What is the easiest way to understand ir and estar in Spanish?

Question

Past of estar is "fui", right? so it is hard to tell from verb "ir"....and ser and estar, as 2 "to be" verbs is not easy. Need easy tips to remember how to use these.

Answer 1

Yes ir is: fui fuiste fue fuimos fuisteis fueron

estar: estuve estuviste estuvo estuvimos estuvisteis estuvieron

best thing is to remember the root of each then memorize the stem.

Answer 2

when appearing in the past tense, ir will look like this:

Yo fui a la escuela (I went to the school)
It is always followed by "a". "a" means "to"; it tells where you were going.

Estar will never have the "a" after it.

To remember the difference between ser and estar, try this little rhyme:
How you feel and where you are, the verb to use is estar.

Ser is only used to describe permanent things that will not change, like the color of your eyes or skin.

Answer 3

Let me see if I can explain:
"estar" it is to be somewhere - in some place or to be in a situation like to be sick or sth. It is a state verb we say.
"ser" is sth related to personality, or to have some kind of job like being an jornalist.
"ir" is to go somewhere. Like the verb TO GO. What happens is that the past version of this verb in the fist person is just like the past version of the verb "ser" but never from "estar" and the through the context you will notice it right away.