The Most Common Spanish Words — Learn Them in the Order You’ll Use Them

This Spanish vocabulary course targets the most common words you need for everyday conversation. You can use it by itself or alongside your current program of study, but most usefully it can be used alongside the Pro-Spanish levels one to six course. So as this course is all about words, let's begin with the Spanish for word. In Spanish, word is palabra, palabra, una palabra, una palabra, a word. Dos palabras, two words. So you try now, una palabra, yeah, una palabra, una palabra. The word for day is día, día. And although it ends in the letter A, which would normally indicate it's going to be a feminine word, it's actually masculine. The day is masculine. Un día, un día, un día. So a day, un día. Let's quickly do the opposite of day, night. Noche, noche noche and oddly enough night is actually feminine so we say una noche una noche a night or the night la noche noche so day día is for boys and night for girls at least that's how heard a Spanish man explain it once so so far we have una palabra a word un día a day and una noche a night the word for each is cada cada c-a-d-a cada and it can also be used to mean every cada Cada. So, each is cada. So, cada palabra, each word. Cada palabra, each word. How would you say each day or every day? Cada día. Cada día. And what do you think each night or every night would be? Cada noche. Cada noche. What do you think this sentence means? Cada día aprendo tres palabras. Aprendo means I learn. Listen again. What does this mean? Cada día aprendo tres palabras. Each day I learn three words. Cada día aprendo tres palabras. Okay, let's move on. The word for a place is un sitio. Un sitio. It's where we get the word site from. Un sitio. site, a place. Un sitio. Un sitio interesante, an interesting place. Un sitio bonito, a nice place. Un sitio histórico, an historic place. What do you think this means? Mi sitio favorito es Valencia. That's more specifically, mi sitio favorito en España es Valencia. What does that mean? Mi sitio favorito en España es Valencia. My favorite place in Spain is Valencia. Valencia. How do you think you would say, my favorite place in Spain is Madrid? My favorite place in Spain is Madrid. Mi sitio favorito en España es Madrid. How would you say each place? Cada sitio. Perhaps it might be each place was interesting. Cada sitio era interesante. Okay, let's learn two words together now. We're going to learn how to say part, as in the part of something, part, and side, side of something. So part and side, a part and a side. Una parte, nice and easy, una parte and un lado, una parte, un lado. So a part, una parte, you can see that it's feminine, una parte, part, and un lado, a side, una parte, un lado. How about each part? Cada parte, cada parte. So you could say, cada parte es importante, cada parte es importante. each part is important. How would you say my favorite side? Mi lado favorito. Mi lado favorito. That's more usefully, my favorite part. What would that be? My favorite part. Mi parte favorita. Mi parte favorita. And notice that because part, una parte is a feminine word, we have to say favorita. It has to agree. So the favorite has to be a describing word. The adjective has to be feminine as well. So mi parte favorita, my favorite part. So it could be mi parte favorita de la pelicula, my favorite part of the film, mi parte favorita. So, these are the words that we have learnt this lesson and because of the way we've been taught them, they'll be quite easy to remember. It's still advisable to briefly review them before going into lesson two. Hopefully, you have been able to do a quick recap of the vocabulary from the previous lesson. Very briefly, we saw that cada meant each, palabra was word. We also learnt día, noche, day and night. Sitio was place and parte was part. Una parte, a part. So, on to this lesson and we're going to start with man and woman. Hombre, mujer. Hombre, mujer. Man, woman. Un hombre, a man. Una mujer, a woman. Hombre, mujer. let's try saying that a couple of times hombre mujer hombre mujer the word mujer mujer also means wife so mi mujer in spanish is also my wife mi mujer and interestingly a another word which means wife is esposa esposa that's wife and the word esposas esposas means wives but also means handcuffs so esposas are wives but also handcuffs i don't know if that gives us any insight or or not but let's not let that little aside distract us from hombre is man and mujer is woman or wife how would you say each woman each woman cada mujer cada mujer and each man cada hombre, cada hombre, cada hombre. The same in Spanish is el mismo, el mismo, the same, el mismo. And if we are referring to something feminine, la misma, la misma. So the same is el mismo or la misma. El mismo, la misma. How would you say the same woman? The same woman. La misma mujer. La misma mujer. What would it mean if we said es la misma mujer. Es la misma mujer. That would mean it's the same woman. It's the