Spanish at work: your first week

A workplace arrives as a sequence. First an hour of reception desks and names you lose at once. Then a meeting at a speed no lesson prepared you for. Then the afternoon you have to tell somebody the work will be late. A phrasebook sorts all of that by topic. This page runs the week in the order it happens and gives you the sentence for each moment. Every Spanish row is quoted from the work lane of our Spanish collection, 136 phrases inside The Vocabcord 500, plus the survive-lane rows you need before lunch on day one.

Day one, the first hour

Say your own sentence before anybody asks for it. Hola, soy nuevo. covers a reception desk, a gate and a kitchen door, and its note carries what the translation drops: a woman says nueva. When somebody is expecting you, name them: Vengo a ver a la señora García.

After that the hour is logistics, and the questions are short because your Spanish is. ¿Dónde ficho? asks where you clock in, and since 2019 Spanish employers have had to record everybody's hours, so somebody in the building owns the answer. ¿Cuál es mi turno? belongs to anybody whose week is a rota. We wrote the work lane for wards and warehouses as well as offices, which is why ¿Hay que llevar casco? sits a few rows from ¿Cuál es mi correo de empresa?

Then the row that shapes the week. ¿Vamos a tomar un café? is the mid-morning break, where a Spanish team talks about everything the meeting did not. Go even when you follow a quarter of it.

The first meeting

No real meeting moves at the speed of a lesson. Expect to follow the topic and lose the detail. Carry two rows for slowing the room: ¿Puedes hablar más despacio? is the one to spend early, and Perdón, ¿puedes repetir? is for after. Both are tú, and so is every other row in the meetings section: the stranger you called usted at reception yesterday is a colleague this morning.

Interrupting is the part nobody teaches. ¿Puedo decir algo? opens a gap without a struggle for it. The row to learn properly is Tengo una duda. Duda reaches from a word you missed to a decision you think is wrong, and asks for clarification without blaming the speaker. When the room moves on and you are still writing, Un momento, lo apunto. buys the seconds in the open.

Agreement is cheap in a second language and disagreement is expensive, so keep No estoy de acuerdo. plain and let your tone do the softening. On a call you will hear Tienes el micro apagado. long before you have to say it.

Messages and email

Spanish work email runs warmer and shorter than the business-letter version. Buenos días a todos. opens a message to a team and Un saludo. closes nearly everything you send. Quedo a la espera de su respuesta. is the formal close a course teaches first and you keep for clients.

In Te escribo por lo de la factura. the useful part is lo de, which attaches to any subject both sides already have in mind: lo del contrato, lo de ayer. ¿Me pones en copia? matters because poner en copia is what people say aloud, while cc stays something you only write.

Then the message you send first. Running late is a chat message, and it is short: Llego cinco minutos tarde. goes out while you are still moving. Perdona por el retraso. covers a late reply too, and its note compresses the register system into one letter: perdona to a colleague, perdone to a customer.

Asking for help, and admitting you did not understand

These are the rows we would hand a newcomer first, from two places. The repair kit sits in the survive lane, because it works on a landlord as well as a team lead. ¿Cómo? on its own is the polite ask for a repeat, where a bare ¿qué? sounds curt. ¿Me lo puede escribir? settles an address or a surname in one move. Keep ¿Me explico? for your own turn: it asks whether you are making sense, where ¿me entiende? points at the listener.

The work rows go further, into what new employees avoid for a fortnight. ¿Me lo puedes explicar otra vez? asks for a second explanation and shows you heard the first. ¿Lo estoy haciendo bien? catches an error while it is still cheap, so spend it at the third repetition of a task rather than the thirtieth.

Owning a mistake in a language you are still assembling feels heavier, so have the words ready in advance. Creo que me he equivocado. and Ha sido culpa mía. are both ordinary in a Spanish office. Follow either with Lo arreglo ahora mismo. and the conversation is finished. This section sits ahead of the deadline rows on purpose: owning the problem early is what earns the extra day.

Deadlines, and the request you cannot take

The word is plazo. ¿Cuál es el plazo? covers the deadline and the time you are given, while fecha límite names the date. Ask it when the work is handed to you, with ¿Es prioritario? behind it: those two answers tell you what to put down.

Refusing at work rarely uses the word no. Spanish keeps the refusal in the present and shrinks it to today, so Hoy no puedo. declines this afternoon and leaves next week open. No me va a dar tiempo. reports the arithmetic of your week rather than your willingness. When work is already yours and slipping, ¿Me puedes dar un día más? asks for the smallest thing that would fix it.

Two rows here concern your absence and swap badly. Estoy de baja. is official sick leave with a doctor behind it, which makes it wrong for a rough morning; estoy malo is the one you text at seven. Close with the two words that end a task, a question and an argument: Ya está.

