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Tui, you pick it, they sort it. Book and Tee's and C's apply at All-Napta Protected. Welcome to Coffee Break Spanish. Yo soy Anabel y estoy encantada de estar contigo en este episodio. Today, I am very excited because I'm bringing you a very nice point about ser and estar. In a previous short lesson, I mentioned that we can use ser for location as well as estar, but they are not interchangeable. If you don't know what I'm talking about and would like to feel confident using ser and estar for location, don't forget to listen to the episode titled Ser vs estar for location. Now, as for this episode, we'll be talking about ser and estar, but for dates. Vamos a verlo y empiezo con una pregunta. How do we say it's Monday in Spanish? If you remember well, we use ser for dates, so we say es lunes. Today, we are going to learn another way to express this idea. Let's start by looking at a longer example using ser. Hoy es viernes y es dieciocho de abril. Today is Friday and it's the 18th of April. This looks great, it is correct in Spanish, but it sounds a bit impersonal. What happens if I tell you we can say the very same thing but using estar and it'll sound a bit better? No te preocupes, es muy fácil. Don't worry, it's very easy. So then we take that today is Friday and it's the 18th of April and using estar, we have a sentence like Hoy estamos a viernes y estamos a dieciocho de abril. The translation in English is the same, but a literal translation is Today we are on Friday and we are on the 18th of April. This sounds a bit strange in English, but it works perfectly in Spanish. In fact, now it sounds better, it is more personal because it's talking about my own experience. We achieve this by conjugating the verb estar in the nosotros form. This means we can use estar in the nosotros form for dates instead of using ser in the third person singular. Let's see other examples. It's Sunday, estamos a domingo. It's the 14th of January, estamos a cuatro de enero. It's 2025, estamos a 2025. Notice how we are using estar in the nosotros form followed by the preposition a and then we have the date. Now if we are simply saying the month or the season it is, then we use the preposition en. For example, it's october, estamos en octubre. It's summer, estamos en verano. Ahora bien, then muchísimo cuidado. Be careful because this use of estar in the nosotros form is for when we say the date. Then if you are saying that the appointment will be on Monday, ser is our only option. Then in Spanish it is la cita será el lunes. That será is the future tense of the verb ser. This is because we are locating an event on the calendar. And remember that for locating events we use ser. Ahora te pregunto, y así puedes practicar. In order to practice I'm going to ask you a question and then you can pause the audio so you can give it a go. Vamos. My question is, mi pregunta es, a que día estamos hoy? You can pause the podcast. Now here you may have answered something like, estamos a sabado, o estamos a doce de noviembre. Don't forget that we are using the verb estar conjugated in the nosotros form, first person plural form of the verb, and then it is followed by the preposition a. Estamos a sabado, o estamos a doce de noviembre. Perfecto, una pregunta más. En que estación del año estamos? Don't be shy and give it a go. This time you may have said something like, estamos en otoño. Now because I asked you about estación del año, de sison, we are going to be using estar en the nosotros form followed by the preposition en, and then the sison. Perfecto, un último reto. Do we use ser o estar in the following sentence? The meeting is on Tuesday, and today is Monday. Feel free to translate the full sentence, and remember that we need to decide twice, because the sentence is, the meeting is on Tuesday, and today is Monday. Tienes tu respuesta? In the first part, the meeting is on Tuesday, we must use the verb ser, because we are locating an event on the calendar. La reunión es el martes. Now for the second part, we can use ser o estar. The second part is, and today is Monday, so we can say, y hoy es lunes, or, y hoy estamos a lunes. Both are correct, but using estar is a bit more personal. ¡Pues, perfecto! Eso es todo por este episodio sobre ser y estar, and please keep in mind that ser and estar can be mastered if you keep practicing the language. Understanding how these verbs are used in context is essential to using these two tricky verbs naturally. 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.com. Muchas gracias por quedarte hasta el final. Espero que hayas disfrutado del episodio, y espero verte pronto. Happy coffee breaking! You have been listening to a Coffee Break Languages production for the RadioLingua Network. Copyright 2025 RadioLingua Ltd. Recording copyright 2025 RadioLingua Ltd. All rights reserved. Idle money lies in your current account picking crumbs out of its belly button wondering, should I eat them? But when you start investing with Monzo, your money's always busy. It turns on regular investments, invests your spare change and tops up your stocks and shares, Iso. It even helps you make sense of risk and return. Monzo, the bank that gets the most money, is a big deal. You could get back less than you invest. Monzo current account required UK residents 18 plus TCCs apply. Idle on Magic Radio playing the best variety from the 80s to now. It's glow time on Magic Radio.
