Kind of obvious really, but now an EU study has made it official – “The main pull factor that brings people to France and Spain is quality of life.” Oh yes. That and love, apparently.
Meanwhile, Expatica also reports that “Spanish authorities have so far demolished 63 structures along the country’s coasts as part of a programme to return the seashore to its natural state”. There going to have to go a lot farther than that… like taking a bulldozer to Benidorm for a start…
This is the latest in the highly irregular hints and tips series. I get a lot of questions about working in Spain, and let’s face it, the easiest job when you get out here is English teaching. So here are my top tips on where to start:
One. Do you need a diploma? The short answer is no. If you are heading for the big cities like Madrid or Barcelona you will find work by simply fitting the description of ‘English speaker’. It helps if you are smartly dressed and well spoken, but hell, even those that aren’t get work in Madrid.
Two. Ignore point One and get a diploma. The CELTA (previously TEFL) certificate is the one to go for, though I hear the TESOL course is fine too. You can even do courses here in Spain at prestigious academies like International House. The month intensive course is hell, the hardest work I’ve ever done, but well worth it. You are much much more employable with a course/diploma under your belt, and you’ll get better (pay, conditions) jobs than those without.
Three. Do I have to be British? No, any native or bi-lingual English speaker will get a job out here, even if you are not from the European Union. Read this post about working in Spain if you are from outside the EU.
Four. Can I get work anywhere in Spain? Yes, but you will often have more luck in Madrid and Barcelona. Even in larger towns like Seville you may have trouble if you turn up during the academic year. An ideal time to find work in any city/town, no matter the size, is in September, as the schools and academies start back at the beginning of October. Do try your luck in the smaller places though, just expect to have more trouble filling your timetable if you aren’t lucky enough to get a full-time contract straight off.
Four and a half. Do I need to speak Spanish? No, though it helps. Courses such as the CELTA teach you how to teach with no second language skills. They also teach you the basics of English grammar, which really helps!
Five. How do I find an academy job? Take a CV to all the Languages Academies in your chosen destination. Call them back. Be persistent if necessary. Find these in the Yellow Pages, via Google, in local English language papers (loads of jobs in the small ads in these too).
Six. How do I fill my time table? A typical academy timetable is 24 contact hours (teaching) – you’ll need more to prepare your classes too. If an academy only gives you half this amount, it’s common to supplement your income with private classes…
Seven. How does this ‘privates’ thing work? Private classes tend to be one-to-ones with businessmen, children, bored adults, etc. Usually you go to their office/house, if you’re really lucky they’ll come to yours. I’ve given private classes in cafés, a friend of mine even managed to swing classes with two bikini clad Spanish ladies at a city pool in summer! Privates pay much better than academy classes (see below for rates) and don’t usually involve any kind of contract. Some pay on the day, some in advance. Try hard to arrange that if they don’t show up, or cancel with less than 24 hours notice, they pay anyway. The only downside is that they can involve a lot more travel. Find privates via word of mouth from other teachers, students, advertise in local papers, etc.
Eight. What about ‘Company Classes’? Typically arranged by language schools/academies, these involve going to a company and teaching one or a group of suited business types. If you can get into a company directly and arrange and charge for all the classes yourself, then you can make a fortune… (30 Euros per hour? More?)
Nine. Kids classes? Only for the brave! Either arranged (or forced upon you) by language academies, or in posh bilingual private schools. The British Council also has a programme for placing teachers in Spanish Secondary/High Schools.
Ten. Will I earn enough to survive? First jobs in language academies do pay badly. I have heard of people earning as little as 700 Euros a month in the first year, and that’s hard in Madrid. With luck you may earn nearer, or over 1,000 in the first year. As time goes by you start finding the better jobs, with better money and better timetables. Company classes may pay around 18 Euros an hour or more. Multiply that by 24 per week and do the maths. Privates do supplement income nicely, and are widely taken on by most teachers sooner or later. These can pay anything from 20 to 40 euros an hour. Finally, the Holy Grail is the University language teaching job, that can earn you up to 50 Euros an hour. For work in Companies and Universities, you may need to become ‘Autonomo’, self-employed – a bureaucratic nightmare but worth it for the better pay.
