¿Qué haces todos los días? ¿Cuál es tu rutina diaria? These are two common questions to ask about someone’s daily routine in Spanish – la rutina diaria. In a previous lesson, we covered the most important words for everyday activities and made sentences with reflexive and non-reflexive verbs. This lesson will help you describe what you do daily to your friends or class. By the end of the lesson, you will be able to write sentences and short descriptions about your daily routine.
Vocabulary review: Daily routine and reflexive verbs in Spanish
First, we will review the vocabulary for daily activities. All the activities used to describe daily routines in Spanish are represented by verbs. This video explains how to conjugate reflexive verbs and use them to make sentences about everyday activities, as well as how to ask what someone does every day and more. The final part of the video shows a short passage describing someone’s daily routine in Spanish for a typical day. The video is easy to follow and also includes many important things that you will not find in the rest of the lesson.
The vocabulary for daily routines in Spanish
Most activities in daily routines are verbs in infinitive like JUGAR (to play) or COMER (to eat), and sometimes Spanish reflexive verbs such as DESPERTARSE (wake up) and VESTIRSE (get dressed). The following image shows essential vocabulary to talk about daily routines in Spanish:
Interactive exercise No. 1
Look at these cards, identify the name of the activity in the routine, and turn the cards over to check your answers.
Interactive exercise No. 2
Take a look at the illustrations on these interactive flashcards and write the name of each daily routine activity in Spanish underneath them.
ir a la escuela / estudiar / hacer deporte / lavar los trastes / escuchar música / ver televisión / vestirse / dibujar / leer un libro / cepillarse los dientes / despertarse / bañarse (tomar un baño) / usar la computadora / pintar / dormirse / jugar con la mascota / desayunar / ir al trabajo / ir al baño / cocinar / maquillarse / peinarse
Reflexive verbs in Spanish and daily routines
In order to conjugate reflexive verbs, you have to conjugate the first part of the verb following the rules for regular or irregular verbs, and add a reflexive pronoun that agrees with the subject in the sentence, just as shown in the illustration below with the verb “BAÑARSE”.
At first, conjugating reflexive verbs can be complicated, and that is why Spanish reflexive verbs are covered with a lot more details in an independent lesson. Keep in mind that each reflexive pronoun is accompanied by a specific personal pronoun; that is, “yo” is always used with “me,” “tú” with “te,” etc., when referring to actions that reflect back to ourselves, such as those of our daily routine. Following the rules in the image, the reflexive verb “despertarse” (to wake up) would be conjugated as follows:
- “(Yo) Me despierto” (I wake up)
- “(Tú) Te despiertas” (You wake up)
- “(Él/Ella/Usted)Se despierta“. (She wakes up)
The words “ME, TE, and SE” are reflexive pronouns. Remember to conjugate the main verb correctly, following the rules for regular verbs or using the correct forms of irregular verbs. Pay attention to the examples in the following image.
Interactive exercise No. 3
Drag and drop the reflexive pronouns and verb forms in Spanish to the correct boxes, following the rules explained before.
My daily routine in Spanish – Mi rutina diaria
The first example of a daily routine will show someone talking about his morning routine in Spanish, “la rutina de la mañana“. Sequence words like “Primero” (first), “Luego” (then), “Antes de” (before), “Después de” (after) and “Finalmente”(finally) will be used in most descriptions to connect ideas, just as shown in the following illustration:
This will make the descriptions more real and complete. Pay attention to the way the vocabulary for daily routines in the box is used to make meaningful sentences and a complete paragraph.
Example No. 1: Mi rutina de la mañana en español (with some reflexive verbs)
In this short text, conjugted reflexive verbs are highlighted in light blue and non-reflexive verbs appear in green.
Interactive exercise No. 4
Answer these questions about the a kid’s morning routine in Spanish based on the information provided in the example above.
Non-reflexive verbs in daily routines
In the previous example, the guy was talking about his own routine so he used sentences with the structure “Yo me + verb + complement”. As you can see in that example, verbs like DESAYUNAR and REGRESAR do not need the reflexive pronoun ME because both of them are non-reflexive verbs in Spanish. For the verb IR, both “Yo me voy…” and “Yo voy…” are possible.
Here is a second example, but this time including some words for hobbies and likes (ME GUSTA + activity), as well as frequency adverbs such as “Siempre” (always), “De vez en cuando” (sometimes) and “A veces” (sometimes), besides non-reflexive verbs in the same paragraph about a daily routine in Spanish.
