<font color=skyblue>My father-in-law is trying to learn Spanish to go to Argentina, working with the Employment Commission down there. Anyway, he came across a problem with this computer program that he has that is teaching him the language. It says that you should use "estar" in reference to marriage, but I say that is "ser".

It would appear to me that anyone that would use "estoy casado" would be saying this for one of two reasons:

1. Uneducated on proper grammer.
2. Does not like the marriage, and terms the relation as a "ball and chain".


Will a native speaker please help me with this?</font>

I've just come back after a year of studying Spanish in Spain, so I'm not native, but pretty o.k. on the knowledge level.
Anyway, both are actually possible as far as the spanish I met are concerned. Most people, to my knowledge, actually use "estar",.. although the church sometimes favores "ser" for the obvious reasons that the verb is usually associated with a permanent state of "to be".
however
Ser is also gramatically used as "voz pasiva" when a "participio" follows, compare:
-Esta arrestado ( He is arrested, the result of the action "arrestar" )
-es arrestado ( he is [being] arrested,..as in the action )

The voz pasiva is rarely used, except in formal language ( think newspapers and the like )... and using "ser" with a participio sounds very strange to a spaniard, he would never use the construction in a normal conversation ( instead, he would resort to an impersonal construction such as: "they arrested him".
why am i explaining this ?

Because it explains the fact that in general people use "estar" with the participio "casado": it sounds better [img]smile.gif[/img]

There is however a difference in saying 'ser' or 'estar' casado, if you want to be gramatically perfect:
when you say "es casado/ casada" a spaniard will take that as you saying " a married man/woman". We divide him into a group ( same as an american man / woman ).
If we use "estar" we are more describing him, it's a characteristic that's a result of a change, the result of an action.
It's basically more personal, you'd be able to add " he is married to X, since ... etc. "

It's really hard to explain :(
Es casado, is more of a state, a fact ... the answer to the question if you're single, married, widow etc. would be : " soy casado", to express that you belong to the category "married people".

Esta casado, is more of a personal descripcion. F.e. you know the guy and say about him that he's married.

It's a little easier explaining the details in Spanish, so here's a spanish site I used to see if what I was writing down was actually correct.

The easy rule:
When you're filling in forms, use "Ser",..
When you're talking about someone, use "Estar"

Should work out most of the time [img]smile.gif[/img]

<font color=skyblue>Gracias muchisimo, compa!</font>

Sorry, I enjoy the Mexican Slang.

daan, that flew WAY over my head, and I lived in Venezuela for almost four years! :D

I've the disadvantage, I suppose of not really understanding why something is right or wrong, only that it is...

Es casado sounds like someone trying to sound smart when they're not.

Only two phrases you need in Spanish
Uno cerbeza por favor.
Gracias.

Yup, works great. :D
I go to Mexico every year, and that's all the spanish I know. [img]smile.gif[/img]

LoL, yeah .. that's what happens when you learn a language from scratch.
I studied Spanish a year in order to be able to pass the hardest oficial government exam,.. which is amazingly dificult ( believe it or not, a large part of the natives would fail ).
It's a completely different approach than the one the natives have,.. mine is completely gramatical, their's is intuition. I actually had spanish people telling me that I didnt need to know the subjuntivo since no-one ever used that, and actually using the subjuntivo four or five times themselves while explaining -without them even realizing it-.
Simple words such as Tenedor are to me a special conjugation of the verb "tener" (to have), with the -dor transforming the meaning to "grabber/ something that -has-" ... to a spaniard it just means -fork-.

The most amazing thing was when I learned that several female words in spanish sometimes have a male article. This happens with words that begin with -A or -Ha and have the accent on that beginning ( the A-sound is pronounced strongest ).
To prevent the acoustic chaos (repetition of the -A- ) from trying to pronounce " La Agua, or La Hada", you change it to: El Agua, or El hada.
The word does still remain female though, meaning that everything that adapts to the word, does so in a female way: El agua fria.
Whenever it is possible, the female-side of the word pops out:
-Este agua ? ( Este has to be male to avoid chaos ) ...
*No, esta. ( by just saying "esta" and leaving out agua, as context will fill that in, you give it the freedom to change to female ).

However, a lot of Spanish people dont realize this at all .. and trying to explain this to them is funny as hell, because they dont get it ... But somehow still manage to do the gender-swapping-trick flawlessly, sometimes treating the word as female, sometimes as male, without realizing it [img]smile.gif[/img]

It actually changed my way of looking at any language ( my own as well ) dramatically. Studying Spanish is great :D
( though its agonizing to not be able to write a -Curiculum Vitae- in my own language, but excelling at it in Spanish,... which doesnt help me at all now that I'm back :( )

<font color=skyblue>Very informative, daan. Thanks again.

By the way, although I am fluent in Mexican Spanish, my Spanish 301 teacher failed me because I do not speak Spanish from "Spain". This is my opinion, but I know that people from Spain look at people from Mexico as savages of the language. </font>

The only thing I know about mexicans is that you shouldnt ever ask where to "take" (coger) the bus, 'cause they'll tell you the best place would be at the back, through the exhaust [img]tongue.gif[/img]

I studied in Sevilla, and the local accent there is also considered as an insult to Spanish, a rude accent for peasants. So just to be on the safe side, the last month I had to dump the accent I tried so hard to learn, to improve my chances for the exam :(

But aside from the accents, I think mexican and spanish differ a little anyway,.. I was told that if I wanted to go to mexico, taking a course there would be better, as some words dont exist in Spain's Spanish,.. and the grammar is different at certain points as well..

Anyway, the Mexican accent takes a steady 2nd place, behind my personal favourite, the Cuban-accent.
Helping you was my pleasure, as I'm struggling to keep my newly acquired language alive now that I'm back :D
So thank you !

Last time I was in Spain (couple months ago) the people were horribly stubborn about not understanding me, and I pass for a native Venezuelan on the telephone (blonde/blue hurt me in person)!

Having watched a couple Spanish movies -- dear God, Elena Anaya is so unbearably hot -- and actually payed attention to /how/ they were saying things and not just /what/ they were saying, I've come to realize that a Venezuelan accent must sound rather like someone from Alabama talking to an Oxford professor :D

(BTW I hadn't realized most everything you're mentioning... that bit about some girl words actually being guys I can recognize logically as being true, but if I were to think about it I'd definitely screw things up [img]tongue.gif[/img] to say nothing about all that voz pasiva stuff...)