You’ve heard of Elvis, but what about El Vez?

He’s the Mexican Elvis.

With titles like Graciasland, En El Barrio (In The Ghetto), and Esta Bien Mamacita (That’s alright Mama) you’d think El Vez would be a short-lived parody.

Amazingly, he’s widely loved instead of being considered a novelty. In fact he has produced seven albums so far.

Unlike “El Rey” (The King), El Vez is alive.

Yes, despite the rumors of Elvis sightings in the National Enquirer and news of the world I am sure…

Espera un momento, (wait a moment) maybe he isn’t dead.

But the Spanish textbooks tell us that está (he/she is) is for things that are temporary.

Yet in Spanish you say, Elvis está muerto.

But the Spanish textbooks tell us that estar is for temporary conditions,

If death is temporary maybe Elvis has come back.

Desafortunadamente, (unfortunately) The National Enquirer is wrong and the textbook might lead you astray. Elvis is really dead.

Spanish made a whole lot more sense to me when I quit always taking the textbooks at face value.

Está = estados (states)

Es = esencia (essence)

Let’s see how it works.

Elvis está muerto.

Spanish uses está because Elvis is in the state of being dead. But if we are dealing with zombies, we could say

El zombi es un muerto.

Es = esencia (essence)

It is the zombie’s essence to be dead person.

If the whole permanent vs. temporary analysis gets confusing, give my little esencia vs. estados mnemonic a try.

It gives it more clarity than the typical textbook.

Even better than the textbook and my mnemonic is actually speaking the language. That beats getting stuck in analysis-paralysis or using fill-in-the-gaps exercise every time.

It makes the language come alive. And Spanish is very alive, vivacious and growing.

In Bola de Nieve there’s just the occasional tiny little nudge here and there to show how the language works. It only happens when you need it to say more. It’s always about speaking Spanish in real-life conversations.

That way you can quickly transfer what you learn on the audio to what you say in the streets, cafés and plazas.

In the second module of Bola de Nieve, Lesson 4, you start using the Spanish verb estar. There is a lot of conversation instead of theory.

If you like the idea of speaking Spanish instead of analyzing, this page has a special offer. You can try the first module of Bola de Nieve, plus get 5 extra conversation multipliers for just un dólar. (One dollar)

Click here for details about Bola de Nieve for Spanish
conversation instead of theory