Question 1

How many Spanish words do you need to know?

Accepted Answer

The first 1,000 Spanish word families on Einlang's frequency list cover 84.25% of everyday spoken Spanish and 75.32% of the prose in real books. Two thousand reach 88.93% and 81.06%, and the full 5,000 reach 93.2% and 87.5%. Coverage climbs steeply at first and then flattens, which is why the first thousand words are worth far more study time than the fifth.

Question 2

What are the 100 most common Spanish words?

Accepted Answer

In order, the commonest Spanish word families are de (of), que (who), el (masculine singular definite article), la (la), no (not), ser (to be), un (an), en (in, at, on), yo (Freud's concept of the ego), haber (to exist), lo (neuter definite article used only before nominalized adjectives: the, that which is), por (by), estar (to be), se (A reflexive or reciprocal pronoun: oneself, himself, herself, itself, yourself), con (with), ir (to go), tener (to have), hacer (to do), este (this), decir (to say, to tell), suyo (his, hers, its, to her), tú (second person pronoun in singular tense), las (feminine plural definite article), qué (what), para (for, to), todo (all), poder (to be able to, can), del (of the, from the), si (if, whether), pero (but), le (to him, for him), como (as), más (more), saber (to know, to understand), ver (to see, to spot), mío (mine, my), querer (to desire, to want, to want to), mucho (much, a lot, far, way, many times), bien (well), sí (prepositional form of se). The first 100 together cover 61.51% of everyday speech and 54.38% of a book. They are almost entirely function words - articles, pronouns, prepositions and the handful of verbs every sentence is built from.

Question 3

How is this Spanish frequency list built?

Accepted Answer

Einlang blends two corpora: 394 million words of subtitle dialogue for modern everyday language, and 45 public-domain books for written and literary language. Words are grouped into families, so one entry covers a verb and its conjugations rather than scattering them across dozens of ranks. Where one spelling is two different words, its occurrences are divided between them on corpus evidence rather than given to the commoner one, so both keep a row. Headwords, parts of speech and meanings come from Wiktionary. Proper nouns are removed - 617 of them - along with anything no Spanish dictionary recognises.

Question 4

How do I look up a Spanish word?

Accepted Answer

Type it into the search box on this page. Einlang ranks 16,244 Spanish words and recognises 33,927 inflected spellings, so a conjugation or a plural resolves to the word it belongs to and comes back with its meaning, its part of speech and how common it is. A word too rare for the 5,000 rows published here still returns its rank rather than nothing.

Question 5

Can I download this Spanish word list for Anki?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Einlang's list downloads as a tab-separated Anki file with three columns - the Spanish word, its meaning, and its CEFR level as a tag - and also as CSV or plain text. It is free, needs no account, and you can filter to a single CEFR band first so you only export the words at your level.

#	Word	Part of speechType	Meaning	CEFR
1	de	prepositionprep.	of; 's; used after the thing owned and before the owner	A1	1 in 3	5.6%
2	que	pronounpron.	who; that	A1	1 in 3	9.6%
3	el	determinerdet.	masculine singular definite article; the	A1	1 in 3	13.6%
4	la	nounnoun	la (sixth note of the scale)	A1	1 in 4	17.3%
5	no	adverbadv.	not	A1	1 in 6	18.9%
6	ser	verbverb	to be (essentially or identified as)	A1	1 in 6	20.4%
7	un	determinerdet.	an; a	A1	1 in 6	22.3%
8	en	prepositionprep.	in, at, on	A1	1 in 5	24.7%
9	yo	nounnoun	Freud's concept of the ego	A1	1 in 10	25.7%
10	haber	verbverb	to exist; there be; “there is”, “there are” (hay); “there was”, “there were” (había)	A1	1 in 8	26.9%
11	lo	determinerdet.	neuter definite article used only before nominalized adjectives: the, that which is	A1	1 in 12	27.7%
12	por	prepositionprep.	by	A1	1 in 9	28.8%
13	estar	verbverb	to be (have a temporary or permanent location in space)	A1	1 in 17	29.3%
14	se	pronounpron.	A reflexive or reciprocal pronoun: oneself, himself, herself, itself, yourself; themselves; yourselves; each other; o...	A1	1 in 7	30.7%
15	con	prepositionprep.	with	A1	1 in 8	32.0%
16	ir	verbverb	to go (away from speaker and listener)	A1	1 in 17	32.5%
17	tener	verbverb	to have; to possess	A1	1 in 16	33.0%
18	hacer	verbverb	to do; to make	A1	1 in 17	33.5%
19	este	determinerdet.	this	A1	1 in 15	34.1%
20	decir	verbverb	to say, to tell	A1	1 in 14	34.8%
21	suyo	determinerdet.	his, hers, its, to her	A1	1 in 9	35.8%
22	tú	pronounpron.	second person pronoun in singular tense; you	A1	1 in 31	36.2%
23	las	determinerdet.	feminine plural definite article; the	A1	1 in 10	37.2%
24	qué	determinerdet.	what; which	A1	1 in 27	37.5%
25	para	prepositionprep.	for, to (expressing a recipient)	A1	1 in 16	38.1%
26	todo	determinerdet.	all; every	A1	1 in 15	38.7%
27	poder	verbverb	to be able to, can	A1	1 in 26	39.0%
28	del	contractioncontr.	of the, from the (+ a masculine noun in singular).	A1	1 in 12	39.8%
29	si	conjunctionconj.	if, whether	A1	1 in 21	40.2%
30	pero	conjunctionconj.	but	A1	1 in 20	40.6%
31	le	pronounpron.	to him, for him; dative of él	A1	1 in 13	41.4%
32	como	prepositionprep.	as (in the manner or role specified)	A1	1 in 15	42.0%
33	más	adverbadv.	more; -er (used to make comparisons)	A1	1 in 15	42.6%
34	saber	verbverb	to know, to understand (a fact)	A1	1 in 31	42.9%
35	ver	verbverb	to see, to spot	A1	1 in 20	43.3%
36	mío	determinerdet.	mine, my; of mine	A1	1 in 28	43.6%
37	querer	verbverb	to desire, to want, to want to	A1	1 in 31	43.9%
38	mucho	adverbadv.	much, a lot, far, way, many times	A1	1 in 22	44.3%
39	bien	adverbadv.	well (adverbial form of bueno)	A1	1 in 45	44.5%
40	sí	pronounpron.	prepositional form of se	A1	1 in 61	44.6%
41	él	pronounpron.	he, him, masculine personal third person subject and disjunctive pronoun (used as a subject and after prepositions)	A1	1 in 26	45.0%
42	dar	verbverb	to give, to give out	A1	1 in 24	45.3%
43	bueno	adjectiveadj.	good	A1	1 in 54	45.5%
44	ya	adverbadv.	now (often as opposed to before), anymore, no longer	A1	1 in 32	45.8%
45	ése	pronounpron.	that one	A1	1 in 79	45.9%
46	ese	determinerdet.	that	A1	1 in 54	46.0%
47	otro	determinerdet.	other, another	A1	1 in 23	46.4%
48	pasar	verbverb	to pass, to hand, to slip	A1	1 in 41	46.6%
49	solo	adverbadv.	only; solely; just	A1	1 in 60	46.7%
50	aquí	adverbadv.	here (in the speaker's location)	A1	1 in 76	46.8%

The 5,000 most common Spanish words

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