1000 OPTIMAL First Words to Learn in Spanish

What are the OPTIMAL First Words to learn in Spanish? After putting more thought into it than I care to admit, the answer seems obvious (in retrospect.) Actually, you already know them, but probably didn’t realize they were Spanish words as well as English. More importantly, they are high frequency words. Spanish speakers use them all the time, and so will you if you learn Spanish. In fact, you already use them all the time, but in English. Three Optimal Things Three things about these words make them the optimal first words to learn in Spanish:  

1. They are very frequently used in Spanish.
2. You already know them but didn’t realize they were Spanish words used in almost every Spanish sentence!
3. You can focus exclusively on learning to pronounce them like a native Spanish speaker which is crucial to language mastery.  

Too good to be true? That was my first reaction when I created the list. As you’ll see, it’s more like the time has finally come. BTW, I discovered all this while in Colombia with my children for whom I made these cards. Since they are the First Words presented to them in Spanish I took pains to match them to hand-chosen pictures & native audio from actual human Spanish speakers. I also created a clean and minimal universal language note in Anki so I could eventually present all elements of the language. You can read the full story of the creation of these First Words here. Hiding in Plain Sight for 100 years. These words have been hiding in plain sight for 100 years. They are identical (532), and nearly identical (500), high-frequency Spanish words with the same meaning and spelling in English AND Spanish (AKA cognates.) The nearly identical words have the same meaning but vary in spelling by +/- 3 letters. Before 2006, these words were hidden in plain sight due to the absence of a robust frequency dictionary. First Words may be the first serious effort to use this frequency dictionary to identify all cognates in the top 5000 and present them in an easily learnable format (digital flashcards using Anki.) All First Words are in the top 5000 most frequently used words in Spanish. And 787 of them are in the top 3000! That makes them pure gold for the student first learning Spanish.  

• To put that in perspective, you would understand ~90% of every word spoken or written in Spanish if you knew the top 3000 words. And, your comprehension would rise to 95% if you knew the top 5000 words (Davies, Nations.)

1000 Optimal First Spanish Words Each of the First Words has a personally chosen picture, native audio pronunciation (a real person, not AI/TTS generated), the IPA symbol, the function of the word, and its frequency rank in Spanish. First Words that are nearly identical also have the English translation of the word so there is no confusion. The cards are formatted for contrast and no eye-strain in either Dark or Light Anki mode viewing. Media files have been optimized for storage and download while not compromising quality. There are ~125 Words in the sample deck that you can download, below, and you can access the full deck here. I am also working on creating First Words in French, Latin, & Greek so please send any feedback you might have to [email protected].