Spanish for hotel and restaurant work: 200

A first season in a Spanish hotel or restaurant starts with hands that already know the work and a language running at roughly twice the speed you can read it. That gap is narrow and very specific. It is the room's own words, el office and la comanda and el cuadrante and un cubierto, ordinary Spanish holding down a second job that no dictionary lists. It is the answers that arrive before you have finished the question, at the door, across a bar, from a table that has been waiting. And it is the pass, which trades single words at volume and expects one back. This page is 200 of those sentences, The Vocabcord 200 for Hospitality, laid out in the order a shift runs: through the staff door, into the handover you take, out to the desk and the floor and the bar and the corridor of rooms, through the complaint and the allergy and the two minutes of small talk between tables, and back to the rota and the payslip at the end of it.

How to read this list

Three columns: the Spanish, the English, and a note. 111 of the 200 rows carry a note, and that column is where the season actually sits, so read it before you trust the English. Most of what catches a newcomer is an ordinary word doing a second job indoors. Fichar is to clock in. Librar is to have a day off. Cobrar is what staff do and pagar is what guests do, and putting those two the wrong way round is the first-week classic. Where the room and the textbook disagree, the row is the room's and the note says so.

Register splits by who is standing in front of you. Usted with guests, every time, including the ones your own age. Tú with colleagues from the first minute of the first shift, which is why ¿Me enseñas dónde está todo? and ¿Me cubres el turno? sit in tú while everything you say at a table sits in usted. Nobody announces the switch. Newcomers tend to err formal with staff, which builds a wall between you and the people you will share a locker room with for four months.

42 rows are marked as things you hear rather than things you say. Those are the expensive half. A sentence you produce can be rehearsed in a changing room at your own speed. A sentence you have to catch arrives at the guest's speed, in the guest's accent, while you are carrying two plates and counting a table. Give those rows more time than the ones you say.

A season does not leave you an evening to sit and memorise 200 phrases, and it does leave you plugging a phone in four or five times a day. Vocabcord plays one entry from a downloaded pack on each of those, the reasoning is in One word per charge: why a lesson would fail. Until this collection becomes a pack, print the page and take one table per shift.

Take it to the induction: the printable PDF or the CSV. A manager who wants the whole list on a staff-room wall can print it; quote a single row anywhere with a link back to this page.

This is a language list

This is a language list. It carries no food safety guidance, no legal or employment advice, and nothing on it tells anyone how to run a service. The allergy table is the clearest case. It gives you ¿Alguna alergia o intolerancia?, the answers a guest hands back, and Se lo pregunto a cocina y le confirmo, which is a sentence about who knows the answer. What a kitchen then does with that information is your employer's procedure and your own training, and this page has no view on either. The same line runs through the rest of it. We tell you that las hojas de reclamaciones are a real numbered form kept at the desk and that a guest may ask for them by name, and there we stop. We tell you that el finiquito is the paperwork closing a contract, and there we stop. Words, register, who says them to whom. Nothing about what to do next.

Clocking in: the uniform, the locker, who runs the shift

Get the door and the job title right before anything else. Soy el nuevo camarero is the sentence for Spain; the same season in Mexico would make you mesero and in Argentina mozo, so the word changes with the flight. Then ¿Dónde ficho?, because fichar is the verb the whole day hangs off, and the two ends of a shift are fichar la entrada and fichar la salida. The row that surprises people is ¿Dónde está el office?. Said ofis, it is the back room with the crockery, the coffee machine and the staff in it, and a third of your shift happens there. No dictionary lists it. Ask for it by name on the first morning and the rest of the building's geography follows.

The phrases that keep a complaint from becoming a refund

The second table is the one to read before your first service. ¡Cuidado, quema! is the loudest thing in it and the one you will hear before you ever say it: the plate is the subject, quema means it burns, and it goes up every time something hot leaves the pass. Perdona, no te he entendido is the line foreign staff get backwards. No te entiendo says you are lost in general, which invites the whole explanation again more slowly. No te he entendido points at the sentence just spoken, which is usually all you needed. The hardest thing to produce out loud in a new building is No lo sé, pregunto y te digo. Say it early, in front of people, so it costs less in August.

Taking over: what the shift before you leaves behind

Seven of these fifteen rows are answers, which tells you what a handover is. The habit that ambushes everyone is that tables stop being furniture. La seis lleva media hora esperando means the people at table six, and llevar plus a time is how Spanish says how long something has been going on. Falta cobrar la cuatro is the pair worth burning in, because cobrar is what you do and pagar is what they do. Ask ¿Cuántos cubiertos tenemos hoy? at the start of every shift. Un cubierto is a place setting and, from there, one diner booked in, and the answer to that question is the shape of the next eight hours.

