# Esperanto flashcards: the 1,000 most common words

Source: https://esperantopedia.org/tools/flashcards/
Language: en
Updated: 2026-10-25

> Free Esperanto flashcards for the 1,000 most common words. The open FSRS algorithm schedules each review for when you are about to forget the word.

The deck holds the **1,000 most common Esperanto words**, ranked by how often they appear in 5.8 million words of Esperanto sentences. The first 100 make up 55.2% of all the words in those sentences, and all 1,000 make up 78.4%. The full list, with sources and downloads, is on the [1,000 most common words](https://esperantopedia.org/learn/common-words/) page.

**How many words do you need?** Know the 100 most common words and you recognise 55.2% of all words in everyday Esperanto sentences; know 1,000 and it is 78.4%. After that, each new word adds less – which is why we start with the most common ones.

## How to use the flashcards

The flashcards have two parts: the **1,000-word path**, which guides you through the words in order, and **free practice**, where you choose the words and the exercise yourself. Both share one memory of each word, so everything you practise counts in both.

### The 1,000-word path

1. Choose a daily goal: 5, 10, 20 or 30 new words a day. At 10 words a day, you get through all 1,000 words in about a hundred days.
2. Press **Start learning**. Words that are due for review come first, then new words up to your daily goal.
3. Every new word is introduced first: its pronunciation, its meaning, an example sentence and, for many words, a pictogram. Press **Learn it**, and the word comes back a few steps later for a first check. If you already know it, press **I already know it**: it comes back for a quick check in about a week.
4. The path has 10 stages of 100 words. Each stage shows how much of everyday Esperanto you cover once you know all the words up to it.

If you already know some Esperanto, use **Mark the words you know**: tap the words you are sure of, 20 at a time, instead of going through them one by one.

### Free practice

Choose the words: a stage, the words of a course lesson, a box, your difficult words, the words you saved in the dictionary with the star, or your own selection. Then choose the exercise:

- **Flashcards**: recall the answer, turn the card, and press **I know it** only if you remembered the answer before you turned the card.
- **Multiple choice**: pick the right answer out of four.
- **Listening**: hear the word and pick its meaning.
- **Typing**: see the meaning and type the Esperanto word. For ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ and ŭ you can type cx, gx, hx, jx, sx and ux, or use the letter buttons.
- **Sentences**: fill the gap in a real sentence from Tatoeba.
- **Pairs**: match five words with their meanings.
- **Mixed**: the exercise is chosen for you, depending on how well you know each word.

The quick-start buttons begin a 5-minute session, a round of pairs, a 10-question quiz or a session with your difficult words. You can save the settings you use most as a set. On a computer, the number keys choose an answer and Enter moves on.

## How spaced repetition works

You forget a new word quickly at first, and more slowly after each successful review. Spaced repetition uses this: you see a word again shortly before you would forget it, so each review takes little time and keeps the word longer. Hermann Ebbinghaus described the advantage of spaced over massed learning in 1885. A 2006 review of 317 experiments by Nicholas Cepeda and colleagues confirmed it, and found that the longer you want to remember something, the longer the best gap between reviews.

These flashcards schedule your reviews with **FSRS** (Free Spaced Repetition Scheduler), an open algorithm developed by Jarrett Ye and the open-spaced-repetition community. Anki has offered it since version 23.10, and the flashcards here use its sixth version, FSRS-6. The aim is to show you a word again when your chance of remembering it has dropped to about 90%.

For every word, FSRS keeps track of two things: how durable your memory of the word is (its *stability*) and how hard the word is for you (its *difficulty*). From these it works out when the next review is due.

- **A correct answer** (in any exercise, or **I know it** on a flashcard) lengthens the gap before the next review. If you answer correctly every time, the gaps grow roughly like this: about 2 days, then about 10 days, about 6 weeks and about 5 months. The exact numbers differ from word to word.
- **A wrong answer** (or **I don't know**) brings the word back later in the same session, and its next review comes soon, after about a day.

An older, simpler approach is the **Leitner system**, which the German science journalist Sebastian Leitner published in 1972 in his book *So lernt man lernen*: five boxes with fixed waiting times. FSRS replaces the fixed times with a gap worked out for each word from your answers.

The path shows five boxes for all 1,000 words, but they tell you how well you remember the words, not a fixed gap. Words you have not seen yet are counted as "New". Tap a box to practise its words. Box 1 holds words you don't know yet or have just forgotten. Box 5 holds words you remember for a long time: their next review is at least 12 days away. If you answer correctly every time, a word reaches box 5 with its third correct answer, about two weeks after you first saw it.

## Your progress

Your progress is saved in this browser, so you can close the page and continue later. If you are [signed in](/account/), it is also saved to your account, so you can continue on another device. Clearing your browser's data for this site deletes the copy in this browser.

## Tips for learning the first 1,000 words

- **Keep it short and daily.** Ten new words a day covers the first 100 words in ten days and all 1,000 in about a hundred days.
- **Say each word aloud.** Esperanto is read as it is written, and the stress is always on the second-to-last syllable: see [alphabet and pronunciation](https://esperantopedia.org/learn/alphabet/).
- **Look at the parts.** Many common words share a root: *lerni* "to learn", *lernanto* "pupil", *lernejo* "school". [Word building](https://esperantopedia.org/grammar/word-building/) explains the endings and affixes, and the [dictionary](https://esperantopedia.org/dictionary/) shows the family of related words for each entry.
- **Switch direction.** Once a stage feels easy from Esperanto, practise it from the meaning to the Esperanto word, or type the words.

## Common questions

### Which Esperanto words should I learn first?

The most frequent ones. The 100 most common words make up more than half of all the words in everyday sentences, so learning them first pays off fastest.

### Can I use these words in Anki?

Yes. The [1,000 most common words](https://esperantopedia.org/learn/common-words/) page has a free Anki file and a CSV file with the same words and meanings.

### What happens if I skip a day?

Nothing is lost. Words whose review date has passed wait for you and come first in your next session, starting with the lowest box.

## Sources

- [Cepeda, N. J. et al. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin 132(3)](https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.3.354)
- [Wikipedia – Spacing effect (Ebbinghaus 1885)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacing_effect)
- [Wikipedia – Leitner system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leitner_system)
- [Wikipedia (German) – Lernkartei (Sebastian Leitner, 1972)](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lernkartei)
- [ABC of FSRS – Open Spaced Repetition (GitHub wiki)](https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/awesome-fsrs/wiki/ABC-of-FSRS)
- [Anki Manual – What spaced repetition algorithm does Anki use?](https://docs.ankiweb.net/faqs/what-spaced-repetition-algorithm)
- [ts-fsrs – FSRS-6 in TypeScript (open-spaced-repetition)](https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/ts-fsrs)