Common Spanish Work Phrases

Spanish is a very diverse language to speak. The kind of interaction that you can do using the Spanish language is quite unlike that of the English language. There are a few basic rules concerned with each type of sentence that has to be followed. The positioning and order of saying things is contextual and requires some experience before you can speak with courage without doing any mistakes. Let us look at some of the basic phrases and rules that have to be followed when conversing in Spanish at the work space with a few examples.

Some Basic Phrases

If we take a look at some of the basic phrases given below, we would notice that Spanish has both formal and informal ways of putting things together. There are more meanings than one for a few words in Spanish like any other language. The informal words are used when speaking to relatives or friends, but when it comes to speaking with your colleagues in the office, extra care has to be taken to speak the formal tongue so as to not offend anyone. There are two ways in which you can say the word “you” in Spanish, one is considered professional and the other is considered informal, therefore carful consideration has to be given when speaking at the workplace in Spanish.

There are also a few differences that according to the gender of the person with whom you are speaking with. The words change to “a” from “o” when you are referring to a woman to if the words are spoken by a woman.

Pronunciation

In the workplace pronunciation of words play a great role. Just like in English the Spanish language too contain certain words that are stressed and certain words that are spoken lightly. If a word ends with a consonant, except in the case of s or n, the stress is given on the last syllable. If a word is a vowel then the stress given to the second to the last syllable of the word. If a word is not fit into any of the above rules then we would have to write an accent over that particular word like in the case of el pájaro which means a bird in Spanish. The difference becomes even more important when pronouncing some of the words that are spoken in the day to day office work.

Using Subject Pronouns

The word Vostoros is used in the Spanish language when speaking to more than a single person at a time, with the clause being that you know the group of people with whom you are having the conversation with. This plays an important role to anyone trying to use Spanish at their workplace. This one too has both female and masculine variant, therefore, care has to be taken while trying to address a group with the knowledge that the words to be used are different depending on the gender of the people listening to you. Nostras or vosotras is used when referring to a group of females, sometimes ellas is also used. Ustedes is normally used as a non gender based way of referring to a group of people; this is usually practiced in most of the Spanish speaking countries and is critical in business meeting and employee briefings. Uds is also used in many of the Latin American countries and Mexico.

Numbers / Ordinals

More often than not you would have to stumble upon numbers while at your workplace, it becomes very important to know to at least understand some of the Spanish numbers when dealing with employees or associates who speak Spanish at the workplace. In Spanish you just say cien for 100, but if it is anything more than 100 we add a ciento, therefore, we would have ciento uno for 101 and so on. If in case you are trying to pronounce a number such as 156 you would be saying ciento cincuenta y seis, there are also other methods to spell these numbers and these are shorter than the previous one. You could use diecisiete, dieciocho and diecinueve to pronounce 17, 18 and 19 so this can be suffixed with the other number and is more or less pronounced the same way.

Spanish is a relatively easy language to learn, and these terms and suggestions should get you going on your workplace.