200 Most Common Spanish Verbs, Ranked by Real Use

Updated October 2026 by the My Daily Spanish team · 20 min read

The 200 Spanish verbs you will hear most, ranked by how often people really use them. Each one comes with its English meaning, its verb type, the yo form and an example sentence. Plus a free printable PDF.

Most lists of Spanish verbs are alphabetical, or in an order nobody explains. This one is ranked by real use, so you learn the verbs in the order you will hear them. Start with the top 10, which get a full card below. Then move on to verbs 11 to 20, and keep the table of 200 as your reference.

For every verb you also get the details that trip learners up: whether it is regular, changes its stem or is irregular, and its yo form in the present (tengo, hago, conozco). Tap Listen to hear the 50 most common verbs in an example sentence.

The examples use Spanish that works across Latin America and Spain. Where a word changes from one country to another, we say so.

How we ranked these verbs

We counted every verb form in a free Spanish word-frequency list built from film and TV subtitles (the OpenSubtitles 2018 collection, published by Hermit Dave as FrequencyWords). It holds about 420 million words of dialogue, which is the closest free collection we have to everyday speech. Each form (tengo, tienes, tuvo, tenerlo…) was matched to its infinitive, and the counts were added up for each verb.

We then checked the list by hand. Forms that usually mean something else were split or left out: fue counts half for ser and half for ir, and words like nada, como, para or casa, which are almost never the verbs nadar, comer, parar or casar, were not counted. We also left out one vulgar verb and two crime-show verbs, disparar (to shoot) and asesinar (to murder), that subtitles push far above their everyday use.

In this collection, the top 10 verbs make up about 45% of all the verb forms people use, and the 200 on this page more than 80%. Subtitles favor drama, so a few verbs like matar (to kill) or robar (to steal) still rank higher than in daily life, while household verbs like lavar (to wash) rank lower. Treat the ranks as “about this common”, not as exact positions.

The top 10 Spanish verbs

All ten are irregular, so their forms have to be learned one by one. For each verb you get the present tense, the preterite (the simple past for finished actions), an example you can use today and a teacher’s tip.

The present tense table gives the singular on the left (yo, tú, él / ella / usted) and the plural on the right (nosotros, vosotros, ellos / ellas / ustedes). Vosotros is only used in Spain. In Latin America, ustedes is the plural “you” for everyone, so you can skip the vosotros line if that is the Spanish you are learning.

This lesson from our YouTube channel walks through the essential verbs and their conjugation:

1. Ser: to be (identity, origin, time)

Preterite (simple past): fui, fuiste, fue, fuimos, fueron

Soy de Colombia, ¿y tú?I’m from Colombia, and you?Listen

Use ser for what someone or something is: name, job, origin, personality, time and dates (Son las tres, It’s three o’clock). Ser and ir share the same preterite, so fui can mean “I was” or “I went”. The sentence tells you which.

More: Ser and estar: what’s the difference?

2. Estar: to be (location, feelings, states)

Preterite (simple past): estuve, estuviste, estuvo, estuvimos, estuvieron

Estoy en la casa de mi hermana.I’m at my sister’s house.Listen

Use estar for where something is and how someone is right now: Estoy cansada (I’m tired). Estar + a verb ending in -ando / -iendo describes what is happening now: Estoy comiendo (I’m eating).

More: Ser vs. estar: the complete guide

3. Haber: to have (helper verb); hay: there is/are

Past: había (there was / there were, for descriptions) · hubo (there was, for one event). “There is”: hay

¿Hay una farmacia por aquí?Is there a pharmacy around here?Listen

Haber has two jobs. It builds the perfect tenses: He comido (I have eaten). And its form hay means “there is” or “there are”: Hay dos bancos en esta calle. Don’t use estar for this: say hay un problema, not está un problema.

More: All about the verb haber

4. Ir: to go

Preterite (simple past): fui, fuiste, fue, fuimos, fueron

Voy al supermercado, ¿necesitas algo?I’m going to the supermarket, do you need anything?Listen

Ir a + an infinitive is the easiest way to talk about the future: Voy a comer (I’m going to eat). Keep the a: voy a comer, never voy comer. Irse means to leave: Me voy (I’m off).

More: The ultimate guide to the Spanish future tense

5. Tener: to have

Preterite (simple past): tuve, tuviste, tuvo, tuvimos, tuvieron

Tengo dos hermanos y una hermana.I have two brothers and a sister.Listen

Spanish uses tener where English uses “to be”: tener hambre (to be hungry), tener frío (to be cold), tener 30 años (to be 30). Tener que + infinitive means “to have to”: Tengo que trabajar.

