The 650 Spanish words that carry most conversations

Word frequency is brutally top-heavy. In spoken-corpus studies, the most frequent ~1,000 word families cover roughly 85% of everyday speech, and the curve is steepest at the very top. The words below sit on that steep part: concrete, picturable, and worth knowing in any Spanish conversation you're likely to have.

This is the exact list every Verbamor learner's deck is seeded with on day one (we build on Wyner's Fluent Forever base list, tuned by our card-quality pipeline). Nothing on this page is paywalled inside the app; we're giving you the list because the list was never the hard part. Making 650 words stick is.

The first 100

Spanish · words 1–100 of 646

#	Word	English	Type
1	ir (vamos)	to go	verb
2	pequeño / pequeña	small	adjective
3	fácil	easy	adjective
4	preguntar (pregunta)	to ask	verb
5	cerrado / cerrada	closed	adjective
6	decir (dice)	to say / to tell	verb
7	el agua	water	noun
8	comer (comen)	to eat	verb
9	grande	large, big	adjective
10	triste	sad	adjective
11	roto / rota	broken	adjective
12	la ropa	clothing	noun
13	el café	coffee	noun
14	sucio / sucia	dirty	adjective
15	el hospital	hospital	noun
16	beber (bebe)	to drink	verb
17	el pelo	hair	noun
18	el tráfico	traffic	noun
19	la cocina	kitchen	noun
20	bailar (bailan)	to dance	verb
21	la canción	song	noun
22	la calle	street	noun
23	el mercado	market	noun
24	cocinar (cocina)	to cook	verb
25	hola	hello	interjection
26	pelear (pelean)	to fight	verb
27	peligroso / peligrosa	dangerous	adjective
28	pensar (piensa)	to think	verb
29	caminar (camina)	to walk	verb
30	besar (besa)	to kiss	verb
31	enojado / enojada	angry	adjective
32	difícil	difficult	adjective
33	nuevo / nueva	new	adjective
34	ancho / ancha	wide	adjective
35	temprano	early	adverb
36	cuando	when	conjunction
37	la comida	meal	noun
38	abierto / abierta	open	adjective
39	la parada	(bus) stop	noun
40	él	he	pronoun
41	viejo / vieja	old	adjective
42	ellos / ellas	they	pronoun
43	bueno / buena	good	adjective
44	eso	it	pronoun
45	yo (yo)	I	pronoun
46	el ejército	army	noun
47	usted	you (formal)	pronoun
48	el segundo	second (unit of time)	noun
49	escuchar (escuchen)	to listen	verb
50	ayer	yesterday	adverb
51	el abogado / la abogada	lawyer	noun
52	hoy	today	adverb
53	ella	she	pronoun
54	malo / mala	bad	adjective
55	mañana	tomorrow	adverb
56	nosotros	we	pronoun
57	delicioso / deliciosa	delicious	adjective
58	duro / dura	hard, tough	adjective
59	el fan	fan (admirer)	noun
60	el artista / la artista	artist	noun
61	mismo / misma	same	adjective
62	disparar (disparó)	to shoot	verb
63	el menú	menu	noun
64	diferente	different	adjective
65	la salsa	sauce	noun
66	sed (sed)	thirst / thirsty	noun
67	equivocado / equivocada	wrong (incorrect)	adjective
68	encontrar (encuentra)	to find	verb
69	alegre	happy, joyful	adjective
70	trabajar (trabaja)	to work	verb
71	hambre (hambre)	hunger / hungry	noun
72	este / esta	this	adjective
73	estrecho / estrecha	narrow	adjective
74	hermoso / hermosa	beautiful	adjective
75	sonreír (sonríe)	to smile	verb
76	el sacerdote	priest	noun
77	la cita	date (romantic)	noun
78	muerto / muerta	dead	adjective
79	rico / rica	rich	adjective
80	el paraíso	heaven	noun
81	el soldado	soldier	noun
82	llamar (llama)	to call	verb
83	el infierno	hell	noun
84	largo / larga	long	adjective
85	suelto / suelta	loose, free, untied	adjective
86	saltar (salta)	to jump	verb
87	jugar (juegan)	to play	verb
88	la alergia	allergy	noun
89	vivo / viva	alive	adjective
90	correr (corre)	to run	verb
91	la muerte	death	noun
92	pobre	poor	adjective
93	probar (prueba)	to taste / to try (food)	verb
94	grueso / gruesa	thick	adjective
95	la empresa	company (business)	noun
96	sordo / sorda	deaf	adjective
97	la religión	religion	noun
98	el departamento	flat / apartment	noun
99	oír (oye)	to hear	verb
100	feo / fea	ugly	adjective

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