Life or Death? Which is Permanent?
One of the joys of learning a foreign language is the little (and not so little) ways that the language reveals insights about the people and the culture behind the language. Words are much more than just collections of letters. Grammar is more than just rules that you have to deal with to pass the tests and sound like you know what you are talking about. I am finding that this is immensely true as I continue in my Spanish language journey this year.
The latest interesting discovery has to do with the biggest problem we native English speaker face. There are two words for our English "to be." They are ser and estar. To put it as simply as possible, ser is generally used for "permanent" kind of things- where you're from, your size, etc. And as you would guess, estar is used for transient or temporary things. For example, the sky is ("es" from ser-permanent) blue on a sunny day. That is its natural color. On a cloudy day, the sky is ("esta" from estar-temporary) gray. Makes sense.
But as I have said language can give an insight into a culture and a people's world outlook. So here is one. If you want to say "He is dead" you use the verb estar, the temporary state or the state of change. In other words, as my daughter the Spanish major puts it, they just keep right on living in hope even when it doesn't look like there is any reason to.
Life is the permanent (ser) state.
Death is the change, the temporary (estar) state.
Says a lot about a people and their view of life.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
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