Ser/Estar - "La comida era/estaba buena"
Hola todos,
I am having problems with Ser/Estar - if I wanted to say that I went to a Mexican restaurant last night and I WAS disappointed that nobody spoke Spanish but the food WAS very good, I am guessing you would say:
Yo Estaba decepcionante (It was an emotion so one would use Estar); and
La comida era buena (this is a wild guess because it doesn't fit into the acronym DOCTOR or PLACE (see http://www.spanishdict.com/answers/100040/ser-and-estar).
I am hoping someone could explain to me if I am using the correct form of "to be" and more particularly explain if I should use era or estaba when I am referring to the food "the food WAS good".
Many thanks Chris
2 Answers
Yo Estaba decepcionante (It was an emotion so one would use Estar); and
You would use "estar" but you would need to say "Estaba decepcionado(-a)
La comida
eraestaba buena
If you you eat some cheese, and it tastes good then "el queso está bueno - the cheese is good," but if you like cheese in general then you might say that "el queso es bueno - cheese is good (in general)." Does this make sense to you?
If you still have questions try looking through some of the responses on this thread
La comida estaba buena.
El queso es bueno.
I prefer the CID method for choosing between SER and ESTAR. If you read the Reference article SER y ESTAR version 2 you will see that the estar sentence is explained as a state in time and space (last night in the Mexican restaurant). The ser sentence has no connotation of time or space. Cheese is good anytime, anywhere. In the CID method ser is classifying cheese as to whether it belongs to the category of good foods, bad foods, mediocre foods, etc.
For those who read the thread on disappearing posts using Firefox's browser, I lost the first two attempts at posting this. I had to switch to Chrome to successfully post it.
