Está used for masculine nouns?

Question

I have the notion that este is used to refer to masculine objects and esta for feminine objects. Spanishdict confirms this?

      Singular Plural

Masculine este (this) estos (these)

Feminine esta (this) estas (these)

However, an example in Rosetta stone is as follows? El gato está en el sombrero.

Since gato and sombrero are both masculine nouns, shouldn´t este be used instead? Or is there something that I´m unaware of?

Thanks

Answer 1

In your example "está" comes from the verb estar (to be) and means "is".

In "está" the stress in pronunciation is on the second syllabal and that is why the á is accented.

The word "esta" that you are thinking of does mean "this". But there is no accent in this word and the stress in pronunciation is on the esta.

They are different words with different meanings but they are spelt with the same letters. But notice one word has an accented letter and this is how we can tell them apart in written form. In speech the stress in pronunciation is on different syllabals and that is how we tell them apart.

Thanks, that helped me loads! :) - swifter78neo, Nov 19, 2013

Answer 2

The example is saying that "the cat IS in the hat" i.e. situation. Hope that helps

:) - ian-hill, Nov 19, 2013

Answer 3

Esta [No accent] is pronounce esta and is an adjective.

Esta caja es grande = This box is big

ésta [accent on first syllable] is still pronounced esta, but this is a pronoun

Sólo tengo ésta = I only have this

Está [accent on last syllable] is pronounced esta and is a verb

El hombre está muerto = The man is dead.

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Here they are in combination:

Esta [adj] caja es grande. También está [verb] en la sala. No me gusta ésta [pronoun].

Answer 4

After some reading, I think what I got was wrong. This is what I believe now, please correct me if I´m wrong.

´Está´ is used to refer to both ´this´ and ´is´. And the example from Spanishdict above is referring to ´está´ working in place of ´this´.

Whereas the example from rosetta stone is using ´está´ as ´is´. And ´está´ is used when referring to most objects or people in singular form in this case. Thus ´El gato está en el sombrero´ is correct.

está is NEVER an adjective. It's a verb that means "is". The adjective is "esta" and the pronoun is "ésta". Note the placement of the accents. They make worlds of difference. - HackerKing, Nov 20, 2013

Answer 5

"Está is the third person singular conjugation of the verb "estar" in the present tense, indicative mood. It means "is." Here is the present tense conjugation:

yo estoy
tú estás
él/ella/Ud. está
nosotros estamos
vosotros estáis
ellos/ellas/Uds. están

Without the tilde (accent mark) "esta" means "this" and is used with feminine nouns, as you've already learned. Declan_Ireland explains the distinction in pronunciation very well.