Spanish Vocabulary and Cognates

Mastering Spanish Vocabulary

A guide to expanding your Spanish vocabulary and improving your language skills.

Simply Spanish

Learning the first 1000 most frequently used words in the entire language will allow you to understand 76.0% of all non-fiction writing, 79.6% of all fiction writing, and an astounding 87.8% of all oral speech.

​Source: https://howlearnspanish.com/how-many-words-do-you-need-to-know/

Simply Spanish

• 365 days in a year: Learn 3 new words each day to have at least 1095 new words in a year

• Building Vocabulary: Focus on 3 things: pronunciation and spelling, meaning and context and grammar rules

Building Vocabulary

• Pronunciation and spelling - Luz

• Meaning - Light

• Context and Grammar - Plural is Luces

​Simply Spanish

Building Vocabulary:

Context is the most important aspect of building vocabulary in Spanish. It helps you understand the meaning of words in different situations. By learning words in context, you can improve your comprehension and usage of Spanish. Remember, context is key!

Simply Spanish

Cognates are words from different languages that have similar spellings, pronunciations, and meanings. Some popular examples of English-Spanish cognates are:

Patterns in Spanish cognates

Double consonant (-cc, -nn, -ss , etc) English words change to single consonants in Spanish

These patterns can help you memorize and recognize new spanish words.

Patterns in Spanish cognates

Spanish words that add –a, -e or –o at the end of the word

Patterns in Spanish cognates

Spanish words that change English –th to -t.

​Additional Resources

• Cognate list

• 1001 Spanish words you already know(Youtube video)