El Jefe
Run a meeting, give a status update, and set a deadline — in spoken Spanish.
In a Mexican office the meeting isn't la reunión, it's la junta — and in Argentina it shrinks to la reu. Scheduling one is a verb everyone uses: agendar, as in te agendo para el martes. The status question that opens every standup in Mexico is ¿cómo vamos?, and the deadline phrase that closes it is para el viernes a más tardar — by Friday at the latest. With managers and clients, stay in usted and soften requests with ¿podría…? or ¿sería posible…?
Below: the meeting, project and budget vocabulary that runs an office day, the money slang each country uses — and a way to rehearse the standup out loud before you're the one giving the update.
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Regional Spanish
Textbooks teach one word. Locals use several — pick your region's and stay consistent.
| English | Mexico | Argentina |
|---|---|---|
| the meeting | la junta | la reu |
| money (informal) | la lana | la guita |
| el correo | el mail | |
| the boss | el patrón | el jefe |
Watch out
The part no drill site can do
Olivia
Your vocabulary teacher for this pack
Meetings don't wait for you to finish a flashcard deck. In the El Jefe lessons, Olivia hands you the room: you lead the team standup — yesterday's progress, today's priorities, the blockers — keeping each update to status, blocker, next step. Then you're making the case to a manager for a budget approval, justifying the cost out loud, and closing a video call by assigning tasks with real deadlines: who, what, and para el viernes. You practice saying the words in the meeting, because that's where you'll need them.
Blank mid-sentence and nothing bad happens — she waits. That's the practice, without unnecessary judgement.
Finish the 6 lessons and El Jefe is yours — earned, not given.
First 10 lessons free · 10-minute spoken lessons · your AI coaching team remembers you
Quick answers
Agendemos una reunión — let's schedule a meeting — or the everyday verb form: te agendo para el martes. In Mexico, expect to hear the meeting itself called la junta; in casual Argentine office talk, la reu.
The neutral form is ¿cuál es el estado? In Mexican standups it's simply ¿cómo vamos? — how are we doing? — and in Spain, ¿cómo va eso? Keep your own answer tight: status, blocker, next step.
La fecha límite — though in multinationals the anglicism la deadline competes with it. To set one out loud, name the day: para el viernes, or the emphatic version every Latin American office runs on, para el viernes a más tardar.
Necesito aprobación states it plainly; soften it for a manager with ¿sería posible…? In Colombia you'll hear the charming me regalas la aprobación — literally 'gift me the approval', nothing is actually being gifted.
Formally it's el presupuesto (budget). Informally, every country has its own: la lana or la feria in Mexico, la guita in Argentina, la plata in Colombia, la pasta in Spain. One more trap: cost is el costo in Latin America but el coste in Spain.
