Calendar dates in Spanish using 'ser' AND 'estar' | A Coffee Break with Anabel
Coffee Break Spanish
Radio Lingua Network
4.4 • 5.9K Ratings
🗓️ 2 October 2025
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this espresso-style episode, Anabel talks about one of the trickiest parts of Spanish grammar: knowing when to use ser and when to use estar, specifically while talking about calendar dates.
She explains how we normally use ser for dates (Hoy es viernes), but how switching to estar in the nosotros form (Estamos a viernes) can sound more natural and personal in Spanish. 📅
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Coffee Break Spanish. |
| 0:02.9 | I'm Annabel and I'm |
| 0:04.7 | Encauntada of start with you in this episode. |
| 0:08.2 | Today I am very excited because I'm bringing you a very nice point about |
| 0:14.2 | ser and estar. |
| 0:18.0 | In a previous short lesson, I mentioned that we can use ser for location as well as |
| 0:25.6 | estar. |
| 0:27.1 | But they are not interchangeable. |
| 0:30.9 | If you don't know what I'm talking about and would like to feel confident using |
| 0:34.9 | ser and start for location, |
| 0:44.8 | don't forget to listen to the episode titled Ser versus Start for location. Now, as for this episode, we'll be talking about ser and estar, but for dates. |
| 1:04.8 | We'll go to see what I'm going to say it's Monday in Spanish? |
| 1:14.3 | If you remember well, we use ser for dates. |
| 1:19.4 | So we say, it's lunas. |
| 1:23.3 | Today, we are going to learn another way to express this idea. |
| 1:28.5 | Let's start by looking at a longer example, using ser. |
| 1:33.6 | Today is Friday and it's the 18th of April. |
| 1:38.7 | Today is Friday and it's the 18th of April. |
| 1:43.8 | This looks great. |
| 1:45.2 | It is correct in Spanish, but it sounds a bit impersonal. |
| 1:50.9 | What happens if I tell you we can say the very same thing, but using estar? |
| 1:57.8 | And it'll sound a bit better. |
... |
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