Saturday, February 21, 2009

Top Ten Spanish Verbs

Rick found an interesting Spanish dictionary the other day - it lists the words in order of frequency-of-use! So you can learn the "most important" words (or at least the words you would hear and use most often) quickly. The dictionary is by Davies, and is called "A Frequency Dictionary of Spanish."

The top ten Spanish verbs listed are:
  1. ser = to be
  2. haber = to have (as an auxiliary verb)
  3. estar = to be
  4. tener = to have
  5. hacer = to make or do
  6. poder = to be able, can
  7. decir = to tell, say
  8. ir = to go
  9. ver = to see
  10. dar = to give
Of course, these are simplified translations - most of these verbs have subtleties associated with them, and so have many different meanings and are used in many different ways. Still, it is a nice study list!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is a muy bueno top ten list, you can post this to our site http://www.toptentopten.com/ and then link back to your site. We are looking for content and in return our users will track back to your site. The coolest feature is you can let other people vote on the rankings of your list.

Julie said...

Hey Vince - thanks! However, since this isn't a list that I invented myself, I think I'll have to pass. Check out these:
http://davies-linguistics.byu.edu/personal/spanlex.asp
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415334292/qid=1133498133/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-8862684-8773412?s=books&v=glance&n=283155