Dónde está? or ¿Dónde hay?

WHICH TO USE WHEN ASKING WHERE SOMETHING IS

In a previous lesson on Spanish question words we discovered the word for "where?": ¿Dónde?

But if you're hanging out in a new town and you're looking to see the sights, there's an extra little trick to asking where something is, and it involves knowing when to use the verb estar and when to use the verb haber instead.

¿Dónde está ______?
¿Dónde hay ______?

Both of these mean "where is ______?" but they're used in slightly different situations.

See if you can spot the difference here:

Play

¿Dónde está la cantina de Moe?

Where is Moe's tavern?
(Literally: Where is the tavern of Moe?)

Play

¿Dónde hay un policía?

Where is a police officer?

In the first example you're looking for a specific place (Moe's tavern). In the second example you're looking for a police officer: just any police officer will do.

You can tell this because in the first example we've used the definite article "la" (the), while the second sentence uses the indefinite article "un" (a).

You'll use ¿Dónde está...? any time you'd normally say "Where is the...?", and you'll use ¿Dónde hay...? when you'd say "Where is a...?"