Ser, estar and the present continuous

Where something is always takes estar, even for a permanent location: Mi casa está cerca de la playa, never mi casa es cerca de la playa. Likewise Madrid está en España. A very common candidate error is using ser here because the location feels permanent — but position/location is an estar job regardless of how permanent it is.

With adjectives that work with both verbs, ser = a permanent characteristic, estar = a temporary state: es aburrido (is boring) vs está aburrido (is bored); likewise es/está bueno. A Reading trap: writing es indio for está indio (a temporary mood) describes a fixed trait and loses the mark. listo, malo shift the same way.

When a first-person Reading text is transformed to the third person, keep the same verb — do not "correct" estar to ser. Estoy orgullosa becomes está orgullosa, never es orgullosa, and any reflexive se is kept. Swapping estar for ser turns a temporary state into a permanent trait and loses the mark.

The present-tense está, estás, están must carry the written accent — it marks the stress and is part of the correct spelling, not optional. Without it, esta means "this" (feminine), a different word: está cansada (she is tired) vs esta chica (this girl). A quick accent check at the end of a task catches this recurring slip.

The gerund rule is fixed: -ar -> -ando (hablando, trabajando); -er/-ir -> -iendo (comiendo, viviendo). Common slips are comendo (missing the i), viviando (wrong vowel), or dropping the ending and leaving the bare stem. There are no exceptions for the regular verbs tested at this level, so build the gerund methodically from the infinitive.

English "-ing" is far broader than the Spanish present continuous, so a word-for-word translation over-uses estar + gerund. Habit: trabajo todos los días, not estoy trabajando todos los días. Near future: trabajo mañana, not estoy trabajando mañana. Reserve the continuous for an action in progress right now: estoy trabajando.

A false belief is that estar is only "where something is" and ser covers everything else. Wrong: temporary states, including emotions, take estar: estoy cansado, not soy cansado (which claims tiredness as a fixed trait); está enfadada. Compare soy una persona paciente. The real rule is permanent/defining vs temporary/changeable.