Coffee Break Spanish - 'Ser' vs. 'estar' for location | A Coffee Break with Anabel

Episode Date: August 21, 2025

In today’s espresso mini-lesson, we’re joined by Anabel from the Coffee Break Spanish team to tackle one of the most common challenges for Spanish learners: choosing between ser and estar when talking about location. 📍🤔These two verbs both mean 'to be', but knowing when to use each is key to sounding natural in Spanish.Discover more content like this and subscribe to the Coffee Break Spanish newsletter here. 🙌 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Coffee Break Spanish. I'm Annabel. My name is Annabel, and I am very happy to be in this episode with you. Here at Coffee Break Spanish, we are enjoying working on our next podcast series for you. But in the meantime, I hope you enjoy this mini lesson. If this happens to be the very first episode of Coffee Break Spanish you are listening to, you should know that you can go back and learn Spanish right from the beginning by ordering the podcast episodes

from the oldest and starting with Coffee Break Spanish Season 1. Perfecto. Now, as this episode, I am very excited because I'm breaking you a very nice topic. As you know, the verb to be can be a bit tricky in Spanish because we have two verbs. Ser and Estar

You may have learned that Estar is used for location and you are correct However, what if I tell you we use Ser for location

to? No te preoccupies because you'll be because all will make sense at the end of this episode. Then

As you may know, we use estar to locate people and things in the world. For example, where is the library? In this sentence, we are locating a thing. We are locating the library. Where is the library? So to locate a thing, in this case, is a bell. we use start. Another example is

Los documents were in the cajon. The documents were in the drawer. Here again, we locate a thing. Los Documentos. Estaban. They were.

The documents were. So with these two examples, we can see that we use to locate. Then, why am I? I'm saying that we also use ser for location? This is going to happen when we are locating an event. So if we have an event and it is not people or things we are locating events in the world,

then we are going to be using ser. But no te preoccupies. We'll be going to be able to be some examples. Don't worry because we are going to see some examples. first one is, La reunion sera in the despatche del jefe. La reunion

serra. Here we are using the verb because it's the reunion. The meeting. This is an event. So we must use

ser for the location. La reunion sera in the despatcho del jefe. The meeting will be or will take place in the boss's office.

Reunion an event, so we must use ser. Another example is La Fiesta Fu'e in the garden de Clara. The first thing that we need to know about this is that foe is the pretreatens of the verb Ser. So la Fiesta Fue in the garden de Clara means the party was in Clara's garden.

La Fiesta is the party, and this is an event. So we must use. use ser. Then fiesta, reunion, boda, which is a wedding, all of them are events. And remember that if we want to locate an event, we must use ser. Perfecto. I love practicing. I think that's the best way to consolidate what we have learned. So I prepared a quick exercise for you. I'm going to say a sentence in English and I want you to

decide if we are going to use estar or ser. If you feel comfortable. confident you can also translate the whole sentence. So, let's go. The first one is, the book is on the table. The book is on the table. Do we use ser or start? Asy is.

Usamos estar. We have to use start because we are locating a thing. The book is on the table. Using a start to locate thing. Let's go to the next one is The concert is in the Central Park The concert is in the Central Park Ser or Estar

Effectively, the concert is an event so it has to be ser The concert is in the park Central Park. The concert is in the central park. Fantastic. Let's do one more. This time the sentence is, The date will be at a restaurant.

The date will be at a restaurant. Ser or estar. Good job. The date is an event. So we are using ser. La cita, sera, in a restaurant. The date will be at a restaurant. the cita sera.

Fantastic. Then remember, Estar is used to locate people or things in the world. And ser is used to locate events. Fantastic. Now, don't forget to subscribe wherever you are listening to this episode for more content like this one. Also, if you would like to keep improving your Spanish,

you can receive regular free mini lessons straight to your inbox by signing up to our newsletter. Just go to coffeebreaklanguages.com slash Spanish. Well, well, much thanks for kept up until the final. Much of animo and we'll

see in the next. Happy coffee breaking. You have been listening to a coffee break language's production for the Radiolingua Network. Copyright 2025 RadioLingual Limited Recording Copyright 2025

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