01
Frequency, not chapters
The first 1,000 words cover most of everyday Spanish. You learn them first, in rank order, instead of whatever the next unit happens to hold.
Spanish vocabulary, by frequency
How many Spanish words do you already know?
Take a four-minute adaptive test, get your vocabulary size, then learn what you’re missing — in the order you’ll actually meet it.
02
A number that moves
Your vocabulary size is re-estimated as you review. Milestones at 100, 500, 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 and 5,000 words mark the way up.
03
Four ways to be sure
Flashcards, multiple choice, typing and listening, scheduled by spaced repetition. A real example sentence on every word.
Questions before you start
How many Spanish words do you need to be conversational?
There is no single threshold, but coverage shows how far a vocabulary goes. In film and TV dialogue, the closest of the three corpora to conversation, the 100 most common words make up 48% of what is said, the first 1,000 make up 72% and all 5,000 make up 85%. At 72%, about one word in 4 is still unfamiliar. So the first 1,000 let you take part in a conversation, with a lot of guessing from context, and the next 4,000 are what make following it comfortable.
How many Spanish words do you need? →Is this Spain or Latin American Spanish?
Both. The ranking is built from film and TV subtitles, news and Wikipedia from across the Spanish-speaking world, so it follows no single country, and the most common words are shared almost everywhere. Two things lean towards Spain: the pronunciation shown is peninsular, with c and z as /θ/, and the audio prefers a voice from Spain when your browser has one. Regional vocabulary is under-represented, and the method page says so.
How the ranking is built →Are these word forms or dictionary forms?
Word forms, counted as they are written, so “es” and “ser” are separate entries, and so are “año” and “años”. That is how you meet them in a sentence. Every conjugated verb form names its dictionary form beside it (es · ser, fue · ser/ir), so you always know which verb you are looking at.
The most common Spanish verbs →Is it free, and why?
Yes. Every list, every word page, the test and the review are free, with no paid tier and no ads. The site is small and cheap to run, with no accounts, no app and pages of a few kilobytes, so there is nothing a subscription would need to pay for.
Do I need an account?
No. The first time the site needs to remember something for you, such as a test result or a review, it keeps your progress against a random, anonymous id in a single cookie. No email, no password, no name. It lives in that browser; to continue on another device, your progress page shows a recovery code you type in there.
What is stored, and where →What does CEFR mean here?
CEFR is the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. It describes ability in six levels, from A1 (beginner) to C2 (mastery). Here, every word carries the level at which a learner would typically be expected to know it. Those levels are a considered judgement per word, not an official list, and no exam board has blessed them. The 5,000 run from A1 to B2.
Spanish A1 vocabulary →Learn the Spanish words that matter most
Test your vocabulary. Discover how many words you know. Then learn the rest.
Learning another language too?
The same question, put to German and to English: the 5,000 most common words of each, ranked from real text, with a free vocabulary test.
How many German words do you know?
A free vocabulary test on the 5,000 most common German words, then the rest of the list in frequency order.
german5000.com →
How many English words do you know?
A free vocabulary test on the 5,000 most common English words, ranked from film, news and Wikipedia.
english5000.com →