the locations of people and things, you’ll need to know some prepositions of location as well:
| a la derecha | to the right of |
|---|---|
| a la izquierda de | to the left of |
| al lado de | beside, next to |
| cerca de | close to |
| debajo de | under |
| dentro de | inside |
| detrás de | behind |
| en | on, in |
| encima de | on, above |
| enfrente de | in front of |
| entre | between |
| fuera de | outside |
| lejos de | far from |
In Spanish, contractions are not optional. When a masculine and singular noun comes after the preposition ¨de¨, it will combine to make ¨del¨.
de + el = del
- Las plantas están fuera del garaje. / Las plantas están fuera de la casa.
- El sofá está a la derecha del sillón. / El sofá está a la derecha de las sillas.
- El baño está cerca del dormitorio. / El baño está cerca de los dormitorios.
¿Dónde?
The question word used to ask about locations is ¿Dónde? ( where? ).
Modelo:
- ¿Dónde está la lámpara? → La lámpara está encima de la mesita.
- ¿Dónde está la cocina? → La cocina está entre la sala y el dormitorio.
It can be combined with prepositions to ask more specific questions, for example: ¿De dónde? (from where?) and ¿Adónde? (to where?).
Modelo:
- ¿ De dónde eres? ( Where are you from? )
- Soy de El Dorado, Kansas. ( I am from El Dorado, Kansas. )
- Ah, y ¿ dónde está El Dorado? ( Where is El Dorado located? )
- El Dorado está cerca de la ciudad de Wichita. ( El Dorado is near the city of Wichita .)
Remember that question words always need an accent mark, and don’t forget to put the upside-down question mark at the beginning of the question with the upside-right question mark at the end of the question.
Works Cited:
7.7: Gramática- El verbo estar + preposiciones / ¿Dónde?Links to an external site. by Erica Brown, Alejandra Escudero, María Cristina Montoya, & Elizabeth Small (OER SUNY) / License: CC BY 4.0 Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY)