Spanish daily routine vocabulary: 60 words from waking up to bedtime

60 Spanish words for everyday life

Verbs ending in -se are reflexive: the se changes to match the person (me levanto, te levantas). The Contos web app uses this pack for flashcard review.

Reflexive verbs: me levanto, te duchas, se acuesta

The morning half of this list is made of reflexive verbs, where you do the action to yourself. The se on the end of the infinitive moves in front of the verb and changes with the person.

Despertarse (e → ie) and acostarse (o → ue) change their stem in four of the six forms, and vestirse goes e → i: me visto. With an infinitive, the pronoun can attach to the end: voy a ducharme or me voy a duchar, both correct.

With parts of the body, Spanish uses los, not mis: me lavo los dientes (I brush my teeth). The me already says whose teeth they are.

How often? Siempre, a veces and nunca

Frequency words usually go before the verb or at the end of the sentence: siempre desayuno en casa, voy al gimnasio a veces. Nunca is the exception to watch. Before the verb it works alone (nunca llego tarde); after the verb, Spanish adds no in front and the double negative is correct (no llego nunca tarde).

Todos los días and cada día both mean every day; todos los días is a little more common in speech. Watch the article with three time words in the list: mañana is tomorrow but la mañana is the morning, so tomorrow morning is mañana por la mañana. Tarde is late, while la tarde is the afternoon and early evening.

Weather, chores and greetings: what people say

Most Spanish weather uses hacer, which is why the list gives hace sol and hace viento, and the same pattern gives hace frío and hace calor. The adjectives soleado and ventoso exist, but they describe a day (un día soleado) rather than the weather right now. Cloudy is the exception: the list's nublado goes with estar, está nublado. For rain, llueve (it rains, it is raining) is as common as está lloviendo.

Greetings through the day

Buenos días is for the morning, buenas tardes from lunch until it gets dark, and buenas noches covers both good evening and good night. Friends often shorten it to buenas. For how to answer ¿qué tal?, see how to say how are you in Spanish, and for the office part of the day, the Spanish work vocabulary list.