Mi compañero de trabajo es un desastre.

Questions & Answers about Mi compañero de trabajo es un desastre.

Since the current lesson is about exclamations, how would I express "What a disaster!" about my coworker?
You would say ¡Qué desastre! to complain about them. Notice that in Spanish, you drop the word for "a" (un) after qué in these exclamations. It is always ¡Qué desastre!, never ¡Qué un desastre!.
Why do we say compañero de trabajo instead of trabajo compañero?
In Spanish, you cannot stack nouns together like "work colleague" or "water bottle". Instead, you use the formula [Noun] + de + [Noun]. So, "coworker" is literally expressed as "colleague of work" (compañero de trabajo).
If my coworker is female, does desastre change to desastra?
No, desastre is a masculine noun that never changes its ending to match a person's gender. You would change the first part of the sentence to Mi compañera de trabajo, but the second part stays exactly the same: es un desastre.
Why do we use es instead of está here? Isn't being a disaster a temporary behavior?
Even if your coworker is only acting like a disaster today, you must use the verb ser (here as es) because it is followed by a noun phrase (un desastre). You cannot use the verb estar directly before a noun that identifies or classifies someone.

Learn Mi compañero de trabajo es un desastre and more in Spanish

All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.

  • ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
  • ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
  • ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free