The all-new, unimported "Español, X" series will be the place where I muse on my thoughts on the actual Spanish Language. Because I have a couple. Also, since I've been told by a few people that they too are on some kind of arc of learning/refreshing Spanish in their own mind (life), I will drop good hints I come across, or rules I find helpful to remember. Or maybe just insights or question. Feel free to add something if you know more Spanish than me, or ask something if you know less. Or vice-versa.

This stuff may be by only useful to a few people here and there, but if it only serves as a place I can still prove I'm robust and springy enough to whip out a new category every once in a while, well. That's good enough.

Ser and Estar are both "to be" verbs in Spanish. In amost all cases, the Ser form is for indicating permanent states, or who you are; whereas the Estar conjugacións are for transient situations, or one that recently changed (and will again), or conditions that do not indicate your being so much as your experiencing.

For example, to say Estoy enfermo is to say you are not feeling well. (Estoy being the present tense "I" form of the Estar infinitive. But to say Soy enfermo is to say "I am a sick cookie, mah fren!" or "I'm sickly, always getting ill. It's chronic in my life. It's who I am." Soy being the "I' form of "Ser," the form of "to be" generally used for the long-term concepts, the permanent ones.

Yet there is an obvious exception to this rule and that is when you say something like mi pájaro está muerte: My bird is dead. Or Mi madre está viva: My mother is alive.

So far I'm just paraphrasing a million Spanish books. But when I think of what could lie behind this exception to the rule, I smile. And por supuesto, (I may be reading my own meaning into the cause of this, it's very possible. But it seems to indicate a philosophy that you are not death once you meet it; you are not canceled or owned or ended by death. It is a transient state, as is life. The exception to the Ser and Estar rules feel like a wink to the cosmic.

Me gusta.

UPDATE:This may not be as it sounds. Please read comment thread for clarification, if you are just learning Spanish and want to very clear on these two verbs. Or google and read up. :)