same woman or she is the same woman. How would you say it's the same man? It's the same man. Es el mismo hombre. Es el mismo hombre. How would you say the same night? The same night. La misma noche. La misma noche. The same day. el mismo día, el mismo día. The word for only, just, as in there are only two people in the queue, there are just two people in the queue, it's only a joke, it's just a joke. The word for only is solo, solo, quite easy to remember, solo is only or just. How would you say just one man, just one man solo un hombre solo un hombre how about just two days or only two days solo dos días solo dos días how about just one place in spain only one place in spain solo un sitio en España. You can only buy it in one place in Spain. Solo un sitio en España. How about only one woman? Only one woman. And just a note, solo doesn't change to feminine. it's an adverb which means that it stays it doesn't change to agree with the masculine or feminine of the word or the singular or the plural in the same way as cada doesn't change either solo doesn't so how would you say only one woman or just one woman solo una mujer solo una mujer you saw in the previous lesson that word is palabra a word una palabra una palabra and the word for sentence in spanish sentence like palabra is also a feminine word the sentence in spanish is frase frase una frase una frase easy to remember because it's like a phrase So, a sentence is una frase, una frase. How would you say just one sentence, just one sentence? Solo una frase, solo una frase. How about each sentence is important, each sentence is important. Cada frase es importante, cada frase es importante. it. How about it's the same sentence. It's the same sentence. Es la misma frase. Es la misma frase. The word for right, as in the right answer, is correcto. Correcto. Nice and easy. And guess what? Incorrecto is wrong. Correcto. Incorrecto. How would you say the sentence is right. The sentence is right. La frase es correcta. La frase es correcta. Because frase is feminine, the correcto needs to change to correcta, to agree. La frase es correcta. How about, each sentence is wrong. Each sentence is wrong. Cada frase es incorrecta. Cada frase es incorrecta. The word for hand is mano, mano. And as it ends in an O, you would expect it to be a masculine word, but it's actually una mano, una mano. Even though it ends in O, it's a feminine word. Una mano. And there are a few others like this. Una radio. Una radio. It's fairly easily explained because radio comes from radiofonía, which doesn't end in an A. So it's una radio. And una moto. Una moto. And that's also explainable because it's motocicleta. So, una mano, una radio, and una moto. Going back to something we learned from the previous lesson, the same. How would we say the same motorbike? The same motorbike. La misma moto. La misma moto. And what about it's the same hand? It's the same hand. Es la misma mano. es la misma mano you may already know that mi is my mi propio mi propio is my own mi propio my own and that's propio think of it in terms of property it's your property it's my own mi propio mi propio so for example tengo mi propio coche i have my own car tengo mi propio coche how would you say my own hand my own hand mi propia mano mi propia mano just remember the propio has changed to propia the feminine mi propia mano how about my own motorbike mi propia moto mi propia moto and how about i have my own motorbike tengo mi propia moto tengo mi propia moto my is me his or her is su su so how would you say his or her own car, his or her own car, su propio coche, su propio coche, how about, this is going back to the previous lesson, his own wife, his own wife, su propia mujer, su propia mujer, how about, she has her own house she has her own house, house you probably will have heard is casa she has is tiene so she has her own house would be tiene su propia casa tiene su propia casa and if you want to say it's her own problem it's her own problem problem is problema ends in an a but it's masculine how would you say it's her own problem es su propio problema es su propio problema sometimes it's useful to learn a short phrase like this la luz no funciona la luz no funciona meaning the light doesn't work la luz no funciona and it's useful because the sentence itself is easy to remember, la luz no funciona, but we can break it down and learn a bit of grammar and some vocabulary at the same time. So the first thing is la luz, the light. We can see that luz is feminine, la luz, la luz, and no funciona means doesn't work or it doesn't work no funciona so la luz no funciona how would you say each light or every light each light doesn't work each light doesn't work cada luz no funciona cada luz no funciona And how would you say, the light works, the light works, la luz funciona, la luz funciona. What about the same light doesn't work, the same light doesn't work, la misma luz no funciona, la misma luz no funciona. How about only, in the previous lesson, only the radio