Need Help with ¿Cómo es?

Question

Can someone explain ¿Cómo es? to me please? I was looking at lesson 1.2 - Personal Descriptions when she use ¿Cómo es? to mean what i am like. But when i look up the word ¿Cómo es? it mean "How it is" Can some please help me here please ??????????

Answer 1

So the third person conjugation in spanish applies to both people and things. Ex: "It is white" would have the same conjugation as "he is white" In this context, you are using the verb "ser" which describes what things are but permanently (as opposed to "estar" which you would use to describe what things are impermanently) Something like skin color would use ser becuase it doesn't change while mood would use estar because mood can change from moment to moment. Anyway, ?Como es? Literally means "what is he/she/it like" and the anwer would include some kind of permanent trait like hair color, skin color, length, height, vocation, personality, etc

Answer 2

Hey, Wizman, welcome to the Q&A forum.

¿Cómo es? = How is it/she/he?

A person or thing's character traits:

Tall or short?

Black or white?

Friendly or mean?

Answer 3

Also worth thinking about, in addition to the good answers you´ve received already, is that if a full lesson points you in one direction, but a simple translator pushes you in another, go with what you learned in the lesson. The lesson has a lot of context and makes the exact use (relatively) clear, whereas a straight lookup, regardless of paper or online, has little context, on top of which, even the best electronic translators aren´t that great yet.

Go with the lesson.

Good luck.