Estar

Estar

You have already learned the verb ser, and you’ve used it to: introduce yourself and others, to describe physical characteristics and personality traits, to indicate place of origin or nationality, to tell time, and to give dates. 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 (which we’ll discuss in a future chapter), estar is used to express location. So, if you are talking about where a person or a thing is located, you will use estar:

estar (to be)
	singular	plural
1a	yo estoy	nosotros estamos
2a	tú estás	vosotros estáis
3a	el ella usted está	ellos ellas ustedes están

As you should notice, estar has an irregular yo form along with accented endings in all but the nosotros form.

To use estar to express the locations of people and things, you’ll need to know some prepositions of location as well:

alrededor (around)
al lado de (beside)
enfrente de (in front of)
a la derecha de (to the right of)
a la izquierda de (to the left of)
enfrente (in front)
debajo de (under)
en (on, in)
detrás de (behind)
cerca de (close to)
lejos de (far from)
encima (on, above)

• Alegría está en su dormitorio. (Alegría is in her bedroom.)
• ¿Dónde está tu restaurante favorito? (Where is your favorite restaurant?)
• Los padres de Benjamín están de vacaciones en Cancún. (Ben’s parents are in Cancún on vacation.)
• Ay de mí, ¿dónde están mis llaves? (Good grief, where are my keys?)
• La cafetería está enfrente de la librería. (The cafeteria is in front of the bookstore.)
• No estoy en clase ahora porque estoy enfermo. (I’m not in class right now because I’m sick.)
• Nosotros estamos cerca del museo pero no podemos encontrarlo. (We’re close to the museum, but we can’t find it.)