Ser vs estar question?

Question

-Would "he is an expert" be "El es un experto" or "El está un experto" and why?

Answer 1

'Es' - ser is used for professions even though they may change during your life, soy profesora, es doctor, etc etc so I'm guessing that 'an expert' would come under this category.

Also remember the golden rule of Ser - C.I.D. - classify, identify and define which would cover calling someone an expert, no? Incase you're also covering Estar remember that it is used for situations and states in time and space.

Hope that helps

Thank you so much! - luuuke, Dec 27, 2010

de nada :) - Kiwi-Girl, Dec 27, 2010

Being an expert is part of who he is as a person. It is not a particular state in which he finds himself, hence: "es" - 005faa61, Dec 27, 2010

Answer 2

Another thing you probably want to remember for verification purposes is that "estar" cannot be used with nouns or nominal groups, such as "profesor", "un experto", "Michael Jackson",... because they are all words used to identify or classify.