Bonus! Will I be an English teacher forever? That is down to you. With persistance you can do anything here that you wanted to do where you came from. Good Spanish often helps. Good luck!
Anything to add, feedback or ideas? Please use the comments below.
I get a few e-mails from Americans asking about working in Spain, so here are a few tips I picked up from a recent chat with an American girl who has been working out here for over two years with no EU citizenship and no problems whatsoever. (Of course these rules apply to all non-EU citizens.)
One: You can work! You will find work, mostly English teaching, then bar work and maybe tour guiding. Employers in these fields are prepared to pay non-EU nationals – in cash. But don’t worry, you can open a bank account in Spain with no trouble at all. Bigger cities will have more opportunities, so if in doubt start with Barcelona or Madrid.
Two: The return ticket. Arriving at a Spanish airport from the US with no return ticket is likely to be an expensive mistake. You will probably be forced to buy one there and then, in the airport, at a hugely increased price. You may be able to get a refund afterwards though, so it might not be the end of the world.
Three: The 90 day rule. In theory your entry visa is good for 90 days, but don’t worry, if you spend longer in Spain you will not be thrown into jail or banned from coming back when you try to leave. Just have an excuse handy (“My Spanish studies lasted longer than I had anticipated…”, for example…)
Four: Spending. Don’t turn up with travelers cheques, they are a pain to convert into cash. Just your regular cashpoint card is fine. Match the symbols on the back with those on Spanish cashpoints if you get confused! (Is ‘cashpoint’ only British English? ATM’s then…) And be prepared to spend. The dollar is better than it was but many a traveler arrives in Spain expecting the cheap country it once was. Times have changed…
Only 4? Well there isn’t much more to it than that. The situation is pretty much as I expected, having met many Americans working in Spain with no trouble at all. Just get over here and start having fun: enough excuses already!
Any comments, suggestions, criticisms or refutations welcome, just use the comments link below. Or click here for the Tips archive.
Wow, I only started this ‘Tips’ series yesterday and already I have another, inspired by a blog I discovered about a Londoner’s Spanish learning journey. So, here are some of the most important lessons I learned after I turned up in Spain 7 years ago without a word of Spanish. I’m sure I’ll keep adding to this, and please do contribute your ideas in the comments below.
One: Motivation. To learn any language efficiently, quickly, and well, you need to be very motivated to do so, otherwise it takes forever. And I mean very motivated. If you only have the ‘I might try and learn a bit of Spanish’ kind of motivation, then give up and do something else. You need to be desperately keen to learn Spanish, longing to get out there and speak it fluently. Motivation ‘targets’, or reasons, include: ‘I want to move to Spain a.s.a.p.’, ‘I want to be able to talk to those beautiful Spanish girls/men,’ ‘I’m obsessed with Spain and I want to go as deep into the culture as I can…’ N.B. You don’t have to be fluent in Spanish to move to Spain. In 6 months you can go from zero to conversational, and to fluent in 9, if you move here and surround yourself with it.
Two: Hard work and hunger. Once the motivation is in place you’ll need to really throw yourself into it, working on the language constantly and consistently, devouring as much Spanish as you can get your hands on at every possible opportunity, which leads me to the next point…
Three: Total Immersion. Surround yourself with Spanish, bath yourself in Spanish! Watch Spanish films, read Spanish magazines and newspapers, get a decent text book from the local bookshop, buy a decent dictionary (and a pocket one). Get hold of novels or ‘readers’ that match your abilities. A reader is a reduced, graded book with a range of vocab that matches your level. Estimate your level by picking up a reader in the bookshop and reading a page. If you have trouble with around 6 words then this is your level. More than 6 and it is too high, less and it is too low.
Four: Prioritise. Think, ‘do I need to know such a complicated word yet? Have I learned enough useful stuff already?’ For example, if you come across the word for ‘railing’ before you have learned basic shopping vocab, then you may want to let it slip out of your memory for now, concentrating on the basics for the time being. I hope that makes sense, it really worked for me!
Five: Join a class. Learning with a group isn’t just a social thing, it’s really motivating to be in the same boat as others, and a bit of inter-group competitiveness never does any harm. Plus, teachers structure language learning nicely and pull you up on those recurring mistakes. The bi-weekly classes I took in my first year in Spain made a huge difference.
