Breakdown of Mi escritorio está muy organizado hoy, pero ayer estaba completamente desordenado.
Questions & Answers about Mi escritorio está muy organizado hoy, pero ayer estaba completamente desordenado.
Spanish normally uses estar with adjectives that describe a temporary state or condition, especially physical order/chaos:
- Mi escritorio está muy organizado hoy → it is currently in an organized state.
- …pero ayer estaba completamente desordenado → it was in a messy state yesterday.
Using ser would sound wrong or change the meaning:
- Mi escritorio es organizado is unusual; it sounds like saying the desk has an inherent personality of being organized.
- Ayer fue organizado would usually be understood as a passive construction (“it was organized [by someone] yesterday”) rather than “it was organized (tidy).”
So: ser = what something is like by nature; estar = the state it is in, especially when it can change (tidy/messy, open/closed, clean/dirty, etc.).
Estaba is the imperfect past tense. It is used to describe a state in the past without focusing on its beginning or end:
- Ayer estaba completamente desordenado = Yesterday it was (in general) completely messy.
If you said:
- Ayer estuvo completamente desordenado, it would be grammatically correct, but it slightly emphasizes the finished period when it was messy, as a more bounded episode. In everyday contrast like today vs yesterday, speakers usually prefer the imperfect: estaba.
So here the focus is just on “how it was yesterday,” not on a completed event of “being messy.”
In Latin American Spanish:
- escritorio = a desk where you work or study, often with drawers or shelves (office desk, study desk).
- mesa = a table in general (dining table, coffee table, kitchen table, etc.).
So Mi escritorio está muy organizado means “My desk is very organized.”
If you said Mi mesa está muy organizada, that would more likely refer to a dining/kitchen table or some other type of table.
Yes. Organizado is originally a past participle (from organizar), but in this sentence it functions as an adjective describing the state of the desk.
As an adjective, it must agree with the noun:
- Mi escritorio está muy organizado (masculine singular).
- Mi mesa está muy organizada (feminine singular).
- Mis escritorios están muy organizados (masculine plural).
- Mis cosas están muy organizadas (feminine plural).
The same applies to desordenado / desordenada / desordenados / desordenadas.
Because:
- muy modifies adjectives and adverbs.
- mucho modifies nouns and verbs.
So:
- muy organizado = very organized (correct: adjective).
- muy desordenado = very messy (correct).
But:
- mucha organización = a lot of organization (noun).
- trabaja mucho = he works a lot (verb).
Mucho organizado is incorrect in standard Spanish.
Yes, but the nuance changes slightly:
- muy organizado = very organized → emphasizes degree (how organized it is).
- bien organizado = well organized → emphasizes quality (organized in an effective, proper way).
Both are natural:
- Mi escritorio está muy organizado hoy.
- Mi escritorio está bien organizado hoy.
The original just chooses to stress the degree (“very”).
Yes. Both are correct:
- Mi escritorio está muy organizado hoy.
- Hoy mi escritorio está muy organizado.
In Spanish, adverbs of time like hoy and ayer are quite flexible:
- At the beginning: adds a little emphasis to the time (Today, as for today…).
- At the end: very common neutral position.
The sentence you have is a perfectly natural word order; moving hoy to the front is also fine.
Pero is the general word for “but” and is used to contrast two statements:
- Mi escritorio está muy organizado hoy, pero ayer estaba completamente desordenado.
Sino means “but rather / but instead” and is used only after a negation to correct what comes before:
- No está desordenado, sino organizado.
(It’s not messy, but rather organized.)
In your sentence, the first part is affirmative (“is very organized today”), so pero is the right conjunction. You cannot use sino there.
They are close, but there’s a nuance:
- desordenado: physically messy, untidy. Very common for rooms, desks, houses, clothes, etc.
- desorganizado: poorly organized, badly structured; often used for systems, schedules, people’s habits (“He is a disorganized person,” “a disorganized company”).
For a desk:
- completamente desordenado sounds like papers everywhere, things out of place.
- completamente desorganizado would focus more on lack of system (no filing, no structure), though it’s still understandable.
In everyday speech about how messy a desk looks, desordenado is the most natural.
Both are possible:
- muy desordenado = very messy (strong degree).
- completamente desordenado = completely / totally messy, emphasizing the idea of 100% messiness.
Using completamente adds the idea of totally, entirely and also avoids repetition of muy from the first part of the sentence. Stylistically, it sounds a bit stronger and more expressive.
Because pero is joining two complete clauses:
- Mi escritorio está muy organizado hoy
- [Mi escritorio] ayer estaba completamente desordenado
In Spanish, it is standard to put a comma before pero when it links two main clauses:
- ..., pero ...
So the comma follows normal punctuation rules, just like in English “…, but …”.
You change the adjectives to agree with the noun:
Feminine singular (e.g. mesa):
- Mi mesa está muy organizada hoy, pero ayer estaba completamente desordenada.
Masculine plural (e.g. escritorios):
- Mis escritorios están muy organizados hoy, pero ayer estaban completamente desordenados.
Feminine plural (e.g. cosas):
- Mis cosas están muy organizadas hoy, pero ayer estaban completamente desordenadas.
Agreement of gender and number is mandatory in Spanish.
Yes, but the meaning shifts slightly:
- Mi escritorio está muy organizado hoy = My desk is very organized today (clearly yours).
- El escritorio está muy organizado hoy = The desk is very organized today (could be understood as the main/only desk in the context, not necessarily owned by the speaker).
Using mi explicitly marks possession. In contexts where it’s obvious whose desk it is, you might hear just El escritorio…, but adding mi makes it clear you’re talking about your own.