Front desk: the check-in

A Spanish desk runs on one sentence shape: hacer plus an indirect object, offering a service. ¿Le hago una copia de la llave?, ¿le hago la factura?, ¿le hago el check-in ahora? Learn the shape and you can build the rest of the shift yourself. The row that catches English speakers is the room number. Doscientos catorce is how 214 is said, as one whole number, and reading it out digit by digit is an English habit that Spanish desks do not share. Close with Cualquier cosa, estamos en recepción, Spain's all-purpose offer of help. Translated word for word it sounds abrupt. In Spanish it is the warmest thing said across a desk all day.

Front desk: the bill and the check-out

Two words decide whether the end of a stay goes smoothly. ¿Quiere factura? asks about una factura, which carries a tax number and which a company claims back; un ticket is the ordinary receipt. Business guests ask for the first by name, and handing over the second means doing the whole thing twice. The other is el datáfono, the card terminal, which is Spain and nowhere else: a Latin American colleague will say el POS or la terminal and will not recognise datáfono at all. ¿Todo bien durante su estancia? closes the exchange, and estancia is a hotel stay here and a cattle ranch in Argentina.

On the floor: seating people and taking the order

¿Cuántos son? is two words at the door of every restaurant in Spain, and the textbook version with ustedes on the end is nobody's actual sentence. The trap here is Aquí tienen la carta. La carta is the menu you order from; el menú, in Spain, usually means the fixed-price weekday lunch, so the two words point at different things and at different prices. ¿Dentro o en la terraza? comes straight after the count, and in a Spanish summer that answer decides the whole meal. Keep ¿Les retiro los platos? for clearing: retirar is the polite verb, while quitar sounds like removing something from someone who still wanted it.

Behind the bar

The bar has its own verb for everything. Serving is poner, which is why the opening line is ¿Qué le pongo? and the answer comes back as Ponme una caña with no please in it and no rudeness either. Bringing drinks out is sacar, so Ahora mismo se lo saco. Paying for someone is invitar, which is why Invita la casa means the house is buying and te invito a una caña invites you nowhere. Prices take con at the decimal: Son ocho con cincuenta. Say ocho cincuenta if you prefer. Say ocho punto cinco and you have translated from English.

What a Spanish kitchen sounds like when it is busy

Eight of these thirteen rows are things you hear. A Spanish kitchen at half past two trades single words at volume, and ¡Oído! is the one you owe back: heard, understood, in hand. A pass that hears nothing assumes nothing was heard. ¡Marchando dos de merluza! launches a dish and is the first word most new hands learn standing still. ¡Detrás! is called out before you move, while the person in front of you still has time to hold still. And ¡Manos! calls for bodies at the pass, the only shout on this page that asks for people rather than for a thing. None of this is instruction in cookery. It is what the room sounds like, so that the room stops being noise.

Housekeeping: the room, the trolley, the linen

Housekeeping has the cleanest vocabulary in the building and the sharpest single trap. Knock and say Limpieza, ¿puedo pasar?: servicio de habitaciones is the food that arrives on a tray, so using it at a door asks for the wrong department. The trade's verb is hacer, hence ¿Le hago la habitación ahora? and habitaciones hechas on the sheet at the end. Esta habitación es de salida splits a morning in two, because de salida means a departed guest and the full clean, while de cliente is an occupied room and the short one. And el carro is the trolley in Spain, where in Mexico un carro is a car.

What the guest asks for, and what comes back at you

Ten of these fifteen rows are the guest talking, the highest share of any table here, and that is deliberate. The most useful verb in it is llevar: ¿Esto lleva carne? asks what is in a dish, and ¿qué lleva? is the question you will field most often in a Spanish dining room. La cuenta, cuando pueda is worth recognising instantly, because cuando pueda is how a Spanish table softens a request and it turns up far more often than por favor at that particular moment. Your own line on the other side is Lo siento, eso ya no queda. Quedar is what is left, and no queda closes the subject more gently than ya no hay.

Complaints, and the sentence that stops one escalating

The sentence that stops a complaint escalating is Tiene razón, ha tardado demasiado, and its force is in the order of the words. Tener razón hands the point over first; the explanation, if there is one, goes after it. We would learn that row before anything else in this table. The verb to get right is solucionar, which fixes a situation, against arreglar, which fixes an object. Le pido disculpas en nombre del restaurante is the formal apology, and en nombre del restaurante moves it off you and onto the house. ¿Quiere las hojas de reclamaciones? is here purely as vocabulary: a real numbered form kept at the desk, which a guest may ask for by name.

Allergies, diets and what people cannot eat

Eight of these twelve rows are the guest speaking, and they arrive in fixed shapes worth recognising whole. Soy celíaco uses soy where English says I have. Soy alérgico a los frutos secos uses frutos secos for nuts, with un cacahuete often named separately on top. ¿Tienen carta de alérgenos? asks for a specific printed list by its specific name. Your two lines are Lo anoto en la comanda and Se lo pregunto a cocina y le confirmo, where confirmar is doing exact work: it says the answer will come from someone who knows. What happens after that sentence is your employer's procedure, and this page stops at the sentence.

