Professions in Spanish to Boost Your Vocabulary

Every day, new job titles pop up that didn’t exist the day before! That can make it tricky to talk about our own jobs in English, and especially difficult in a second language. Every sector has terms specific to their field, so it’s hard to conceive how many professions are out there. Here, we’ll simplify it for you and give you common professions in Spanish so you can start talking about your career and aspirations.

Grammar refresher

First, we have to remember a few grammatical words to talk about professions. In English, some professions might be different between men and women, like “waiter” vs. “waitress”, and others are neutral, like “firefighter”. In Spanish, we also have to remember that these nouns refer to people, which mean that we need to pay attention to the gender and number of each profession.

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Some professions might have the same ending regardless of the gender. For example, professions that end in –ista could refer to a man or a woman. Also, remember that when making nouns plural, if they end in a vowel, you can make it plural by adding –s. If they end in a consonant, you can make it plural by adding –es. I think you’re ready to learn some professions!

Professions in Spanish

Here, we’ll put the masculine form first followed by the feminine form. If there’s only one, that means it works for both men and women. The only thing that changes is the article, el or la.

• el actor / la actriz– actor / actress
• el arquitecto / la arquitecta– architect
• el / la artista– artist
• el bombero / la bombera- firefighter
• el cajero / la cajera- cashier
• el / la cantante- singer
• el camarero / la camarera- waiter / waitress
• el científico / la científica- scientist
• el consejero / la consejera- counselor
• el / la dentista- dentist
• el empleado / la empleada- employee
• el / la gerente- manager
• el jefe / la jefa- boss
• el maestro / la maestra- teacher
• el médico / la médica- doctor
• el / la periodista- journalist
• el / la policía– police
• el / la recepcionista- receptionist
• el / la soldado- soldier
• el / la trabajador- worker

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These are just a few careers that hopefully describe you and your friends. Are there any more that you think we should add to the list? Let us know!