Trabajamos

Trabajamos is the first-person plural form of the Spanish verb trabajar. In everyday usage it can express present action, meaning “we work,” as in trabajamos en una empresa; it can also function as the simple past, meaning “we worked,” depending on the context and accompanying time expressions. The form is identical in both tenses, so the temporal reference is supplied by the sentence as a whole.

Grammatically, trabajamos belongs to the regular -ar verb conjugation. Its present indicative forms include trabajamos (we work), trabajáis (you all work, in Spain), and trabajan (they work). The simple past form is the same: trabajamos (we worked). Thus, comprehension relies on time adverbs or situational context to distinguish between present and past.

Etymology and related forms: the verb trabajador comes from the same root as trabajo, both derived from Latin tripaliare, originally referring to a painful instrument of torture and later extended to mean toil or labor. Through Old Spanish traballar/traballar and Old French travailler, the meaning evolved into the modern Spanish trabajar and its nominal forms.

Usage notes: trabajamos is widespread across Spanish-speaking regions and appears in everyday conversation, workplace communication, journalism, and formal writing. It often appears with adverbs of time such as hoy, ayer, siempre, or durante to specify when the action occurs. In more formal or literary contexts, synonyms like laboramos can be used, though trabajan is more common in contemporary usage.

See also: trabajar, trabajo, trabajador.