More: The present tense in Spanish

6. Hacer: to do; to make

Preterite (simple past): hice, hiciste, hizo, hicimos, hicieron

¿Qué haces este fin de semana?What are you doing this weekend?Listen

Use hacer for the weather (Hace calor, It’s hot) and for “ago”: hace dos años (two years ago). Watch the yo form: hago, not hazo.

More: Expressions with dar, estar and hacer

7. Poder: can; to be able to

Preterite (simple past): pude, pudiste, pudo, pudimos, pudieron

¿Puedes hablar más despacio, por favor?Can you speak more slowly, please?Listen

Poder is followed by an infinitive: ¿Puedo pagar con tarjeta? For a softer request, use ¿Podría…? (Could I…?). For a skill you learned, use saber instead: “I can swim” is Sé nadar.

More: “Yo puedo”: choosing the right expression for “can”

8. Decir: to say; to tell

Preterite (simple past): dije, dijiste, dijo, dijimos, dijeron

¿Cómo se dice “window” en español?How do you say “window” in Spanish?Listen

Decir que = to say that: Dice que viene (He says he’s coming). ¿Cómo se dice…? is the question every learner needs, and ¡No me digas! means “No way!”.

More: 100 common Spanish questions and answers

9. Saber: to know (facts); to know how to

Preterite (simple past): supe, supiste, supo, supimos, supieron

No sé dónde está la estación.I don’t know where the station is.Listen

Saber is for facts and skills: Sé nadar (I can swim). For people and places, use conocer: Conozco a Ana. In the preterite, supe usually means “I found out”.

More: “To know” in Spanish: saber vs. conocer

10. Querer: to want; to love (a person)

Preterite (simple past): quise, quisiste, quiso, quisimos, quisieron

Quiero un café con leche, por favor.I’d like a coffee with milk, please.Listen

Quiero is direct. To order or ask politely, say Quisiera… (I’d like…) or ¿Me da…?. With a person, querer means to love: Te quiero is what you say to family, friends and partners.

More: Stop saying “yo quiero” (and what to say instead)

Verbs 11–20: short notes

The next ten mix irregular verbs, stem-changing verbs and the first regular -ar verbs. One note per verb on how people really use it.

Ser vs estar: the two verbs for “to be”

Spanish has two verbs for “to be”, and they are the two most common verbs in the language. The short version:

• Ser says what someone or something is: identity, origin, job, personality, what something is made of, time and dates, and where an event takes place.
• Estar says where something is and how it is right now: location, feelings, health, temporary states, and actions in progress (estoy trabajando).

Some adjectives change meaning with the verb. Listen to each pair:

More: Ser and estar: what’s the difference?

Common mistakes with these verbs

Our teachers hear these in almost every beginner class. Each one is easy to fix once you have seen it.

Say it like a native

Textbooks teach verbs one tense at a time. In real conversations, a few short phrases built on the top verbs do a lot of the work. These six work across Latin America and Spain:

• ¡Ya voy!I’m coming! (ir, not venir, when you go toward the other person)Listen

• ¿Me pasas la sal?Can you pass me the salt? (a question in the present sounds more natural than “¿Puedes pasarme…?”)Listen

• ¡No me digas!No way! / You don’t say!Listen

• Me da igual.I don’t mind. / It’s all the same to me.Listen

• Bueno, tengo que irme.Well, I have to go.Listen

• A ver, déjame pensar.Let’s see, let me think.Listen

The 200 most common Spanish verbs

The full list, in order of real use. The first 50 have audio. On a phone, each row shows as a card.

How to read the table. Type: regular = follows the -ar, -er or -ir pattern; regular* = regular, but the spelling changes in some forms to keep the sound (busqué, pagué, empecé, cojo, leyó); e→ie, o→ue, e→i and u→ue = the stem vowel changes when it is stressed (pienso, puedo, pido, juego); -zc- = the yo form ends in -zco (conozco); irregular = learn its forms separately. Yo form: the present tense for “I”, where most surprises show. For verbs used like gustar, it shows me gusta, and for verbs that are almost always used with “it” (sucede, basta), it shows that form. Verbs marked (se) are often used with a reflexive pronoun: me quedo, te preocupas.

Verbs 1–50