estas and eres

hello. I am new to the spanish language. I just completed the first 2 lessons. 1.1 and 1.2. I find that both estas and eres mean are you. How do u know which one to use or if it even really matters which one to use.

Hola. Welcome to the forum. You're right, there are two verbs that mean "to be" in Spanish, *ser* and *estar*. *Eres* comes from* ser,* while *estás* comes from *estar*. They're usually not interchangeable. You may want to take a look at the Rocket Spanish discussions of these two verbs in the Beginner's Book, which you can download in .pdf form from *__http://www.rocketlanguages.com/spanish/members/__*. If you have difficulty accessing this site, you can find much of the same content here: *__http://www.rocketlanguages.com/spanish/spanish_grammar_contents1.php__* There are also lots of sites on the web that offer help with Spanish grammar. See, for example, this discussion of ser and estar on spanish.about.com: *__http://spanish.about.com/cs/verbs/a/servsestar.htm__* And though it's not free, perhaps the very best resource I know is a paperback book called *Búscalo: A Quick Reference Guide to Spanish Grammar and Usage* by William M. Clarkson and Guillermo Campos. It offers concise, very clear explanations of just about every point of grammar you're likely to wonder about. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in learning Spanish. It's useful for people at all levels, from absolute beginners on up. I hope some of this proves helpful.

wow!! Thank you so much for that information nohablo. Everything is so much clearer now than before. I am really enjoying this course. With my busy schedule i should be finish this course in 5 months. Then I'm going to take a trip to mexico or cuba to put what i learned to the test. this is going to be awesome. Thankks again nohablo

I'm happy I was able to help.