Mi tutora dice que la frustración baja cuando dividimos el trabajo en pasos pequeños.

Mi is the possessive adjective used before a noun: mi tutora, mi libro, mi clase.

Mía is a possessive pronoun/adjective used differently, usually after the noun or on its own:

• Es tutora mía = She is a tutor of mine
• La tutora es mía = The tutor is mine

So before the noun, Spanish uses mi, not mía.

Dice is the third person singular present of decir. The subject is mi tutora, so the verb has to match that singular subject.

It is in the present because the sentence reports what she says in general, not just something she said once in the past. It has a general or habitual meaning:

• Mi tutora dice... = My tutor says...

After verbs like decir, pensar, creer, and saber, Spanish normally uses que to introduce the next clause.

So:

• Mi tutora dice que... = My tutor says that...

In English, that is often omitted, but in Spanish que is normally kept.

Spanish often uses the definite article with abstract nouns more than English does. So la frustración sounds natural even where English might just say frustration.

Here, la frustración means frustration in a general sense, as the thing that goes down.

Here baja comes from bajar, and it means goes down, decreases, or gets lower.

So la frustración baja means something like:

• frustration decreases
• the frustration goes down

This is a very natural way in Spanish to talk about levels of things such as stress, tension, or frustration.

Because the subject is la frustración, which is singular.

• la frustración baja = frustration decreases
• las frustraciones bajan = frustrations decrease

The verb agrees with frustración, not with pasos pequeños or trabajo.

Because here cuando is a conjunction meaning when.

Spanish uses cuándo with an accent in questions and indirect questions:

• ¿Cuándo viene?
• No sé cuándo viene

But in a normal time clause like this one, it has no accent:

• cuando dividimos el trabajo...

Because this sentence is talking about something that happens generally or habitually: frustration goes down when we divide the work into small steps.

With cuando, Spanish uses:

• indicative for habitual or real situations
• subjunctive for future or not-yet-real situations

So here:

• cuando dividimos... = when we divide... / whenever we divide...

But if you were talking about a future moment, you might say:

• cuando dividamos el trabajo... = when we divide the work later / once we divide the work

Yes. For many -ir verbs, the nosotros form is the same in the present and the preterite:

• dividimos = we divide
• dividimos = we divided

Context tells you which meaning is intended. In this sentence, the general meaning and the use of cuando make the present reading the natural one.

Spanish often uses articles where English may or may not use them. El trabajo here means the work or the task/work in question.

It sounds more natural in Spanish than just leaving the article out. Bare nouns are less common in this kind of structure.

With dividir, Spanish commonly uses en to mean into:

• dividir algo en partes
• dividir algo en grupos
• dividir algo en pasos

So dividir el trabajo en pasos pequeños means to divide the work into small steps.

Even though English uses into, Spanish normally uses en here.

In Spanish, descriptive adjectives usually come after the noun:

• pasos pequeños
• libro interesante
• casa grande

So pasos pequeños is the most neutral, standard order.

You can sometimes put the adjective before the noun, but that often changes the tone or adds emphasis:

• pequeños pasos also works, but it sounds a little more stylistic or expressive here.

Yes, Spanish word order is fairly flexible, though the original sentence is very natural.

For example, you could also say:

• Cuando dividimos el trabajo en pasos pequeños, mi tutora dice que la frustración baja.

That version puts the when clause first. The meaning stays basically the same; the difference is mostly in emphasis and rhythm.

Here it is better understood as goes down or decreases, because baja is a verb form from bajar, not the adjective baja meaning low.

Compare:

• La frustración baja = Frustration goes down
• La frustración es baja = The frustration is low

So in this sentence, it is describing a change, not just a state.

Frustración is stressed on the last syllable: frus-tra-ción.

The written accent mark shows where the stress goes. It is needed because the word ends in n, and without the accent, Spanish stress rules would place the stress differently.

The ending -ción is very common in Spanish and usually corresponds to English -tion:

• información
• situación
• frustración