Spanish GCSE Reading and Grammar – Constance e Imran Episode 25 (learn through a novel)
TOPIC: Spanish Verbs SER and ESTAR explained — Part 1: SER for Beginners (with Examples & Reading Practice)
In every blog you will always find the same format:
- The story episode in Spanish.
- The translation into English.
- A grammar explanation with examples from the story.
This way you can practise reading, understanding and grammar, all at the same time.
📘 GRAMMAR:
Let’s start with the basic cases where we use ser:
- 🔹 Identidad: yo soy Laura.
- 🔹 Nacionalidad: yo soy española.
- 🔹 Profesión: yo soy profesora de español.
- 🔹 Relaciones personales: yo soy la hermana de Juana.
- 🔹 Personalidad: yo soy muy sociable.
- 🔹 Religión e ideología: yo no soy religiosa.
As you see here, we use ser to express essential features, which give us information about who the person is. Here are the examples from our episode:
| Ejemplo | Traducción |
|---|---|
| Yo soy Constance. Soy británica. Soy estudiante. Soy amiga de Imran, Maya y Daniel… pero todavía no sé quién soy. | I am Constance. I am British. I am a student. I am a friend of Imran, Maya and Daniel… but I still don’t know who I am. |
Remember that we started studying ser and estar from episode 23, so go back and read from there. Here you have a video made by me explaining the topic:
💡 TIP:
Remember what we said in episode 23. At school, you will hear that we use “ser” for permanent situations and “estar” for non permanent situations. This is absolutely wrong. Look at these examples:
| Ejemplo | Traducción |
|---|---|
| Hoy soy amiga de ustedes, ¿pero lo seré para siempre? Hoy soy una gran lectora, ¿pero seguiré siéndolo? | Today I am your friend —but will I be forever? Today I am a great reader —but will I always be? |
As you perfectly see here, we use ser for situations that could be permanent or not.
Why do the teachers say something wrong? Because for many years, textbooks and exam boards have repeated a rule that is simply incorrect. It became widespread because it sounded easy to remember, not because it reflected how Spanish really works. Many teachers learned this explanation themselves when they were students, so they passed it on in good faith. But now you are learning the accurate rule — the one that real Spanish speakers actually use.
Find all the episodes here:
Spanish for London — Contents GCSE Spanish
Highly qualified native teacher with 30 years of experience.
One-to-one lessons via Zoom.
Contact me at
laura@spanishforlondon.com
We post two new episodes every week — keep up with Constance and Imran’s story!
