Vocabulary
Spanish has around 100,000 words. You need about 3,000 to understand 95% of conversation. The trick is learning the right 3,000 first.
Words in the order they pay you back
Spanish has around 100,000 words. You need about 3,000 to understand 95% of conversation, and somewhere between 6,000 and 8,000 before novels and news stop feeling like work. The trick is learning the right 3,000 first.
Coverage: how much you understand per words known
Approximate share of running words in everyday spoken Spanish covered by the n most frequent word families. Based on corpus frequency dictionaries; treat as a shape, not a decimal.
Show as a table
| Words known | Coverage |
|---|---|
| 100 | ~50% |
| 500 | ~75% |
| 1,000 | ~85% |
| 2,000 | ~92% |
| 3,000 | ~95% |
| 5,000 | ~97% |
| 8,000 | ~98% |
| 10,000 | ~99% |
How to run Anki so it works
- Deck: any "Spanish top 5000" frequency deck with audio and example sentences. After 1,000 words, switch mostly to cards you make from your own input.
- New cards/day: 15 at A1–A2, 10 at B1, 5 at B2+. More new cards means more reviews; reviews are what eat your time.
- Scheduler: turn on FSRS (Deck options → Advanced). It cuts review load by about a third for the same retention. Desired retention 0.85–0.90.
- Card shape: Spanish sentence on the front with the target word in bold; meaning and audio on the back. Word-only cards are fine for the first 500.
- Grading: "Again" if you didn't know it, "Good" if you did. Almost never "Hard" or "Easy." Simple grading keeps the algorithm honest.
- Leeches: a card you fail 8 times is not worth its cost. Suspend it; you'll meet the word in input anyway.
- Say every card aloud. Reading silently trains recognition; speaking trains recall.
The cognate rules: 1,500 words for free
English and Spanish share thousands of Latin-derived words. Learn the suffix swaps once and you can both recognise and produce them. Pronounce the Spanish version with Spanish vowels and stress, or nobody will understand you.
| English | Spanish | Examples | Gender |
|---|---|---|---|
| -tion | -ción | nación, información, educación, atención | f. |
| -sion | -sión | televisión, decisión, versión | f. |
| -ty | -dad / -tad | universidad, ciudad, libertad, realidad | f. |
| -ly | -mente | rápidamente, exactamente, finalmente | adverb |
| -ous | -oso/-osa | famoso, delicioso, nervioso, curioso | adj. |
| -ic / -ical | -ico/-ica | orgánico, político, práctico, lógico | adj. |
| -al | -al | natural, animal, hospital, final | varies |
| -ist | -ista | artista, turista, dentista, optimista | m./f. |
| -ism | -ismo | turismo, optimismo, capitalismo | m. |
| -ence / -ance | -encia / -ancia | diferencia, experiencia, importancia, distancia | f. |
| -ary / -ory | -ario / -orio | vocabulario, ordinario, laboratorio, territorio | m. / adj. |
| -ble | -ble | posible, terrible, responsable, probable | adj. |
| -ive | -ivo/-iva | activo, creativo, positivo, exclusivo | adj. |
| -ment | -mento | documento, momento, apartamento, instrumento | m. |
| -ant / -ent | -ante / -ente | importante, elegante, diferente, inteligente | adj. |
| -or | -or | doctor, actor, color, motor | m. |
| -ure | -ura | cultura, temperatura, literatura, aventura | f. |
| -ate (verb) | -ar | celebrar, comunicar, participar, crear | verb |
| -ify | -ificar | identificar, clasificar, justificar | verb |
| -ize | -izar | organizar, realizar, memorizar | verb |
False friends that will embarrass you
The price of cognates is a few dozen words that look like English and are not. Learn these twenty-four early; the rest are rare.
| Spanish | Actually means | Not | For that, say |
|---|---|---|---|
| embarazada | pregnant | embarrassed | avergonzado/a |
| éxito | success | exit | salida |
| actualmente | currently | actually | en realidad |
| realizar | to carry out | to realise | darse cuenta |
| sensible | sensitive | sensible | sensato |
| librería | bookshop | library | biblioteca |
| constipado | having a cold | constipated | estreñido |
| carpeta | folder | carpet | alfombra |
| asistir | to attend | to assist | ayudar |
| soportar | to put up with | to support | apoyar |
| fábrica | factory | fabric | tela |
| ropa | clothes | rope | cuerda |
| largo | long | large | grande |
| molestar | to bother | to molest | abusar de |
| pretender | to intend / aim to | to pretend | fingir |
| recordar | to remember | to record | grabar |
| suceso | event | success | éxito |
| sopa | soup | soap | jabón |
| once | eleven | once | una vez |
| pie | foot | pie | pastel / tarta |
| red | net / network | red | rojo |
| introducir | to insert | to introduce (people) | presentar |
| contestar | to answer | to contest | impugnar |
| excitado | aroused | excited | emocionado |
Practise these 200 words with spaced repetition in the practice app: tap to flip, grade yourself, and the scheduler brings each word back just before you would forget it.
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