works, only the radio works solo la radio funciona solo la radio funciona the word for even even as in even the light doesn't work or even the radio doesn't work even is incluso incluso you get the same word from this to mean including including so even the light doesn't work we could also say including the light doesn't work so even is incluso incluso so how would you say even the light doesn't work even the light doesn't work incluso la luz no funciona incluso la luz no funciona how about even his own wife dot dot dot even his own wife not sure how to finish sentence but even his own wife how would we say that incluso su propia mujer so even his own wife says he's something like that incluso su propia mujer how about even the sentence is wrong even the sentence is wrong incluso la frase es incorrecta incluso la frase es incorrect so to recap what we've learnt una mano una radio una moto mi propio my own su propio his or her own la luz or una luz earth light no funciona it doesn't work funciona it works Finally, incluso or even. Incluso. Incluso mi propio coche no funciona. Even my own car doesn't work. If you've been a bit naughty and haven't reviewed your learning so far, then here is a very quick recap. So far, we've learned día, noche, day, night. Palabra, frase, word, sentence. Mujer, hombre, woman, wife, man. Parte, lado, sitio, part, side, place. Cada is each or every. El mismo, la misma, the same. mi propio, my own, su propio, his or her own, solo, only, incluso, even, la luz, light, funciona, it works or functions, and algo, something. This lesson will give a sort of turbo boost to your learning as we're going to introduce some commonly used Spanish verbs and you may already know some of these if you've completed the main pro-Spanish course but not how we can combine them with the words that we have learned from our vocabulary lessons. So look at these two words and try to work out which one means to sell and which one to buy comprar vender comprar vender which one do you think means to sell comprar or vender vender means to sell and the clue is in the v-e-n-d as in vend vending so vender is to sell and so comprar is to buy so comprar vender just say that to yourself a couple of times comprar vender comprar vender how would you say to buy something comprar algo comprar algo how about to sell something vender algo vender algo how about to sell something important vender algo importante vender algo importante if you want to say i'm going to in spanish i'm going to it's voy a voy a voy i'm going i'm going to voy a so voy a voy a i'm going to and just say that a few times yourself voy a i'm going to voy a voy a so So, how would you say, I'm going to buy? I'm going to buy. Voy a comprar. Voy a comprar. How would you say, I'm going to sell something? I'm going to sell something. Voy a vender algo. Voy a vender algo. So, so far, we've learned comprar, vender, and voy a. I'm going to. Our next verb is to write, to write, and to write is escribir, escribir, and in the word escribir, you can see a clue to write, because it's like scribe, escribir, you can see the word scribe in there, or even scribble, escribir, to write, escribir, how would you say to write a sentence. To write a sentence. Escribir una frase. Escribir una frase. And how about I'm going to write. I'm going to write. Voy a escribir. Voy a escribir. How about I'm going to write a sentence in Spanish each day. It's quite a long one this one. In Spanish es español you probably know that I'm going to write a sentence in Spanish each day voy a escribir una frase en español cada día voy a escribir una frase en español cada día voy a escribir una frase en español cada día so we've learned so far comprar to buy vender to sell escribir to write and voy a I'm going to next up next verb up is to do to do how to say to do something and to do is hacer hacer h-a-c-e-r hacer to do hacer it's quite difficult to find something to help you remember hacer that it means to do hacer so we'll use another trick to try to remember that to do is hacer and what we'll try to do is we're going to try and totally forget that for a few minutes or a few moments totally forget that hacer is to do okay so we're to forget that hacer is to do. So I'll give you three seconds now, so just close your eyes and try to forget that hacer means to do. Put it out your mind, as far away from your mind as you can, that hacer is to do. Okay, so have you forgotten that hacer is to do? Okay, probably not because it's actually quite difficult to forget something that you're trying to forget and you'll probably find now that it's almost impossible to forget hacer is to do. Anyway, how do you say to do something? To do something. Hacer algo. Hacer algo. How would you say I'm going to do something. Voy a hacer algo. How about each day I'm going to do a part. Each day I'm going to do a part. Cada día voy a hacer una parte. Cada día voy a hacer una parte. So let's do some fluency practice now with what we've learned so far. And