Breakdown of Cuando suena el temporizador, cierro los ojos un minuto más y luego vuelvo a mi despacho.
Questions & Answers about Cuando suena el temporizador, cierro los ojos un minuto más y luego vuelvo a mi despacho.
“Cuando suena…” uses the indicative because the sentence describes a habitual action: every time the timer goes off, you do this routine.
Use:
- Indicative after cuando for things that are habitual or seen as real/factual:
- Cuando suena el temporizador, cierro los ojos…
= Whenever the timer goes off, I close my eyes…
- Cuando suena el temporizador, cierro los ojos…
Use:
- Subjunctive (cuando suene) when talking about a future event that hasn’t happened yet, usually in instructions or plans:
- Cuando suene el temporizador, cierra los ojos.
= When the timer goes off (in the future), close your eyes.
- Cuando suene el temporizador, cierra los ojos.
So in your sentence, it’s a routine → indicative: suena.
Yes, it’s grammatically correct, but “Cuando suena el temporizador” is more natural and common.
In Spanish, it’s very frequent to put the verb before the subject in clauses introduced by time words like cuando, si, aunque, etc.:
- More natural: Cuando suena el temporizador…
- Less natural but correct: Cuando el temporizador suena…
Both are fine, but the original word order sounds more idiomatic.
Temporizador is a timer—a device that counts down a set period and then goes off.
In Spain:
- “temporizador” is used for timers on things like ovens, washing machines, phone apps, etc.
- You might also hear:
- alarma (alarm)
- cronómetro (stopwatch, counts up, not down)
- contador (counter, meter)
In your sentence, “el temporizador” is perfectly natural for “the timer” in Peninsular Spanish.
Spanish uses the definite article (el, la) more often than English uses “the”.
- “el temporizador” suggests a specific, known timer in the situation:
- the timer you always use, the one on your phone, your kitchen timer, etc.
- “un temporizador” would sound like any random timer, introducing it for the first time, with no context.
In a routine description like this, “el temporizador” fits best because it’s part of your usual setup.
With parts of the body and clothing, Spanish normally uses the definite article (el, la, los, las) instead of a possessive:
- cierro *los ojos = I close *my eyes
- me lavo *las manos = I wash *my hands
- me pongo *la chaqueta = I put on *my jacket
The possessor is usually clear from the context or from an indirect object pronoun (me, te, se), so “mis ojos” would sound unusual here and is generally not used.
Not all actions involving body parts are reflexive in Spanish.
- Reflexive is used when the action is clearly something you’re doing to yourself in a way Spanish marks with me/te/se:
- me lavo las manos (I wash my hands)
- me cepillo los dientes (I brush my teeth)
But some verbs are just used non‑reflexively, even if it’s your own body:
- cierro los ojos (I close my eyes) — standard, non‑reflexive
- abro los ojos (I open my eyes)
So “me cierro los ojos” is not idiomatic; you simply say “cierro los ojos”.
“un minuto más” literally means “one minute more” or “one more minute.”
Spanish often expresses duration using a bare time expression without “por”:
- Duermo *ocho horas. = I sleep *for eight hours.
- Espero *dos minutos. = I wait *for two minutes.
So:
- cierro los ojos un minuto más = I close my eyes for one more minute.
You could say por un minuto más, but in this kind of everyday statement about how long something lasts, “un minuto más” without por is more natural.
Both are possible, but there’s a nuance:
- un minuto más = one more minute / an extra minute (adds to what you already had)
- otro minuto = another minute (similar, but slightly less directly connected to what came before)
In this context, both would be understood as “one more minute,” but “un minuto más” sounds a bit more typical when you’re stretching or extending a period of time you already know about (e.g., a break, a snooze, etc.).
In this sentence, luego and después are almost interchangeable:
- y luego vuelvo a mi despacho
- y después vuelvo a mi despacho
Both mean “and then I go back to my office.”
Very small nuances:
- después is slightly more neutral.
- luego can sometimes feel a bit more colloquial in everyday speech.
In practice, both are extremely common in Spain, and here they mean the same thing.
The verb volver (to return, to go back) takes the preposition “a” when you say where you are going back to:
- vuelvo *a casa = I go back *home
- vuelvo *a Madrid = I go back *to Madrid
- vuelvo a mi despacho = I go back to my office
So the structure is: volver + a + place.
Without “a”, vuelvo mi despacho is ungrammatical.
In Spain:
- despacho usually means a private office/room where someone works, often one person’s space:
- a lawyer’s office, a professor’s office, your personal home office, your individual room at work.
- oficina is a more general term for office space or a workplace area, and can refer to:
- the whole office department, the physical open-plan office space, the organization’s offices.
In your sentence, “vuelvo a mi despacho” suggests you’re going back to your personal office/room rather than just any office space. It’s a very natural choice in Peninsular Spanish.
Spanish usually drops subject pronouns (yo, tú, él…) because the verb ending already shows the subject:
- cierro → first person singular → I close
- vuelvo → first person singular → I go back
You only add “yo” for emphasis or contrast:
- Yo cierro los ojos, pero tú no.
= I close my eyes, but you don’t.
In a neutral sentence like yours, omitting “yo” is the most natural option.