Are there any differences between este and éste?
My Spanish teacher told me that este is an adjective and éste is a pronoun, but I've seen a lot of books that don't have a strict distinction between the two words.

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What your teacher told you is correct.

In the case of the adjective, it works like "this": This car -> Este carro (the reason why it is called an adjective is because it specifies the object "this" car, not any other.

In the case of the pronoun, the current rules have removed the accent. That may be the reason you don't find information about this case. There is still discussion about removing the accent because in some special cases there may be confusion in the meaning.

Llamaron a éste cretino. (they called the man a cretin) (here "éste" is a pronoun) (the point is that if you removed the accent, there is no way to know which of the two sentences you are referring to)

Llamaron a este cretino. (they called this cretin) (here "este" is an adjective)/

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éste can be used as pronoun and este can be used as adjective

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Hello. Yes, your spanish teacher was right. Few years ago the words "éste" and "este" had an accent to make a difference between a demonstrative pronoun and a determinant. That means that one is like "poiniting" something or someone that is really near; the other is like the "topic" that you are talking about.

Currently, the RAE (Real Academia de la Lengua) said that this two words do not have any writing difference. You have to understand the difference by the context.

As an extra point, the word "este" also means east, so it's also a noun.
I hope this will be helpful.
You ca read some extra information here: https://cvc.cervantes.es/lengua/alhabla/museo_horrores/museo_023.htm

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Tanto tu profesor como Antonio tienen razón. Algunos ejemplos:
Esta casa es mía. Ésta es mi casa.
¿Es éste tu coche? No, éste es el coche de Juan.

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Hi Andrés!

There's no different between both words. If you use it like a possessive pronoun the current rule says that you don't need to put a tilde in the first "e" (este), just write "este es mi coche" or "este es mi hermano", "estos son mis amigos" etc.
Another different word is Este, when you are talking about the north, south, east (EAST) or west.

I hope I was able to help you! (and sorry for my bad English! )