Shooting Estar
The present tense of estar — where you are, how you feel — said out loud.
Estar conjugates estoy, estás, está, estamos, están — and the tú, él and ellos forms carry a written accent you can't drop. It does two jobs: where something is (estoy en casa) and how someone is right now — feelings, states and health (estoy cansado, está feliz, estoy bien). Add a gerund for what's happening this second: estoy comiendo. What estar never does is say who someone is — that's ser.
Below: the forms laid out, the accent and ser/estar mistakes that trip beginners up, and a way to say estar out loud in a real check-in — no drills, no worksheets.
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Regional Spanish
Textbooks teach one word. Locals use several — pick your region's and stay consistent.
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The part no drill site can do
Carla
Your grammar teacher for this pack
No worksheets, nothing to conjugate on paper — in the Shooting Estar lessons you speak, and Carla opens with the two questions estar was built for: ¿cómo estás? and ¿dónde estás?. You answer in full sentences (estoy en el café, estoy un poco cansado). Then she asks how you feel today, three ways (estoy feliz, estoy nervioso, estoy tranquilo), and finally what you're doing right now (estoy hablando, estoy aprendiendo español) — every form out loud, accents and all, until estar stops feeling irregular.
Blank mid-sentence and nothing bad happens — she waits. That's the practice, without unnecessary judgement.
Finish the 8 lessons and Shooting Estar is yours — earned, not given.
First 10 lessons free · 10-minute spoken lessons · your AI coaching team remembers you
Quick answers
estoy (I am), estás (you are), está (he/she/it is), estamos (we are), están (they / you all are). It's irregular — the yo form ends in -oy, and estás, está, están all take a written accent.
Use estar for location and for how something is right now — a temporary state, feeling or health (estoy en casa, estoy cansado, está enferma). Use ser for identity: who or what someone is by nature (soy profesora, es alto). Rule of thumb: place and mood → estar; identity → ser.
The accent on estás and está marks the stressed syllable — and it's not optional. Dropping it changes the word: esta (no accent) means "this," while está means "he/she is." The tú, él and ellos forms always carry it.
Estar + an adjective that agrees in gender and number: estoy feliz, ella está nerviosa, estamos emocionados, ellos están tranquilos. Feelings are temporary, so they always take estar — never soy feliz for how you feel today.
Use estar + the gerund (-ando / -iendo): estoy comiendo (I am eating), tú estás hablando (you are talking), ella está leyendo (she is reading). It describes what's happening at this exact moment.