you can use the grid on the screen for support or look away or do both okay so how would you say i'm going to buy something different voy a comprar algo diferente voy a comprar algo diferente how about i'm going to buy my own car i'm going to buy my own car voy a comprar mi propio coche voy a comprar mi propio coche How about, I'm going to write something every day. Voy a escribir algo cada día. How about, I'm going to buy the same car. Voy a comprar el mismo coche. How about, I'm going to do something every day. Voy a hacer algo cada día. Hacer is to do, it's also to make. To do and to make. The same in most other European languages. They've got just one word for to do and to make. And in Spanish it's hacer. Hacer for to do and to make. How would you say, I'm going to make my own wine. I'm going to make my own wine. Voy a hacer mi propio vino. Voy a hacer mi propio vino. How about, I'm going to sell my own wine. Voy a vender mi propio vino. Voy a vender mi propio vino. In the previous lesson, we looked at a number of common verbs. We also learned how to say voy a, I'm going to. So we could say voy a vender, I'm going to sell. Voy a hacer, I'm going to do. No wonder if you managed to forget the word to do, hacer, whether in fact you remembered it. Okay, if you want to say like this or like that, it's the same word, like this, like that. In Spanish, it's así, así, A-S-I with an accent, así. In French, you'd have something like comme ci, comme ça, like this, like that. In Spanish, you've just got the así to mean both things, like this, like that, así. So just try saying así a couple of times, así, así, like this or like that. How would you say it's something like this? Es algo así, es algo así. How about like that is wrong, like that is wrong. Así es incorrecto, así es incorrecto. How about I'm going to buy something like this. Voy a comprar algo así. Voy a comprar algo así. Have a look at this and see what you make of it. Una zona industrial. Una zona industrial. It means an industrial area, an industrial area, una zona industrial, an industrial area. You'll see why we introduced this. How would you say it's not an industrial area? It's not an industrial area. No es una zona industrial. No es una zona industrial. how would you say each area is important each area is important cada zona es importante cada zona es importante how would you say it's part of the same area it's part of the same area es Es parte de la misma zona. Es parte de la misma zona. How about, even an area like this is important. Even an area like this is important. Incluso una zona así es importante. Incluso una zona así es importante. See if you can guess what this means. es una zona tranquila es una zona tranquila you can see that tranquilo or tranquila it's like tranquil that we would probably translate it as a quiet area or peaceful area peaceful area it's a quiet area es una zona tranquila a few lessons ago we looked at words They ended in O, but were in fact feminine. So we saw una mano, una radio, and una moto. And now we're going to see some words that are affected the other way around. So they end in A, but they are actually masculine words. And the meaning is quite easy to work out as well. Un mapa problema. un mapa problema a map and a problem both end in a but they are both masculine words so you need to use un un mapa un problema how would you say i'm going to buy a map voy a comprar un mapa voy a comprar un mapa how would you say it's a map of the area it's a map of the area in case you're I'm not sure if the word for all, of, is de, d-e. So it's a map of the area. What would that be? Es un mapa de la zona. Es un mapa de la zona. How would you say, my own problem Is important? My own problem is important. Mi propio problema es importante. Mi propio problema es importante. How about it's the same problem it's the same problem es el mismo problema es el mismo problema in spanish more or less more or less we say mas o menos mas o menos more or less mas o menos más o menos. So what word is less? Menos. Menos. So más o menos, more or less. Más o menos. How would you say it's more or less the same problem? Es más o menos el mismo problema. Es más o menos el mismo problema. I'm going to do something like that more or less. I'm going to do something like that, more or less. How would you say that? I'm going to do something like that, more or less. Voy a hacer algo así, más o menos. Voy a hacer algo así, más o menos. How would you say, I'm going to write less words. I'm going to write less words. Voy a escribir menos palabras. Voy a escribir menos palabras. How would you say the area is more peaceful? The area is more peaceful for now is ahora, ahora, a-h-o-r-a, ahora, ahora. So the area is more peaceful now. What would that La zona es más tranquila ahora. Try to remember that tranquilo word, the peaceful word, but to be feminine because the thing that it's describing is feminine, la zona. So la zona es más tranquila ahora. Add, it's less industrial. Es menos industrial.