Expresar los estados físicos y anímicos con los verbos estar y tener (needs edit)

 

Thus far, you have seen both the verb estar and the verb tener. You have learned that the verb estar can be used to express the location of people or things, to talk about the weather, and to form part of the present progressive tense. In terms of tener, in the previous lessons you have seen that this verb is used to communicate the age of people, as well as to talk about possessions that you or other people have.

Both of these verbs are also used to talk about the physical or emotional state of a person at a particular moment in time. However, the verbs are used to describe different states. With tener, will be able to describe certain things that you actually feel, physically, such as hunger or cold. The expressions that use tener are followed by nouns—frío, calor, sueño, hambre, prisa, etc.

Estar is more often utilized to describe emotional states and is used with adjectives, like sad, happy, angry, or worried. Since you will be using estar with adjectives, it is important to keep gender and number agreement in mind, and make sure that the adjective agrees with the subject of the sentence. For some of the adjectives used with estar, like alegre or triste, you will only have to worry about number agreement since the adjectives end in –e for both the masculine and feminine form:

Play Audio Miguel está triste. boy crying
Play Audio Ana también está triste.
Play Audio Nosotros estamos alegres.
Play Audio Vicente y Carla están alegres.
Play Audio Yo estoy alegre.

For other adjectives that you use with estar, you will need to pay attention to both gender and number agreement:

Play Audio Javier está muy contento. bearded man smiling
Play Audio Isabel y Juana no están muy contentas.
Play Audio Mi madre está muy ocupada.
Play Audio Elian está un poco preocupado.

You can find the conjugation of estar in this lesson and below, you can quickly review the conjugation of tener that you have learned already.

 

tener – to have (tiempo presente)
singular plural
1a yo tengo nosotros tenemos
2a tú tienes vosotros tenéis
3a el/ella/usted tiene ellos/ellas/ustedes tienen

 

Below you will see and hear several more examples of how these expressions are used.

Sonia ¿Tienes frío?
Wilfredo No, tengo calor.

Rosalía ¿Cómo estás?
César Estoy muy cansado. man yawning

Marcela ¿Quieres comer?
Orlando No, no tengo hambre.

Regina ¿Cómo está Susana?
Ignacio Está un poco deprimida.

Liticia ¿Por qué está tan preocupado Emilio?
Alberto Está preocupado porque tiene un examen de física hoy. young man biting his fingernails

Julia ¿Mariana está muy ocupada?
Elías No, ella no está muy ocupada porque está de vacaciones.

Carmen ¿Cómo estás?
Gaspar Tengo mucho sueño.

 

Practice the new vocabulary with the Quizlet below.

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