Learn how to talk about your occupation
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| ¡Hola! Soy Brenda Romaniello, tu profesora de español. |
| Hello and welcome! My name is Brenda Romaniello, and I’m your Spanish teacher. |
| Today, we’re going to have a look at how to talk about occupations in Spanish. We’re going to start with some vocabularies, so I would like you to repeat after me. |
| Estudiante |
| Estudiante |
| Policía |
| Policía |
| Barista |
| Barista |
| Oficinista |
| Oficinista |
| Chef |
| Chef |
| Contador |
| Contador |
| And the feminino form is going to be: |
| Contadora |
| Contadora |
| Maestro is a “male teacher.” |
| Maestro |
| Maestra |
| Maestra is a “female teacher.” |
| Doctor |
| Doctor |
| Doctora |
| Doctora |
| Again, so, doctor is a “male doctor.” |
| “Female doctor,” doctora. |
| Ingeniero |
| Ingeniero |
| Ingeniera |
| Ingeniera |
| Engineer, male and female engineer. |
| Abogado |
| Abogado |
| Abogada |
| Abogada |
| Investigador |
| Investigador |
| Investigadora |
| Investigadora |
| And they mean “researcher,” so researcher. |
| A “male researcher” is going to be investigador. |
| A “female researcher” is going to be investigadora. |
| Bombero |
| Bombero |
| Bombera |
| Bombera |
| This is for “firefighter.” |
| Enfermero |
| Enfermero |
| And the female form: |
| Enfermera |
| Enfermera |
| The last one: |
| Empleado de banco |
| Empleado de banco |
| And the feminino form is going to be: |
| Empleada de banco |
| Empleada de banco |
| ¡Muy bien! |
| Very good job! |
| So, let’s have a look. Let’s talk about these occupations that we have in Spanish here in the vocabulary table. And when you notice that we haven’t given you the option of- two options, yes, like as you can see on these ones, it’s because they are neutral in gender. That means that we are going to use these occupations for a man and a woman, right? |
| So, estudiante is neutral. We say a female and a male estudiante, it’s the same, estudiante. So a female and a male student is estudiante. |
| And, as you can see, when we go to contador and contadora, we start to have a form, a different word for the masculino form and the feminino form. So, if you’re a man, you have to say contador for “accountant,” and if you’re a woman, you have to say contadora. |
| And notice that when we have that occupation ending in R, we’re just simply going to add an A to form the feminino form. Can you see in doctor as well, the feminino is doctora? |
| And in other cases such as maestro or ingeniero or abogado, etc., you can see that we just simply replace the O for the masculino form and replace it with an A to form the occupation in the feminino form. |
| Maestro |
| Maestra |
| Ingeniero |
| Ingeniera |
| Abogado |
| Abogada |
| Okay. |
| Bombero |
| Bombera |
| Etc., etc. |
| Okay. So, the other thing that I want to point out is that empleado de banco and empleada de banco, the word that is changing is the employee, right? Banco stays the same because banco means “bank,” okay? So, it’s the empleado that changes to empleada in the feminino form. |
| Now, let’s have a look at this vocabulary in context in a conversation. Let’s say that two neighbors are getting to know each other a little bit better and one of the neighbors is a woman and she’s a young woman. |
| The neighbor asked: |
| ¿Eres maestra? |
| ¿Eres maestra? |
| No, no soy maestra. Soy estudiante. |
| No, no soy maestra. Soy estudiante. |
| So, as you can see here, we can use this question, eres plus the occupation to ask for someone about their occupation, yes. |
| ¿Eres doctor? |
| ¿Eres doctora? |
| ¿Eres bombero? |
| ¿Eres bombera? |
| ¿Eres estudiante? |
| ¿Eres chef? |
| Etc., etc. |
| Let’s have a look at some other examples for the answers. |
| So, you can say: |
| No, no soy bombero. |
| No, no soy bombero. Soy policía. |
| No, no soy contadora. Soy abogada. |
| No, no soy contadora. Soy abogada. |
| As you can see, we have two structures for replying to this question eres and then the occupation. We’re going to say no, no soy + [the occupation] to say when that’s not your occupation. And then we’re going to say, soy, and then your actual occupation to describe what you do for a living. |
| Soy + [actual occupation] |
| Look at the literal translation in this chart. As you can see, I’m saying, “No, I’m not [an occupation]. |
| I know that in English, we say: |
| “Are you a teacher?” |
| “I’m not an accountant.” |
| So, in other words, we add the nonspecific article before the occupation in English. In Spanish, notice that we don’t do that. It’s very simple. You just say no, no soy + [the occupation] and soy [your actual occupation]. |
| So, there’s no “a” or there’s no nonspecific article in Spanish when we talk about occupation. So, pay attention to that when you mention what you do for work or for a living. Okay. |
| So… |
| ¿Eres maestra? |
| No, no soy maestra. Soy estudiante. |
| No, no soy bombero. Soy policía. |
| No, no soy contadora. Soy abogada. |
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