Here is a situation that happens to expats in Spain every single week.
Your water gets cut off. You need to call the water company, explain the situation in Spanish and find out when it will be back on. The call takes four minutes.
You don’t speak Spanish. So you call an in-person interpreter.
They come to your home. Or you go to them. Either way, you pay for a minimum of one hour — because that’s how in-person interpretation works. Nobody comes out for four minutes.
You’ve just paid €30 to €50 for a four-minute phone call.
There is a better way. But first, let’s go through every option honestly — because different situations genuinely call for different solutions.
Option 1: A Bilingual Friend Or Family Member
Cost: Free Available: When they’re free Languages: Whatever they happen to speak Good for: Informal situations where precision doesn’t matter
The obvious first choice. And for genuinely simple, low-stakes situations — asking a neighbour something, ordering a complex item in a shop — it works fine.
The problems start when you need them to be available immediately, when the subject matter is technical or sensitive, or when the conversation is one they find uncomfortable (discussing your medical situation, financial problems or legal issues with a stranger is awkward for anyone).
Building your life in Spain around borrowed language skills is not a long-term strategy.
Option 2: Translation Apps (Google Translate, DeepL etc.)
Cost: Free Available: Always Languages: Many Good for: Reading signs, menus, written documents
Apps have improved dramatically and for reading written Spanish they’re genuinely useful. For live conversation interpretation — holding your phone between you and a Spanish speaker while it tries to keep up — they remain unreliable.
Medical, legal and financial language is precise. The nuance between “I have had this symptom for three weeks” and “I have had this symptom three times” can change a diagnosis. Automated translation misses these distinctions regularly.
For anything where getting it wrong has consequences — healthcare, contracts, tax, legal matters — do not rely on an app.
Option 3: Your Private Health Insurance
Cost: Included with some policies Available: Medical situations only Languages: English typically, sometimes others Good for: Doctor and hospital appointments if you have the right policy
Some private health insurers operating in Spain offer English-language medical helplines and English-speaking doctors. This is genuinely valuable if you have it.
The limitations are significant: it only covers medical situations, requires you to have specifically chosen a policy with this provision, and is completely useless for the other hundred situations where you need Spanish — your bank, your landlord, the tax office, the town hall.
Option 4: In-Person Professional Interpreters
Cost: €30–€50 per hour (minimum one hour) Available: By appointment, during working hours Languages: Depends on the interpreter Good for: Court appearances, notary signings, formal legal proceedings
For formal, high-stakes situations — appearing in court, signing property documents at a notary, formal legal proceedings — an in-person professional interpreter is the right choice. Their presence is sometimes legally required, and the formality of the situation justifies the cost.
For everything else, the economics simply don’t add up.
The maths on a typical call:
| Situation | Time Actually Spent | In-Person Interpreter Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Reporting a water fault | 4 minutes | €30–50 (minimum 1 hour) |
| Chasing a building licence | 8 minutes | €30–50 (minimum 1 hour) |
| Asking about a bank charge | 6 minutes | €30–50 (minimum 1 hour) |
| Checking a doctor’s appointment time | 3 minutes | €30–50 (minimum 1 hour) |
You’re paying for 56 minutes you didn’t use, every single time.
Option 5: Live Telephone Interpretation - Pay For What You Actually Use
Cost: From €10/month or from €7.50 per bundle Available: 24/7, no booking required Languages: Multiple, simultaneously available Good for: Almost everything else
This is where the conversation changes.
Live telephone interpretation connects you with a real human interpreter by phone in seconds — no booking, no waiting, no minimum hours. The interpreter joins your call with the Spanish speaker and interprets the entire conversation both ways, in real time.
The crucial difference: you pay per second of actual call time.
That water company call that took four minutes? You pay for four minutes. Not an hour. Not even five minutes – four.
telmyfriends Pricing — In Full
Monthly subscription plans:
| Plan | Minutes Included | Languages | Monthly Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Expat Basic | 15 minutes | 1 language | €10* |
| Expat Multi | 15 minutes | All languages | €18.99 |
| VIP Multi | 60 minutes | All languages | €59.99 |
Unused minutes each month can accumulate up to 1hr for the 15m subscriptions, and up to 4hr for the 60m subscription
*Long term promotional price, normally €14.99
Pay-as-you-go call bundles:
| Bundle | Cost | Cost Per Minute |
|---|---|---|
| 5 minutes | €7.50 | €1.50 |
| 15 minutes | €21.00 | €1.40 |
| 30 minutes | €40.00 | €1.33 |
| 60 minutes | €75.00 | €1.25 |
| 120 minutes | €140.00 | €1.17 |
| 180 minutes | €200.00 | €1.11 |
Every second of your balance is available for calls. Nothing rounds up. You use four minutes, four minutes comes off your balance.
The Real-World Comparison
Let's go back to that water company call.
In-person interpreter: €30–50. Minimum one hour. Needs to be booked. Not available at 10am on a weekday morning at short notice.
telmyfriends (Expat Basic, €10/month): 4 minutes used from your 15-minute monthly allowance. Equivalent cost: approximately €2.67. Available immediately. Interpreter on the line within seconds.
Saving on a single call: €27 to €47.
And that’s before you consider that the monthly plan gives you 15 minutes — enough for three or four typical calls — for €10 total.
Which Option Is Right For You?
If you need interpretation once or twice a year for a formal legal matter: in-person professional interpreter, worth the cost.
If you regularly deal with Spanish-speaking utilities, offices, landlords, banks, healthcare providers: a telmyfriends monthly subscription pays for itself on the first call.
If you’re not sure how much you’ll use it: start with a call bundle. Pay for exactly what you use, top up when you need to.
One More Thing Worth Knowing
telmyfriends isn’t just for calls you initiate. It’s for calls you receive.
When your bank calls you in Spanish about a transaction. When the building contractor calls with a question. When the estate agent calls with news about your purchase. An interpreter is available immediately – so you never again have to say “I’m sorry, I don’t understand, can you call back” and spend the next hour worrying about what they wanted.
24 hours a day. 7 days a week. From your phone. In seconds.
Questions about which plan is right for your situation? Let us know directly — we’re happy to help you work out the most cost-effective option for how you actually live in Spain.
Related reading:
