Page:Dictionary of spoken Spanish (1945).djvu/22



2.estar "be" is used to express a temporary condition, location, and also as the auxiliary of the progressive tense:

a)In order to determine whether to use ser or estar when the predicate is an adjective, the following rule should be kept in mind: ser is used when the predicate adjective indicates the nature of an object or an inherent characteristic (1, below); estar is used when the predicate adjective indicates a temporary condition (2, below):

b)estar should never be used with a predicate noun.

c)ser should never be used with the past participle except to form an unequivocal passive voice:

3.haber never means "have" in the sense of "possess". This meaning is rendered by tener: el tiene el libro "he has the book".

a)When haber is not used as an auxiliary verb to form the compound tenses, it is an impersonal verb corresponding to English "there is, there are, there was, there were", etc, and as such has the form hay in the present tense: