List of Spanish Words
Many people all over the world chose to learn Spanish because they find it widely used in music and films. Some of them wanted to be fluent in Spanish, so they could travel or work in countries around the world where Spanish is the first or second most prominent language.
If you want to speak Spanish, you must know enough words in the language. The grammar alone won't teach you how to converse with the 437 million Spanish speakers worldwide. Learning essential Spanish vocabulary and some standard phrases is key to starting out well. It is a good idea to get some basic grammar rules down, and then focus on further building out your vocabulary. If you want to improve your Spanish fluency, you need to learn more Spanish vocabulary.
Fortunately, there are many ways to learn Spanish vocabulary for beginners, intermediates, advanced students, or near-fluent learners. In this article, we’ll show you ways to quickly acquire vocabulary with a list of Spanish words.
How Many Words You Need To Know:
There is no definitive answer to how many words you need to know to speak Spanish like a native speaker. However, here are some estimates of the number of words you need to achieve different levels of Spanish fluency, based on research:
You cannot construct any meaningful sentences without adding the essential 250 words to your vocabulary. That’s why the first 250 words are considered the core of any language, while the top 1000 Spanish words are what you need for roughly 80% of all daily conversations.
Knowing the top 2,500 Spanish words will enable you to convey everything that you want to say in simple terms that anyone can understand. But learning 5,000 words will make you sound like a native speaker who finished high school, and can understand around 90% of Spanish texts, simply due to you having a broader vocabulary. We offer a special set bundle of two frequency dictionaries with the 5000 most Spanish common words.
With 10,000 words, you will have the active vocabulary of someone who finished higher education. You can understand about 98% of all spoken Spanish and 97% of all written language. Furthermore, to have the capability to read, understand, and enjoy a work of literature, you'd need to learn around 20,000 words. If you’re looking for more discounts, we offer 30% off if you get the whole set of Spanish frequency dictionaries at once. Combined, they contain the top 10,000 Spanish words in context.
How Many Words You Should Learn Per Day:
As a learner, there are many things you need to consider before setting your goal vocabulary per day. At least one word daily is still counted as learning Spanish. However, not all people have enough time to spare just studying and reading. So, if you are just starting out and you want to learn at least a thousand new Spanish words, we suggest you learn 10 new words per day. You will know about 900 words after 3 months of learning Spanish vocabulary this month, enough to get by as a tourist or to go about your daily life if you’re an expat.
Learning 20 Spanish words daily will make you reach your goal faster, as it will only take 50 days to learn 1000 words. Additionally, if you think you have enough time to learn at least 30 new words per day, you will reach 80% understanding, or enough to get by in the language, in about a month.
Protip:
The most successful polyglots learn about 20 new words a day, which is a good mix of speed and time invested per day. This quick, noticeable progress results in a more successful language learning experience.
Common Spanish Words
By now, you know that most spoken communication consists of just a few thousand common words. Some words are more common than others, and therefore more important to learn if you want to quickly master a language. To acquire practical Spanish vocabulary fast, you want to look at a list of the most common words in Spanish.
You can get the 100 most common Spanish words here for free. With these, you'll be able to understand about 50% of all Spanish.
Below are the links to the paperbacks on Amazon. They are affiliate links. That means we might get a small commission if you make a purchase after clicking these links:
- Spanish Frequency Dictionary 1 - Beginner Vocabulary
- Spanish Frequency Dictionary 2 - Intermediate Vocabulary
- Spanish Frequency Dictionary 3 - Advanced Vocabulary
- Spanish Frequency Dictionary 4 - Master Vocabulary
A note on Spanish word lists divided by themes:
Thematic vocabulary lists are useful to fill in gaps in your vocabulary after you gain a solid base vocabulary. Find or create lists that are specifically relevant to your own situation. Working in nightlife? Learn related terms. Going to spend a lot of time at the beach? Same goes here. Starting to learn a language by learning vocabulary related to “the airport” might seem useful, but at most airports people tend to speak English, and how much time are you going to spend at airports? You might be better off learning the top 1000 words first, and thematic lists of say, “the supermarket”, or “the restaurant”.
Essential Spanish Words
Start your Spanish journey by learning some basic terms. Slowly build up your confidence and Spanish word bank by starting with easy and common vocabulary:
Hello = “Hola”
Goodbye = “Adiós”
Yes = “Sí”
No = “No”
I = “Yo”
He = “Él”
She = “Ella”
They = “Ellos” (masculine)
They = “Ellas” (feminine)
Please = “Por favor”
Thank you = “Gracias”
Sorry = “Lo siento”
Bless you (when someone sneezed) = “Salud”
Good morning = “Buenos días”
Good afternoon = “Buenas tardes”
Good evening = “Buenas noches”
To be = “Ser/Estar”
To go = “Ir”
To do/make = “Hacer”
To have = “Haber”
To possess/have = “Tener”
To be able to/can = “Poder”
To say/tell = “Decir”
To come = “Venir”
To see = “Ver”
To give = “Dar”
To know/find out = “Saber”
To want = “Querer”
To arrive = “Llegar”
To pass/spend time = “Pasar”
To believe = “Creer”
To put = “Poner”
To name = “Llamar”
Who? = “¿Quién?”
Where? = “¿Dónde?”
What? = “¿Qué?”
Why? = “¿Por qué?”
When? = “¿Cuándo?”
Which? = “¿Cuál?”
How? = “¿Cómo?”
List of Spanish Words
A word list is all you might need to start learning a language. This will give you a solid resource of words, especially when you don’t know where to begin. You can find various word lists on the internet and in physical books. Each of them has different sets of lists because of the use of different sources. Make sure that your list is based on both written and spoken Spanish. The language used differs depending on spoken and written language. Written language is usually more complex and uses a more diverse set of words. Spoken language is usually simpler. We base our lists on analysis of subtitles, because they correlate to both spoken and written language.
We recommend our Spanish vocabulary lists to learners who are looking for a practical list of Spanish words. Our dictionaries are based upon how often you would use a word. These were developed to allow learners to quickly expand their vocabulary. They contain IPA phonetic transcriptions of Spanish words, so you always know how to pronounce a word the right way. All entries come with detailed grammatical information, so you know if a word is a noun, adjective, verb, or can be used multiple ways. Last but not least, each entry comes with a bilingual sample sentence, so you see the word being used in context. You get some reading practice too. By the time you finish a dictionary, you’ll have read a short novel in Spanish to English parallel text.
The books are sorted by:
- General frequency, the most common words in Spanish in descending order.
- Frequency as part of speech (a list of the most common Spanish nouns, verbs and adjectives), and
- Alphabet, so you can easily look up terms.
You can get them as e-books from our website, or as paperbacks from Amazon. Check out what our customers have to say here in the Spanish Frequency dictionary reviews.
- Spanish Frequency Dictionary - Beginner Spanish
- Spanish Frequency Dictionary - Intermediate Spanish
- Spanish Frequency Dictionary - Advanced Spanish
- Spanish Frequency Dictionary - Fluent Spanish
Conclusion
If you wish to learn Spanish, it is important to be familiar with the vocabulary. Finding the right list of Spanish words is essential in language learning. Our books can provide a smarter way to study the Spanish vocabulary. Investing in proper resources for learning words will save you lots of time and frustration. Furthermore, it will help ease and shorten your learning process. Check out MostUsedWords Spanish Frequency Dictionaries and bilingual books available as ebooks on our website, or as paperbacks on Amazon.