Team meetings at work: Agreeing or disagreeing with a colleague's idea

💬 Put ¿Y si...? in front of a we verb and you have an easy way to suggest something. Another example: ¿Y si empezamos? "What if we start?"

🇪🇸 Suggesting things as a question is a soft, collaborative way to put forward an idea in a Spanish meeting.

💬 For parts of the day, Spanish uses por, not en. Other examples: por la tarde, por la noche "at night".

💬 Literally this is "it seems good to me", built like me gusta. Swap the ending to object politely: me parece mal "I don't like it".

🇪🇸 In Spain la tarde stretches until about 8–9pm, so it covers what English speakers would call the evening as well.

💬 Tiredness is a passing state, so it takes estar, not ser. The ending follows the group, too: an all-female group would be todas cansadas.

💬 la here means "it", standing in for la reunión, and it goes before the verb. For a masculine word you'd use lo: ¿Y si lo hacemos?

💬 corta ends in -a because it describes la reunión. Put más in front of a describing word to compare: más largo "longer".

💬 There's no word for "a" here: it's media hora, not una media hora. Same with y media for half past, as in las tres y media "half past three".

🇪🇸 This is a gentle way to start disagreeing with a colleague. It lets them know you have doubts without flatly rejecting the idea.

💬 poco means "not much" or "little", not "a bit". For "a bit" you'd say un poco: un poco de tiempo "a bit of time".

🇪🇸 vale is the everyday Spain way of saying OK, and you'll hear it constantly. In Latin America people say está bien or ok instead.

💬 Spanish says you "have" reason, using tener. Its opposite: no tienes razón "you're wrong".

💬 In cinco the c before i is said (th) in Spain: (THEEN-ko). In cuarenta it's a hard k.

💬 Here sí gets a written accent and means "yes", which makes it stronger: "that, yes". Without the accent, si means "if", as in ¿Y si...?.

💬 When le "to her/him" comes right before lo "it", it changes to se. So you say se lo digo, never le lo digo.

💬 jefe changes to jefa for a woman. The j is a raspy sound from the throat: (HEH-fah).

🇪🇸 Spaniards say this when leaving even if they won't see you again that day. It's the default casual goodbye at the office.