Meaning Business

Business Spanish

In what way is business Spanish different from everyday Spanish? After all Spanish is often perceived as an 'easy' language, so can we expect business Spanish to be as straightforward as normal Spanish? Yes and no, business Spanish shares a great deal of vocabulary and all its grammar with everyday Spanish, but anyone intending to do business in Spanish will have to do a lot more than brush up on the usual problem areas of Spanish for English speakers, such as when to use ser or estar for 'to be', or the tricky question of how to use the subjunctive correctly.

If you look at the financial pages of any good Spanish newspaper, many words will look familiar, especially in the fields of high finance and information technology. It is not difficult to work out what a servidor, or a disco duro is. Prototipo, opciones and PER look reassuringly familiar in the context of shares and derivatives. But it is one thing to be able to recognise these words and work out their meanings when you read the newspaper, it is quite a different matter when you are in conversation and you need to be able to supply the required term in context and not make a mistake. The word for a 'takeover bid' for instance may look very strange at first sight, una OPA. But it is an important business term and even a good knowledge of conversational Spanish will be of no help in trying to guess it.

On the other hand Spanish words may look familiar but have unexpected and very precise meanings. If you want to refer to your commercial competitors, do you speak of la competencia or la competición? What very important meaning does the word agenda have in Spanish, and what is an agenda electrónica? If your Spanish business counterpart refers to his planning, what is he thinking of? If you want to give someone your e-mail address, what is the word for '@' in Spanish, without which the address will not work? If a work force is in a process of reconversión, what is happening? And if you were hiring personnel, why might the phrases darse de alta and darse de baja be important to know?

A large part of business success is having and inspiring confidence. With a good command of the terminology, you can concentrate on the all the other aspects of doing business. This is where a good business dictionary can be invaluable. All the terms mentioned above can be used to test a Spanish business dictionary's coverage and up-to-dateness. In addition check the coverage for 'per cent' (are examples given?) and whether EBITDA is included. A good business dictionary should cover all of these.

Vocabulary
servidor - server
disco duro - hard disk
prototipo - prototype
opciones - options
competencia - the competition
agenda - diary
agenda electrónica - electronic diary;
planning - year planner;
arroba - at or @
reconversión - retraining
darse de alta - to sign on
darse de baja - to sign off,
EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) - beneficios antes de intereses, impuestos, depreciación, y amortización.