25 Everyday Workplace English Phrases Spanish Speakers Ask About (Office, Tech and Admin)

Most English that confuses Spanish speakers at work is not slang and not idioms. It is the plain, slightly odd phrasing of emails, meetings, software and forms: a message came up saying, net-new, children free with a paying adult. Nobody teaches it because nobody notices it is hard. The WordReference Spanish-English vocabulary forum notices, because that is where people go to ask. These are twenty-five phrases from recent threads, explained with the Spanish you would naturally use instead.

Computers and software

1. Minimise that window. Shrink it to the taskbar, don’t close it. Spanish: minimiza esa ventana. The verb is “minimise” (UK) or “minimize” (US), never “reduce”.
2. A message came up saying… A pop-up appeared on screen. A message came up saying my password had expired. Spanish: me salió un mensaje que decía… “Came up” is the natural verb; “appeared” sounds formal.
3. IT have built me a new PC. “Built” means assembled and set up, not manufactured. Note that British English treats IT as plural (“IT have”); American English says “IT has”. Spanish: los de informática me han montado un ordenador nuevo.
4. They’re auto-generated. Created automatically by software, with no human writing them. Spanish: se generan automáticamente.
5. A large language model. The technology behind tools like ChatGPT. Spanish keeps the English initials, LLM, or says un gran modelo de lenguaje.
6. Net-new. Business jargon for “completely new, not an upgrade of something existing”. We need net-new capabilities, not patches. Spanish: totalmente nuevo, nuevo de verdad.
7. I need to update section 4.1. Said “four point one”. Spanish speakers often say “four comma one” or “four one”; natives always say “point”.

Meetings and email

1. Just to say (that)… A soft opener for a short message with no action needed. Just to say the report is now on the shared drive. Spanish: solo para comentar que…
2. Sorry, go on. You spoke over someone and are handing back the turn. Spanish: perdona, sigue.
3. Duplication of effort. Two people doing the same work without knowing. Let’s share the tracker to avoid duplication of effort. Spanish: duplicar el trabajo, hacer el trabajo dos veces.
4. A refresher course. Short training for people who already learned the subject once. It’s more of a refresher course than anything else. Spanish: un curso de reciclaje, un repaso.
5. Whoever wrote this document has left it unfinished. “Whoever” means “the person, whoever it is”. Mildly annoyed. Spanish: quien haya escrito este documento lo ha dejado a medias.
6. Go back to the unfinished one. Return to the draft you did not complete. Spanish: vuelve al que dejaste sin terminar.
7. A claim supported by evidence. In reports and academic English, a claim is any statement you assert, not a complaint or an insurance claim. Spanish: una afirmación respaldada por pruebas.
8. Clear for release. Approved to be published or shipped. Legal says the video is clear for release. Spanish: aprobado para su publicación.
9. If he turns up at all. “Turn up” is “to arrive, to show up”; “at all” adds doubt that he will. Spanish: si es que aparece.
10. By my own efforts. Without help. Spanish: por mis propios medios, por mi cuenta.

Study and training

1. A capstone project. The final project of a degree or course that brings everything together. Spanish: el trabajo de fin de grado or de fin de máster; the Spanish term is more specific than the English one.
2. Freshers’ flu. British university slang for the cold everyone catches in the first weeks of term, from parties and shared halls. Spanish: el resfriado de los novatos; there is no fixed term.
3. The study of American civics. Civics is the school subject about how government and citizenship work. Spanish: educación cívica, educación para la ciudadanía.
4. A trigger warning. A note before content that may upset some readers. Spanish: aviso de contenido sensible.

Everyday admin and signs

1. Children free with a paying adult. Each adult ticket admits children at no charge. The structure “free with” confuses learners because with here means “accompanied by”. Spanish: niños gratis acompañados de un adulto de pago.
2. Pick up a prescription. Collect the medicine your doctor prescribed from the pharmacy. The prescription is the paper or the medicine, depending on context. Spanish: recoger una receta, recoger los medicamentos.
3. A key safe. The small code-locked box outside holiday flats where the key is kept. Spanish: una caja de seguridad para llaves, un cajetín de llaves.
4. A student letting company. British English: an agency that rents flats to students. “Letting” is “renting out”. Spanish: una agencia de alquiler para estudiantes.

Why this English is worth a lesson

These phrases are low on the glamour scale and high on the frequency scale. You will meet “a message came up” and “just to say” every week of your working life, and getting them right is what makes your English sound like a colleague’s rather than a coursebook’s. If work is why you are learning, a Business English teacher on Parlazo can go through your real emails and meeting notes with you, which is far more useful than any list, including this one.

Related: make vs do, the mistake that shows up in half of all work emails, and the free English level test.