Bolivia situation guide
Hear it, note it, ask about it, never interpret it
Six words are going to keep crossing your path, in a client's forwarded contract, in a friend's message about her new formal job, in a form you don't recognize. This chapter teaches you to recognize each one, sort it to the professional who actually owns it (a money-flow word to your contador, a contract-document word to your abogado, a friend's benefits question to her own RRHH), and turn it into two careful questions instead of an explanation you hand someone else. Every one of these words is flagged for Bolivian local review (usage and current practice around them shift) so the app teaches you the vocabulary and the questions, and never the rules behind them.
Essential vocabulary
- contrato laboral: employment contract One of the two document families on your card, recognizing the title tells you what KIND of paper you're holding, nothing more.
- prestación de servicios: service-provision agreement The document family Álvaro once sent you, a different title from 'contrato laboral', worth telling apart on sight.
- honorarios: professional fees Fees language, money-flow words like this belong in a conversation with your contador, not a guess of your own.
- planilla: payroll Employment-money language, hearing 'planilla' tells you you're in the formal-job world, not the freelance one.
- beneficios sociales: social benefits A phrase you'll hear from friends in formal jobs, recognize it, and route any real question straight to their RRHH.
- aguinaldo: year-end bonus An employment-benefit word you'll hear constantly, a question for a professional, never an explanation of your own.
- finiquito: final settlement The word for closing out an employment relationship, worth recognizing, never worth interpreting.
- ¿qué es exactamente…?: what exactly is…? The first half of your two-questions move for any scary word, asked to the professional who owns it, never answered by you.
- ¿esto qué implicaría en mi caso?: what would this imply in my case? The second half, conditional mood, addressed, and the one that turns a scary word into something a professional can actually answer.
Bolivian Spanish terms
- eso mejor pregúntaselo a tu RRHH: you'd better ask your HR about that The warm, standard way Bolivians decline to interpret someone else's employment terms for them, it protects the friendship and the facts at once.
- sé las palabras, no las reglas: I know the words, not the rules The honest one-liner that keeps a friend's trust intact when they assume you, being independent, must know more than you actually do.
- lo reviso con mi abogado y te confirmo: I'll check it with my lawyer and confirm The warm review line that lets you say 'not yet' to a client's 'just sign it' without any tension, completely normal here.
Useful phrases
- ¿Qué es exactamente [palabra]?: What exactly is [word]? The first half of the two-questions move, ask the owning professional to name the thing before anything else.
- ¿Esto qué implicaría en mi caso?: What would this imply in my case? The second half, conditional mood, always addressed to a professional, never answered by you.
- Eso mejor pregúntaselo a tu RRHH.: You'd better ask your HR about that. The warm route for a friend's employment question, voseo, and no interpretation of your own.
- Lo reviso con mi abogado y te confirmo.: I'll review it with my lawyer and confirm. The review line for a client who wants you to just sign something, it holds the boundary warmly, with no claim about the document itself.
- Sé las palabras, no las reglas.: I know the words, not the rules. The honest deflection when someone assumes your independent work makes you an expert on employment rules.
Learn this in the app
Company, Tax and Administration in Bolivia, Spanish