Hay o Estar?

Question

Hola amigos! I wanted to ask about what to use when asking about locations... like here which one should i use hay or estar verb

Donde ______una farmacia?

¿Dónde hay una farmacia? you are asking for a farmacia but you haven´t have a clue where there is one - IhUruguay, Mar 14, 2013

¿ Donde esta la farmacia ? you know there is a farmacia somewhere but you don´t know the exact location - IhUruguay, Mar 14, 2013

Answer 1

Welcome to the forum! That's a really good question.

In your case you'd say "¿Dónde hay una farmacia?" because you asking the general location of any pharmacy that may exist.

If you wanted to know where a specific pharmacy was located you'd ask "Dónde está la farmacia?"

Or, more likely, one would ask: ¿Hay una farmacia por aquí? - kirk1, Mar 14, 2013

Good answer , even I can understand it , how goes it champ ? - ray76, Mar 14, 2013

Muchas gracias!:)...this was really helpful...you explained it very well so thanks again....! - kr2012, Mar 14, 2013

Answer 2

One of the rules for the use of the Spanish verb for 'to be' is that estar is used with location. In this case, you might not know if there is a pharmacy in the area in which case you would use the subjunctive, esté.

Gracias!:) - kr2012, Mar 14, 2013

Answer 3

Kirk said:

Or, more likely, one would ask: ¿Hay una farmacia por aquí?

Very true, amigo, however his task was to fill in the blank of a sentence already given:

Donde ______ una farmacia?