Spanish for Travel, Work and Study

In Spain, English handles the airport, the hotel desk, the big museums and the restaurants of central Madrid, Barcelona, Seville and the coastal resorts, and many younger Spaniards speak it well. In the Latin American capitals it covers international hotels, airports and a few districts — Polanco and Roma in Mexico City, Miraflores in Lima, Palermo in Buenos Aires — and little beyond them. In a provincial town on either continent the pharmacy, the bus terminal, the market and the family restaurant run in Spanish, and so does the taxi driver.

Two weeks of daily practice will not carry a conversation. They buy the greetings and courtesy forms, numbers you can catch at the speed a cashier says them, and a set of questions that cover food, transport, rooms and directions. Spanish spelling is a close guide to sound, so a word read on a sign can be said aloud and understood. What those weeks do not buy is following the answer at natural speed; ask for it again, more slowly, and most people oblige.

Register comes before vocabulary. “Usted”, the formal you, is the safe choice with a receptionist, a driver, a police officer or anyone older; “tú” is for friends, children and anyone who offers it. Spain moves to “tú” fast, even across a shop counter, while Mexico, Colombia and the Andes keep “usted” much longer, and some Colombians use it within the family. Argentina, Uruguay and much of Central America replace “tú” with “vos” and its own verb endings, “vos tenés” for “tú tienes”. Every request starts with a greeting, “buenos días” or “buenas tardes”, said even to the room as you walk into a small shop.

• Coger and tomar: Spain catches a bus with “coger”; in Mexico, Argentina and much of Latin America the verb is sexual slang. “Tomar el autobús” is safe everywhere.
• Car, ticket, juice: A car is a “coche” in Spain, a “carro” in Mexico, Colombia and Peru and an “auto” in Argentina and Chile; a ticket is a “billete” in Spain and a “boleto” across most of Latin America; juice is “zumo” in Spain and “jugo” everywhere else.
• Saying OK: Spain agrees with “vale”, Argentina and much of South America with “dale”, Mexico with “sale” or “órale”.
• False friends: “Embarazada” means pregnant, not embarrassed; “constipado” means having a cold; “éxito” is success, and the exit is “salida”.
• Menus and prices: A “$” on a menu in Mexico, Colombia, Chile or Argentina means local pesos. Spain and most of South America write “1.500,50” with a decimal comma; Mexico writes “1,500.50”.

Business runs in Spanish in Madrid and Barcelona, in Mexico City, Monterrey and Guadalajara, in Bogotá and Medellín, in Santiago, Lima and Buenos Aires. Meetings, contracts, supplier calls and anything that touches the public administration happen in it. English is enough inside the regional headquarters of multinationals, in parts of the start-up scene of Barcelona and Madrid, in international finance, and in hotels that serve foreign guests — but the moment the work reaches a local client, a supplier or an official, it switches back to Spanish.

The register is more formal than English business culture. Open with “usted” and let the other side propose “tú”: in Spain that happens within minutes, while with a senior client in Mexico, Colombia or Peru it may never happen. Titles work as forms of address. In Mexico a graduate is “licenciado” or “licenciada”, written “Lic.” before the name, and an engineer is “ingeniero”; in Colombia “doctor” extends to lawyers and senior people in general. “Don” or “doña” before a first name shows respect to an older or senior person. Most people carry two surnames, the father's then the mother's, and are addressed by the first of them.

Emails open with “Estimado” or “Estimada” and the title or surname, and give a line to courtesy before the matter at hand. Spain closes with “Un saludo” or “Saludos cordiales”; Latin American emails often end with “Quedo atento”, “atenta” from a woman, to say a reply is awaited, and Colombia favours “Cordialmente”. Employers hiring a foreigner into a local role usually expect working fluency, and job ads for client-facing posts often name upper-intermediate (B2) as the floor; a posting inside an international team may ask for none, and still reward any.