Example No. 2: My daily routine (including non-reflexive verbs)
Interactive exercise No. 5
Read the previous paragraph about this boy’s daily routine in Spanish and choose the correct answer to the following questions.
Describing other people’s routine in Spanish
To talk about the activities that other people do on a daily basis, we will use reflexive pronouns that actually refer to other people, not only “ME”, for example: “Ella se baña” (she takes a shower), “Tú te vistes” (You get dressed) and so on.
You can even say if a person has an interesting (interesante), simple (sencilla) or busy (ocupada) routine. Besides, you can combine sentences about your daily routine in Spanish with activities that other people do, e.g. “Yo me levanto temprano y él se levanta tarde” (I get up early and he gets up late). Normally, all you need to know is which verbs will behave in a reflexive way and which will not. It all comes to practice and seeing examples, so here is one more daily routine description for you to learn a few more things.
Example No. 3: My family’s daily activities in Spanish
Nuestra rutina diaria en español
Interactive exercise No. 6
Choose the correct answer to each question about this family’s daily routine in Spanish.
Listening Activity No. 1: My daily routine in Spanish – Mi rutina diaria
Listening Activity No. 2: What’s your routine like? – ¿Cómo es tu rutina?
Listening Activity No. 3: My job and my daily activities
Practice and Writing: A short essay about your daily routine in Spanish
Write a short essay talking about your daily routine. You can simply write three paragraphs, one talking about your morning routine in Spanish, another about the activities you do in the afternoon and so on. If possible, share it with a native speaker and ask him about his as well.
Related PDF Worksheets:
- Telling Time in Spanish – PDF Worksheet
- Daily Activities in Spanish (Label activities)
- Our Daily Activities in Spanish (with photos)
- Daily Routine Activities in Spanish (Vocabulary)
- Verbs for Daily Routines in Spanish – Crossword Puzzle
- Reflexive Verbs in Spanish – PDF Word Search
- Conjugating Reflexive Verbs in Spanish (Chart + Sentences)
- My Daily Routine in Spanish – (Reading)
- My Daily Routine in Spanish (Girl) – PDF Reading Worksheet
- My Daily Routine in Spanish (Thiago) – PDF Worksheet
- Daily Activities & Time in Spanish (Clocks + activities)
- Household Chores in Spanish – PDF Worksheet
- Dialogues about daily routines in Spanish
- Messi’s Daily Routine in Spanish (Reading + exercises)
- Daily School Activities in Spanish – PDF Worksheet
I really enjoyed the different excercises and fun & games to help me to comprehend my Spanish work. They really helped me!
Hola,
Thanks for your comment. We are happy to hear this lesson helped you. La idea es ayudar un poquito…
Muchas gracias! Excelente trabajo!
Muchas gracias 🙂
The lessons are good. However I find the music background very distracting. Much harder to concentrate.
Thanks! We’ll keep it in mind for improvements 🙂
this was not fun
but it was helpful
Hello everybody. We recently updated and improved the quality of all the podcasts in this lesson. ¡Éxito aprendiendo español! 🙂
where is number 6
muchas gracis 🙂
¡De nada! Gracias a ti.
this was really helpful thank u…. i m currently in spanish 2 class and this really helped me understand
THANKS! ;D
We’re happy to hear that. Enjoy learning Spanish! 🙂
Thanks for this man. My professor in college couldn’t teach me in 1 month what your website did in 20 minutes.
Thanks! We’re happy you found the lesson useful. We will continue adding more and better content for learners like you. ¡Buen día! 🙂
Este es un buen sitio para aprender español. Por favor, continúen haciendo más lecciones. ¡Saludos desde filipinas!
Muchas gracias por tu comentario. Seguiremos trabajando para crear nuevas lecciones y mejorar las que ya tenemos. Saludos hasta Filipinas 🙂
this was helpful i was able to pass my spaish test with the blink of an eye
seems like id be using this site often
Just a note that in your example about cooking that “Ella nos cocina el desayuno” is not a use of a reflexive verb but “nos” is the object of the verb. 🙂
Yes, you are completely right. We will soon update the lesson to avoid any confusion we may have caused with direct or indirect object pronouns. ¡Gracias! ¡Un abrazo!
This was a very good website to practice spanish.