Ser vs. Estar en el pretérito

Question

Hola. Antes de empezar, quiero decir que yo sé la diferencia entre "ser" y "estar", pero yo estaba mirando la página para "ser" y la página dijo "fue aquí". Debe ser "estuvo aquí"?

¡Gracias! Alex (Alejandro)

I moved this to the Website questions category. - bandit51jd, Nov 29, 2013

Answer 1

Thanks Alex for the link.

Am I correct that your confusion is that "estar" is used for the location of things and people (but not events, which uses "ser") and "here" is indicating a location?

Additional note: In the link you provided, "fue" is used rather than "estuvo" because the section is referring to general things, not the location.

ser
intransitive verb
1. to be (en general)
fue aquí -> it was here

Ay, supongo que ovidé eso. ¡Gracias! - alexkill51, Nov 29, 2013

Answer 2

The line in question is in the definition for "ser". "Fue aquí. It was here". There is no context, so the assumption must be that they are talking of an event, as in " where was the concert last week? It was here."

As Bandit pointed out, an event like this "ser" would be the appropriate verb.

Not necessarily Noetol there is another explanation, it could be a cleft sentence. - Kiwi-Girl, Nov 29, 2013

Answer 3

http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/ser

Dice "fue aquí", y estoy confudido.

Answer 4

Alex, you may already be past this page, but if you come across it again, would you post the link to the page that contains ¨¨fue aguí¨?

¡Muchas gracias!

Answer 5

What I always show people with problems with the ser and estar verbs is the following:

ser/estar = to be

I am = yo soy/estoy

I was = fui-era/estuve-estaba

I were = fuera/estuviera

I hope this is of help.

Answer 6

I think it's what is known as a cleft sentence where a certain element in the sentence is focused on by using the verb 'ser'.

Eg. Maria said it. Can be changed into a cleft sentence with more focus on 'Maria ' by saying ....

It 'was' Maria who said it.

So, if I understand it correctly 'estuvo aquí que lo ví' for example could become 'fue aquí donde lo ví', if we want to put more focus on where it was.

Also, as far as I know, just as a random grammar rule those kind of cleft sentences cannot be joined with 'que' .