Money, hours and who to ask

Pay questions run through cobrar. ¿Cuándo se cobra? asks when the money lands and ¿Cuánto se cobra? what the job pays; ganar also covers earning a wage. ¿Es bruto o neto? belongs after any figure anybody says out loud.

La nómina is the payslip and the payroll at once, so Necesito la nómina. is a sentence you repeat to a bank and a landlord for months afterwards. Un justificante proves where you were, and Necesito un justificante. is said at a clinic reception. Las dietas are per-diem meal and travel allowances, so ¿Hay dietas? has nothing to do with eating less.

Before a pen appears, use ¿Es un contrato indefinido? Indefinido is permanent and temporal is a fixed term with an end date, and the answer shapes a mortgage application and a notice period. Who to ask is a row you already have from day one: ¿Con quién tengo que hablar? Two of these rows stay in usted, ¿Me firma esto? and ¿Le doy mi número de cuenta? That is a clue about who you say them to.

Tú, usted, and the sentence that switches them

The collection answers this before the prose does. In the first-day section exactly one row addresses somebody as usted: ¿Me puede enseñar la oficina? It goes to a person holding a list with your name on it. The rows for the colleague at the next desk are already tú: ¿De qué te encargas? By the meetings section, usted has gone from the lane entirely. Most Spanish offices run on tú from the first morning, the boss included.

This is the line to memorise cold. ¿Nos tuteamos? proposes tú between the two of you. Ask it once, early, of whoever you work beside. From the other direction you will hear Puedes tutearme. That is somebody senior releasing you from being careful.

Usted survives in three places. Customers keep it until they drop it themselves. Anyone in an official chair keeps it, which is why ¿Le doy mi número de cuenta? is phrased as it is. Writing holds on longest: a client email can close with Quedo a la espera de su respuesta. an hour after a call that ran on tú throughout. If you cannot read somebody, open in usted and follow what comes back.

What this page cannot do for you

It cannot get you the job: there is no interview language here, because an interview is a performance in a language you are still assembling, and 54 rows will not carry it. The closest the collection comes is Quiero pedir un aumento. That conversation is for a year in.

Your trade is missing too. A ward, a kitchen and a finance team each run on a couple of hundred words this page does not know, and those are the words your colleagues use most. The fix is dull: write down the nouns you hear twice, and ask ¿Cómo se dice esto en español? for the objects you can point at.

Local jargon is the same problem: every company invents its own and it is invisible from outside. Timing we are least sure how to teach at all, because the same refusal reads differently at speed and said flat. If we rebuilt the work lane we would add the reply. You ask for the extra day, your manager answers, and that second turn is where a beginner runs out of Spanish.

Making it stick

Take the eight rows for the moment you walk into tomorrow and say them aloud until your mouth knows them. Rereading a table does little for what fails in a real meeting, which is retrieval under mild panic.

The app is the same idea at a smaller scale. One phrase plays when the phone goes on the charger: the Spanish, a pause, the English, a pause, the Spanish again, once the Shortcuts automation is set up and the platform allows it through. Which phrase you hear comes from a weighted decay sampler that favours entries you have not heard recently, and it makes no claim about what you remember. The reasoning is in One word per charge.

These collections are pages first and become app packs with text-to-speech audio later, no date promised. Until then, print the section closest to your week, or read the full list in The 500 Spanish phrases you actually need.

Common questions

How do you say you don't understand in a Spanish meeting?

In a meeting, use Perdón, ¿puedes repetir? It is the tú version colleagues use. If the problem is speed rather than one word, ¿Puedes hablar más despacio? is the earlier and better move. For a whole explanation, ask ¿Me lo puedes explicar otra vez?

Is it tú or usted at work in Spain?

Tú, in most offices, from the first morning and including the boss. The sentence that settles it is ¿Nos tuteamos? Ask it once and early. Usted stays for customers, for anyone in an official chair and for writing outside your team, where Quedo a la espera de su respuesta. is still normal.

How do you ask for time off in Spanish?

Say Quiero pedir vacaciones. Check the number first with ¿Cuántos días de vacaciones tengo? Sick leave is different: Estoy de baja. means official leave with a doctor's note behind it, while estoy malo is what you text on a bad morning.

How do you tell your boss you will be late in Spanish?

Send it while you are still moving. Llego cinco minutos tarde. is the entire message and Estoy en camino. covers the rest. When a deadline slips instead of a train, Voy con retraso. reports it.

How do you end a work email in Spanish?

Un saludo. ends nearly everything, even to people you have never met. Atentamente belongs on formal letters to institutions. To a colleague, Cualquier cosa, me dices. is friendlier than any sign-off a course will teach you.