Six: Enter yourself into an official exam. Honestly, it isn’t that terrifying and it really gives your motivation a kick. The Instituto Cervantes offers official diplomas (the ‘DELE’) and has centres all over the world. I did the Intermediate level exam years ago and later the ‘Superior’, the latter really honing those damn subjunctives.
Seven: The Intercambio. You meet with a Spanish speaking person once a week, in a bar, cafe, wherever, and speak for an hour or more in Spanish, then the same in English. That way both parties benefit. Look or advertise on language school or college (especially Erasmus/ foreign students) noticeboards, and in the ex-pat press in Spain. This is invaluable for practicing your speaking, and really is my top tip, the single best thing you can do to improve your Spanish. Be warned (or not): many a lasting relationship, marriages included, have begun with an intercambio – here is one who speaks from experience!
Eight: Some random techniques. Some people use white stickers to label every object at home in Spanish – worked for my sister. I used to carry a sheet of paper around with all the basic tenses and verb types on, testing myself on the metro… Old fashioned vocab sheets work a treat – English words on one side of the page, Spanish on the other – you cover one side and try to remember the words’ translations. Self-testing whilst walking around -‘Do I know the word for that?’ (whilst looking at a lamp post, letter box etc). Carrying the pocket dictionary everywhere is great for that.
Nine: Think in Spanish. Another old language learning trick, but it works. If you can’t regularly talk to others in Spanish then you can always practice by holding an internal dialogue with yourself!
Ten: Learn on the go. An obvious one. This really applies when you are actually in Spain (or South America etc). Need to open a bank account? Learn the relevant vocab before you go into the bank. Same goes for shopping at the market, buying bread, getting a haircut, chatting up the ladies/men on a night out, buying a train ticket etc etc….
Eleven: ENJOY IT! Use the techniques that work for you and aren’t too tiresome. If it’s boring or no fun you’ll soon give up. This is where things like classes and intercambios really help, especially when the latter has an element of the blind date thrown in for good measure (podcast no. 18 goes into this!)
Any thoughts, additions, suggestions? Please comment below! Hope this helps…
I get a lot of questions about translation work over here, so, as part of a new occasional series of info and tips on living, working and traveling in Spain, here are my top 10 tips on translation work in Spain:
One. Your CV. Exaggerate a bit, all the Spanish do, and here there seems to be no chasing up of references. Remember that one translation you did for your uncle’s website? If it went well then your CV might as well say that you did regular translation work for his company for a year. I had no translation courses on my initial CV when I started free-lancing 3 years ago, just pretty fluent Spanish and some ‘expanded’ translation experience like this.
Two. E-mail a covering letter with a brief outline of your experience to a long list of translation agencies, offering to send them a full CV. Lists of agencies can be found via obvious google searches, and the Spanish yellow pages
Three. Aim to do around 3,000 words a day to start with, this is what the agencies will expect as a minimum, though with time, practice, and useful translation tools (see below), this may well increase to up to 6,000 a day. Say yes to all offered work and never miss a deadline!
Four. Use translation tools/programs such as Wordfast, and, if you can afford it, SDLX (try trial version first). These can save hours of your time and increase efficiency dramatically.
Five. Money. Expect to get 4 to 5 centimos per word from agencies, and 6 to 8 from direct clients. Direct clients come over time and are obviously preferable, as no agency cut is taken from the original price. You will need to be self-employed, or ‘Autonomo’, to work seriously as a translator in Spain.
Six. Get a decent broadband connection, you will need to be on-line all the time, using invaluable dictionary and definition websites. I swear by Proz.com, whose incredible web search engine searches all my favorite sites at once. Make sure you include Eurodicautom and Wordreference in the selected dictionaries. Proz.com also has other excellent resources for translators. And google is great for checking whether the word you just guessed at really exists or not.
Seven. Check check ckeck. When you finish a translation start with a spell check, then carefully re-read and revise your work, and finally spell check again. Imagine that another native speaker is going to quality check it after you (this does happen in some agencies), so make sure it sounds like good English (or the language in question) before you send it back.
Eight. Learn to type fast, or use voice recognition software like Dragon Naturally Speaking, which really does work.