Small talk between tables

Eleven rows, and they are the ones that turn a job into a season. Todavía estoy con el español is the best of them: estar con algo means being in the middle of something, which sits lighter than estoy aprendiendo and leaves people room to help. Hablas muy bien español will arrive after about three words, and qué va is the modest reply. ¿Nos tomamos algo al salir? is the entire social life of a season in five words, because al salir means once the shift ends and needs nothing after it. And Que aproveche goes to strangers already eating as you walk past their table, which is a habit English does not have and Spain would miss.

The rota, the hours and the payslip

Nobody warns you about day two, when somebody asks when you are next off and librar turns out to be the verb the entire rota runs on. ¿Cuándo libro esta semana? is your side of it, and no beginners' course anywhere teaches the verb. ¿Dónde está el cuadrante? asks for the printed shift grid on the wall, while mi horario is your own hours inside it, so the wrong word gets you the wrong piece of paper. Trabajo turno partido is the row to understand before you sign anything: a morning, a long gap in the middle of the day, then an evening. And la nómina is both the payslip and the payroll, which is why ¿Cuándo cobramos? reaches for cobrar again, now meaning to be paid.

Breakages, mistakes and fetching the manager

Two shapes carry this table. He roto un plato is the blunt confession that takes the blame, while se me ha roto un plato hands it to the plate, and Spanish reaches for the second far more often, which is worth knowing before you decide how sorry to sound. The other is equivocarse de plus a bare noun: Me he equivocado de mesa, de plato, de día. Then ¿Cómo lo anulo?, because anular is what happens to a wrong line on the till and a supervisor code usually has to sign it off. The row we would put on a wall is Me he cortado, ¿dónde está el botiquín?. Learning botiquín before you need it is the whole argument for having a list at all.

Where this list runs out

200 phrases cover a shift and stop at the staff door. For the flat, the bank, the phone contract, the doctor and the first Sunday with nothing in it, the general list is The 500 Spanish phrases you actually need, built the same way and grouped by the situations of a day; it sits inside The Vocabcord 500 with five other languages. Behind both is the graded corpus already in the app, 4,710 Spanish entries from A1 to C2.

Two things we would change. The list leans towards the dining room and the bar. Front desk gets 27 rows and housekeeping 12, and a housekeeper starting a season in Benidorm deserves more than that. The other is the balance of hearing against saying: 42 answer rows is too few. Production rehearses in a changing room, comprehension does not, and comprehension is what actually stops people.

We are least sure about spread. El office, el cuadrante, la comanda and el datáfono travel across Spain, but a resort hotel in the Canaries, a chiringuito on the coast and a tasting-menu dining room in San Sebastián are three different vocabularies wearing the same uniform, and a house that says it differently is right about its own house. Latin American usage is noted in the rows where a worker would meet it, and Spain is the base throughout.

The list is on the website today. It becomes a pack you can hear once our voice budget is unblocked, and we would rather say nothing about when than guess.

Common questions

Do I need Spanish to work a season in Spain?

We cannot answer that for your job. Contracts, work permits and what a particular employer asks for are settled between you, them and the paperwork, and nothing on this page is an answer to any of it. What the list assumes is enough Spanish to hold a slow conversation, roughly A2 to B1, because the rows are real service speech rather than graded sentences. Plenty of seasons have been worked on less, and the second table is why.

Is this Spanish for Spain or for Latin America?

Spain is the base, because that is where most first seasons happen. Where a word would strand you elsewhere, the note gives the other form: camarero against mesero and mozo, el datáfono against el POS, el carro against el carrito, contraseña against clave, vale against dale and listo. Que aproveche and buen provecho are both here. Dialect and local slang are out of scope, and so is anything likely to have moved on by next season.

Usted or tú with guests in a Spanish restaurant?

Usted with guests, every time, whatever their age. Tú with colleagues from the first minute of the first shift, which is why ¿Me cubres el turno? and ¿Me enseñas dónde está todo? are in tú on this page while every line said at a table is in usted. Newcomers tend to err formal with staff, which builds a wall between you and the people you share a locker room with. With the encargado, start on usted and let them move it.

Which of these 200 phrases should I learn first?

Start with the second table, the sixteen that keep a bad minute from becoming a bad shift. ¡Cuidado, quema!, Perdona, no te he entendido, No lo sé, pregunto y te digo and Eso no lo llevo yo, aviso al encargado. Those four let you work a floor whose Spanish is running faster than yours, and the rest of the page gets easier once they are automatic.

How do I understand what Spanish guests say back to me?

That is the harder half, and it is why 42 rows here are marked as answers. Read them backwards: cover the English and see whether Somos cuatro, La cuenta, cuando pueda and Se ha acabado el pescado del día land before you have translated them. The three tables to drill for it are the handover, what the guest asks for, and the kitchen, which between them hold 25 of the 42.