Spain's public universities teach undergraduate degrees mainly in Spanish. In Catalonia, the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands, the Basque Country and Galicia some courses are taught in the regional language as well, which the course syllabus states before you enrol. English-taught programmes cluster in master's degrees and business schools such as IE and ESADE, and a growing number of bachelor's degrees run an English-language group alongside the Spanish one.

In Latin America the teaching language is Spanish almost without exception: at UNAM and the Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico, the Universidad de los Andes and the Universidad Nacional in Colombia, the Universidad de Chile and the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, and the University of Buenos Aires. Some private universities and business schools teach selected courses in English, mostly at graduate level.

For a full degree taught in Spanish, universities commonly ask international applicants for B2, a few accept B1 with a language course in the first year, and each sets its own threshold. DELE and SIELE results are the certificates admissions offices recognise most widely, and Mexican universities also take UNAM's own exams. Exchange students have more room: Erasmus+ places in Spain often recommend B1, and host universities run Spanish courses for incoming students, where the first weeks test note-taking in lectures more than reading.

A language course can itself be the purpose of the stay. Spain's student visa covers Spanish courses as well as degrees, and Peru's student visa counts the language schools of Cusco and Lima among its typical programmes.

The DELE diplomas from the Instituto Cervantes are the reference: one exam per level, pass or fail, and a diploma that does not expire. The level is chosen before the exam, so a candidate who aims too high leaves with nothing. The SIELE, run by the Instituto Cervantes with UNAM, the University of Salamanca and the University of Buenos Aires, works the other way round: one computer-based test, a score for each of four skills, and a level from A1 to C1 read from the result, on a certificate valid for five years. SIELE suits a deadline, since results come back in weeks; DELE suits anything meant to last.

Argentina's CELU, from a consortium of national universities, certifies two levels, intermediate and advanced, for study and work there. In Mexico, UNAM's Centro de Enseñanza para Extranjeros issues the CELA for general Spanish and the EXELEAA for academic Spanish, both used in admission to Mexican universities.

In Spain and the Latin American countries, a visa or a residence permit rarely asks for a Spanish certificate; nationality is where a level is tested. Spanish nationality by residence requires DELE A2 or higher and the CCSE, the Instituto Cervantes test of constitutional and sociocultural knowledge, and nationals of Spanish-speaking countries are exempt from the language part.

A level takes hours rather than months. The US Foreign Service Institute places Spanish among the quickest languages for English speakers, at around 600 to 750 classroom hours to professional working proficiency; A2 is a realistic target for a few months of regular classes, while B2 usually takes a year or more of steady study. DELE exams sit at Instituto Cervantes centres and accredited exam centres, mostly universities and language schools, in cities worldwide and in several sessions a year; SIELE at authorised computer-equipped centres; CELU at the consortium's universities in Argentina and at partner centres abroad.

A working kit combines four things: a dictionary for meaning, a conjugation reference for the verbs, a flashcard deck for memory and a daily dose of real speech. Look a word up in WordReference, check its register in the forum threads where speakers compare countries, and move it into Anki with an example sentence rather than a bare translation. From B1, switch to the RAE's monolingual dictionary: reading definitions in Spanish is practice in itself.

Listening is where self-study pays most. Radio Ambulante's stories, told by Latin American journalists, come with full transcripts; Easy Spanish films street interviews from Madrid to Mexico City with subtitles in both languages. A course book series such as Aula internacional gives grammar an order that makes sense, and the Instituto Cervantes' sample papers show exactly what each DELE level demands.

What no tool does is make you answer at the speed of a conversation, or tell you that a sentence is correct but sounds odd in Bogotá.

Self-study builds vocabulary; a tutor builds the reflex of answering. Half an hour of speaking against the clock with someone who stops you at the wrong “tú” does more for a trip or an interview than a week of flashcards.

Treat the trial lesson as an interview. Ask which country the tutor comes from and whether they can switch to another variety; whether they correct mid-sentence or at the end; what they would cover in the first month for your goal; and, for an exam, which DELE or SIELE levels they have prepared candidates for and whether they work with the official sample papers.