Firstly, on a grammatical level, work is both a verb and a noun, whereas (=mientras que) job is only a noun. Work is not countable (a work), job is (a great job).
Let’s look at their
meanings now.
Work is an activity in which you use
effort (esfuerzo) or energy, normally
to achieve a particular aim or task, rather than for fun or enjoyment (para conseguir un objetivo más que por diversión).
It is essentially the opposite of play.
Generally (but not always), we work in order to earn money, and this is often
how we use the verb; to describe what we do to earn money. For example:
I work for the BBC.
David works in a café.
In these examples, we do
not know exactly what the person’s duties or responsibilities are. David works
in a café, but we do not know if he cleans the tables or cooks the food.
So, in this sense, work has a very general meaning, whereas job is much more specific, and its most common meaning
is the name for the work that you do to earn money. For example,
David has now got a new
job. He is a cook in a small restaurant.
In this example, we now
know exactly what David does because we know what his job is.
Although your job is the name for what you do to earn money, it can also refer to a specific task (tarea)that you have to do; a task that requires work and a task that you can specifically identify. For example,
I have a few jobs to do at home this weekend. I need to paint my bedroom, fix a broken door and cut the grass.
As a verb, work
does have other meanings, such as, if you describe how a machine works,
you explain how it functions, or operates. For example,
Can someone show me how
the photocopier works? I don’t know how to use it.
Similarly, you can use it
to say if the machine is functioning correctly. For example,
Don’t try to use that
computer. It doesn’t work. We are waiting for the engineer to fix it.
To summarise, we can say
that the word job refers
to a particular employment role or position, such as cook, teacher or banker,
whereas work refers in a more
general way to activities that you do.
Interestingly, all jobs involve (suponen,
requieren) work but doing work isn’t always part of a job. For example, someone
can spend the weekend working in their garden, perhaps
cutting the grass or planting new flowers. However, this is a free time activity, and so it is not his or
her job. Work can be anything that requires effort, paid/unpaid, regular/done on one
occasion.
Sometimes you can use either (cualquiera
de los dos), with just a little difference in meaning:
It’s a
dirty job, but someone has to do it.(Oficio/tarea)
It’s dirty work, but someone has to do
it (La labor, el trabajo en sí que
se hace)
A final consideration: don’t worry too much about
these two words. Just try to avoid (evitar) the usual mistakes:
What’s your job? My job is a teacher. >>> I’m a teacher. (Curiosamente, en la pregunta se usa, pero en la
respuesta no. Si
empiezas una frase My job is… puedes
seguir describiendo cómo es, pero NO diciendo el nombre del trabajo).
She has two works. (Uncountable!: two jobs).
I’ve been working hard for the last few hours, so I think it’s time for me to take a break (un descanso). Fortunately, the work that I do in my job is very interesting, so although it is hard work, I don’t think I will look for another job! What about you? Are you a student or do you have a job? Whatever you do, is it hard work?
N.B. Much of this explanation was found on a BBC webpage:
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