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Lesson 07
Notes
In this edition:
talking about
your job; saying
where you
work; saying if
you like your
work or not.
Welcome to Coffee Break Spanish, the podcast One very important thing to consider when
aimed at independent learners of Spanish. In talking about professions in Spanish is that you
Coffee Break Spanish we’ll be guiding you don’t need the word for “a”, so note that you
through the basics of the Spanish language and don’t say soy UN profesor.
helping you to learn to communicate in Spain
and Spanish-speaking countries. Many professions in Spanish have different
versions for masculine and feminine forms:
In lesson 07 you’re going to be learning to talk
about your job. You’ll reuse a word we learned in profesor
earlier lessons, soy, to say what your occupation teacher (m)
is. You’ll also learn how to describe your job by
saying where you work, and whether you like profesora
your job or not. teacher (f)
Some words, however, have only one form:
Soy profesor...
estudiante
To say “I am a ...” you use the same word you student (m)
used to talk about where you’re from. If soy de
España means “I am from Spain”, the word soy is estudiante
one way of saying “I am” in Spanish. student (f)
Look at the following phrase: Here is a list of the words covered in the main
podcast for various occupations. Note that where
soy profesor feminine and masculine forms exist they are
I am a teacher listed with o/a endings.
1
ingeniero/a There is also a formal version of this which
follows the same patterns as all other verbal
engineer
phrases we’ve learned so far:
abogado/a
¿en qué trabaja usted?
lawyer
what do you work as? (for)
fontanero/a
To answer the question you can use one of the
plumber phrases above, eg. soy profesor; soy estudiante, etc.
ama de casa
housewife
I work in an office
In all of the above examples you can combine It’s not possible to cover every possibility for
the word with soy to say “I am a...” eg.: listeners in terms of occupations. There are some
bonus items of vocabulary listed at the end of
soy ingeniero this podcast. Sometimes it may be easier to
I am an engineer describe where you work: translating “I am a
legal secretary” or “I am a consultant
neurologist” into Spanish may be quite
See below in the “Bonus Vocabulary” section for challenging, but you could alternatively say “I
more words relating to occupations. work in an office” or “I work in a hospital”!
2
me gusta mi trabajo Jorge:
Hola. ¿Qué tal?
I like my job Eva: Bien, gracias. Me llamo Eva.
Jorge:
Soy Jorge. Soy de Barcelona.
¿Eres de aquí?
no me gusta mi trabajo
Eva:
No, no soy de aquí. Yo soy de
I don’t like my job
Burgos.
Jorge:
Muy bien. ¿En qué trabajas?
Remember you can combine this with the word Eva:
Soy ingeniera. Y tú, ¿en qué
for “yes”, sí or “no”, no: trabajas?
Jorge: Trabajo en una oficina. No me
gusta mi trabajo.
sí, me gusta mi trabajo Eva:
¡Qué pena!
yes, I like my job
no, no me gusta mi trabajo
Below is a translation of the above dialogue to
no, I don’t like my job help you.
3
CoffeeBreakSpanish: Lesson 07 - Key Vocabulary
soy... I am...
profesor / profesora teacher
estudiante student
ingeniero / ingeniera engineer
abogado / abogada lawyer
fontanero / fontanera plumber
ama de casa housewife
¿eres profesor? are you a teacher? (informal)
¿es usted profesor? are you a teacher? (formal)
¿en qué trabajas? what do you work as? (inf)
¿en qué trabaja usted? what do you work as? (for)
trabajo I work
no trabajo I don’t work
trabajo en una tienda I work in a shop
una fábrica factory
una oficina office
un restaurante restaurant
un hospital hospital
me gusta... I like...
me gusta mi trabajo I like my job
no me gusta mi trabajo I don’t like my job
¿te gusta tu trabajo? do you like your job? (inf)
estoy jubilado/a I’m retired
¡qué pena! what a shame!
4
enfermero / enfermera nurse
granjero / granjera farmer
hombre de negocios business man
mujer de negocios business woman
mecánico / mecánica mechanic
médico / médica doctor
peluquero / peluquera hairdresser
piloto / pilota pilot
secretario / secretaria secretary
técnico / técnica technician
estoy desempleado / desempleada I’m unemployed / out of work
*dentista: this is one of those rare Spanish words which has a masculine form ending in -a. If you’re a
male dentist then you would say soy dentista. Exactly the same form is used for female dentists.
There are obviously lots more jobs we could list. This collection of words and phrases is intended to
provide a basic list of vocabulary. If you’d like some help describing your job, visit the Forum at http://
www.coffeebreakspanish.com and post a question. We’ll answer your question there and the other users
of CBS will benefit from the answer too!
CoffeeBreakSpanish.com
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