Vocabulary / Spanish

The 1,000 most common Spanish words

These are the 1,000 words you will meet most often in Spanish, in frequency order, each with its most common English meaning. A small core of words does most of the work in everyday speech, so learning them in this order gets you understanding real Spanish faster than any themed list.

Verbs crowd the top of the Spanish list: ser, estar, tener and hacer arrive before almost any noun. Spanish routinely drops its subject pronouns, so the verb carries more of the sentence than an English speaker expects; the early verbs repay every minute spent on them.

Ser and estar both translate as to be, and the list can only hand you the pair. The split between them is a grammar lesson, not a vocabulary item. Take it as the first sign that a frequency list is a map, not the territory.

Spanish words largely sound the way they are spelled, which makes this one of the rare lists you can trust your eyes on. The stress marks are part of the word: está and esta are different words, not variants.

Transcription

#	Spanish	Meaning
1	serˈseɾ	to be
2	estaresˈtaɾ	to be
3	irˈiɾ	go
4	tenerteˈneɾ	have
5	haberaˈbeɾ	have
6	haceraˈθeɾ	do
7	decirdeˈθiɾ	say
8	bienˈbjen	well
9	sabersaˈbeɾ	know
10	poderpoˈdeɾ	can
11	buenoˈbweno	good
12	verˈbeɾ	see
13	comokomo	like
14	aquíaˈki	here
15	másˈmas	more
16	quererkeˈɾeɾ	want
17	creerkɾeˈeɾ	think
18	todoˈtodo	everything
19	algoˈalɡo	something
20	vezˈbeθ	time
21	dejardeˈxaɾ	leave
22	deberdeˈbeɾ	must
23	venirbeˈniɾ	come
24	nadaˈnada	nothing
25	esteˈeste	this
26	pasarpaˈsaɾ	happen
27	pensarpenˈsaɾ	think
28	cosaˈkosa	thing
29	soloˈsolo	alone
30	darˈdaɾ	give
31	díaˈdia	day
32	verdadbeɾˈda	truth
33	hombreˈombɾe	man
34	casaˈkasa	house
35	tiempoˈtjempo	time
36	necesitarneθesiˈtaɾ	need
37	añoˈaɲo	year
38	llevarʝeˈbaɾ	carry
39	llamarʝaˈmaɾ	call
40	encontrarenkonˈtɾaɾ	find
41	hablaraˈblaɾ	speak
42	volverbolˈbeɾ	return
43	nocheˈnot͡ʃe	night
44	mejormeˈxoɾ	better
45	esperarespeˈɾaɾ	hope
46	tomartoˈmaɾ	take
47	vidaˈbida	life
48	maloˈmalo	bad
49	gustarɡusˈtaɾ	like
50	mismoˈmismo	same
51	nuevoˈnwebo	new
52	salirsaˈliɾ	leave
53	ponerpoˈneɾ	put
54	padreˈpadɾe	father
55	grandeˈɡɾande	big
56	hechoˈet͡ʃo	fact
57	quedarkeˈdaɾ	remain
58	llegarʝeˈɡaɾ	arrive
59	amigoaˈmiɡo	friend
60	primeropɾiˈmeɾo	first
61	conocerkonoˈθeɾ	know
62	seguirseˈɡiɾ	follow
63	otroˈotɾo	other
64	seguroseˈɡuɾo	sure
65	matarmaˈtaɾ	kill
66	trabajotɾaˈbaxo	work
67	acuerdoaˈkweɾdo	agreement
68	escuchareskuˈt͡ʃaɾ	listen
69	hijoˈixo	son
70	genteˈxente	people
71	mujermuˈxeɾ	woman
72	ayudaraʝuˈdaɾ	help
73	estadoesˈtado	state
74	claroˈklaɾo	clear
75	momentomoˈmento	moment
76	chicoˈt͡ʃiko	boy
77	entenderentenˈdeɾ	understand
78	despuésdesˈpwes	afterwards
79	problemapɾoˈblema	problem
80	horaˈoɾa	hour
81	buscarbusˈkaɾ	search
82	desdeˈdesde	since
83	mundoˈmundo	world
84	lugarluˈɡaɾ	place
85	dinerodiˈneɾo	money
86	tipoˈtipo	guy
87	valerbaˈleɾ	be worth
88	madreˈmadɾe	mother
89	sentirsenˈtiɾ	feel
90	mañanamaˈɲana	tomorrow
91	trabajartɾabaˈxaɾ	work
92	mirarmiˈɾaɾ	look
93	acabarakaˈbaɾ	finish
94	personapeɾˈsona	person
95	esperaesˈpeɾa	wait
96	morirmoˈɾiɾ	die
97	parteˈpaɾte	part
98	mamámaˈma	mom
99	menosˈmenos	less
100	chicaˈt͡ʃika	girl

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This page is the short version. The full list has 5,000 Spanish words.

See all 5,000

Sources and licences

The ranking is ours, built from the frequency data below and published under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Two things worth knowing before you read it. The list holds content words - nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs - so the function words that top any raw frequency count are not in it: no the, of, and, and no pronouns. And each entry gives one everyday meaning, written to be the one you are most likely to need, not the word's full range of senses.

To cite this resource: linguafolks. The most common Spanish words. www.linguafolks.com/articles/most-common-words/es. Teachers and institutions are welcome to use, print or adapt the lists in coursework with attribution and a link.

FrequencyWords, over OpenSubtitles 2018
Word frequency counted across film and television subtitles, via OPUS. Generator MIT (Hermit Dave); corpus OpenSubtitles 2018 via OPUS.
P. Lison, J. Tiedemann & M. Kouylekov (2018). OpenSubtitles2018: Statistical Rescoring of Sentence Alignments in Large Corpora. LREC 2018.
Wiktionary
Pronunciation (IPA), where an entry has one - coverage is partial, and a word without one shows none. CC BY-SA and GFDL, dual-licensed.
Obtained in machine-readable form from kaikki.org. Tatu Ylonen (2022). Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data. LREC 2022, pp. 1317-1325.

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