Love-Spanish.com: At What Time Do You Finish Work?

Friday, 8 June 2012

At What Time Do You Finish Work?

Introduction

This post deals with talking about the timings of daily activities in general, and more specifically with indicating at what time you finish work.

SCENARIO

Imagine you are talking to a relative, a friend or colleague. Maybe you are talking about your daily habits. At some point, the other person says: "at what time do you finish work?"

In Spanish, the other person could choose to be less formal and say:

¿A qué hora terminas de trabajar?

Alternatively, he/ she could choose to be more formal and say:

¿A qué hora termina (usted) de trabajar?

OUR TIP

The question is an invitation for you to state the time you finish work. When you state the time you finish work at, you DO NOT need to be concerned about the level of formality in the other person's question. Perhaps what you want to say is that you finish work at:

A specific time
A specific time on specific days

Here are some examples of how you could reply:

Termino de trabajar a las seis (I finish work at six)
Termino de trabajar a las seis de la tarde (I finish work at six in the afternoon)
Los lunes termino de trabajar a las ocho (on Mondays I finish work at eight)
Los lunes termino de trabajar a las ocho de la tarde (on Mondays I finish work at eight in the afternoon)
Los viernes termino de trabajar a la una (on Fridays I finish work at one)
Los viernes termino de trabajar a la una de la tarde (on Fridays I finish work at one in the afternoon)
De lunes a viernes termino de trabajar a las cinco (Monday to Friday I finish work at five)
De lunes a viernes termino de trabajar a las cinco de la tarde (Monday to Friday I finish work at five in the afternoon)

*Notes

Please note the difference between the expressions of time used in these answers and typical expressions used in telling the time, such as:

Es la una (it is one o'clock)
Son las seis (it is six o'clock)

Please note also that if you wanted to indicate that you finish working at an unspecified time, you could just say:

Termino de trabajar por la mañana (I finish work in the morning)
Termino de trabajar por la tarde (I finish work in the afternoon/ in the evening)
Termino de trabajar por la noche (I finish work in the evening/ at night)