Nine. Be patient. It can take up to a year to build up a regular flow of work, but with hard marketing at the beginning, this may be quicker. You may need up to 3 or 4 agencies sending you work to make a good, secure living. It works well combined with other jobs – in my case a bit of web design and 2 hours a week teaching (to get me out of the house!)
Ten. Advantages – the freedom of self-employment and working from home, and good money if you get enough words per month (much better than teaching English). Disadvantages – working from home (do you like your own company? Find a way to get out and see people a couple of times a week!), the downsides of self-employment (you will have to work the odd weekend and late night), plus it can be stressful when the client/agency wants that huge translation a.s.a.p. It’s working out fine for me though.
If you have any more ideas, questions, or top ten tips requests, please use the comments link below. Hope this helps!
I was sitting in a bar having lunch today, a place I go about once a week for a menu del dia, quiet, mostly full of local residents and ‘obreros’ (workmen). I always sit at the back, facing everyone else, so I can do some people watching while I have my lunch.
Two young guys came in wearing paint-splattered overalls, and made their way towards the last empty table, next to mine. As they crossed the room they said ‘Que aproveche’, enjoy your meal, to every table they passed, finishing with me before taking their seats. And they really meant it. It may not sound like much but ‘back where I come from’ people avoid speaking to strangers in public places. They’ll talk to their friends but stuff everyone else.
So courtesy, decency, respect – all still alive and well in Spain (stop thinking about it, just move here for goodness sake!) When I finished my meal the painters’ first course was just arriving. ‘Que aproveche,’ I said to them, as I left my table, though I didn’t manage it for the other diners as I made my way out of the bar. Even after 7 years the Englishman inside me still has a long way to go…
And by the way, for all of you eating Turkey today across the pond (well, yesterday now), que os aproveche tambien!
It’s very common for anyone who lives in Madrid and has enough money to have a house up in the hills to the north of Madrid, in the ‘Sierra’. Madrileños will always talk about ‘mi pueblo’, the village they usually retreat to at weekends. In the case of my in-laws, the exodus is more permanent in summer, when they move up there for the 3 hottest months of the year. Sierra temperatures are a few degrees cooler and the air is fresher.
When I first met my wife I found it hard to spend whole days up in the ‘pueblo’ – the constant barrage of high speed Spanish was exhausting, a headache-inducing, non-stop, high-level listening exam. But that was long ago, and long before I accepted the “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” line of thought… So, once again, I’m joining the hoardes that take to the hills every weekend. Hasta luego!
P.S. (a lo mejor grabamos un podcast en español este fin de… )
Show notes:
Seven years a go I got on a train from Waterloo, London, to Paris. I was on my way to Madrid, to start a teacher training course – teaching, I thought, was the best way for me to earn money when I got to Spain. On the train out of Waterloo the woman sitting next to me noticed to teaching theory book on my lap and guessed what I wsa heading off to do. She had been teaching in Grenoble for years, and now occupied a fairly high position in a language school. “If you are just doing it for the money, if you don’t think it’s your true vocation, then whatever you do, get out of teaching after a year,” she told me, as we headed for the channel tunnel.
Those words have reverberated around inside my head ever since. “Get out after a year…” I never did, and although most of my work is now translation, I still ‘teach’ four mornings a week. Well, I sit in front of underpaid, exhausted media professionals who are all fed up with their jobs. And we chat, or do the occasional exercise. Still, I think the end of my teaching career is nigh. Perhaps another 6 months at most. I will miss going to the company in the mornings and chatting to the friendlier ones, I can’t ditch the teaching until something comes along to replace that aspect of ‘work’ – being a full time lonesome translator would be hell.
But the point was, to teach or not to teach. If you move to Spain you will invariable end up teaching if you can’t think of anything else you are qualified to do – and even then you will probably ebd up teaching for a while anyway. It’s a fine job, incredibly satisfying when you entertain, and maybe even educate, a big group for an hour. But if you’re not convinced, don’t worry, there are ways out. English teachers in Spain become IT professionals, tour guides, entrpreneurs, local newspaper editors, professional chefs, cameramen… translators… Once your Spanish is good enough, and if you’re determined enough, you can get almost the same job as any Spaniard.
Notes from Spain by Ben Curtis 