Translate English to Spanish
Spanish is the second most spoken native language in the world, with over 480 million speakers spread across 20 countries. From business emails landing in Mexico City inboxes to hotel bookings in Barcelona and WhatsApp conversations with friends in Buenos Aires, the need to move between English and Spanish comes up constantly. Paste your text into the box above, pick your target language, and the translation will appear on the right side within seconds. You can also listen to the result or download it as an audio file.
Common English to Spanish translations
| English | Spanish | Pronunciation | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hello | Hola | OH-lah | ||
| Good morning | Buenos días | BWEH-nohs DEE-ahs | ||
| Thank you | Gracias | GRAH-see-ahs | ||
| Please | Por favor | por fah-VOR | ||
| How much does this cost? | ¿Cuánto cuesta esto? | KWAN-toh KWES-tah ES-toh | ||
| Where is the bathroom? | ¿Dónde está el baño? | DON-deh es-TAH el BAH-nyoh | ||
| I don't understand | No entiendo | noh en-tee-EN-doh | ||
| Can you help me? | ¿Puede ayudarme? | PWEH-deh ah-yoo-DAR-meh | ||
| I would like a coffee | Me gustaría un café | meh goos-tah-REE-ah oon kah-FEH | ||
| The bill, please | La cuenta, por favor | lah KWEN-tah por fah-VOR | ||
| Nice to meet you | Mucho gusto | MOO-choh GOOS-toh | ||
| See you later | Hasta luego | AHS-tah loo-EH-goh | ||
| I need a doctor | Necesito un médico | neh-seh-SEE-toh oon MEH-dee-koh | ||
| Excuse me | Disculpe | dees-KOOL-peh |
Tips for English to Spanish translation
Every Spanish noun is either masculine or feminine. A table is la mesa (feminine), a book is el libro (masculine), and there is no logical pattern that covers every case. Learners often try to memorize rules like “words ending in -o are masculine,” which works most of the time, but exceptions pop up regularly (la mano, the hand, is feminine). The best approach is to learn each noun together with its article from the start. Getting the gender wrong will not stop people from understanding you, but it will mark your writing as non-native immediately.
False friends between English and Spanish are a constant source of confusion. Embarazada means pregnant, not embarrassed. Éxito means success, not exit. Actual translates to current, not factual. Sensible means sensitive, not sensible. The word librería is a bookshop, not a library (that would be biblioteca). These pairs are especially tricky because they look so similar that your brain fills in the wrong meaning without hesitation. A short list of the most common false friends, kept nearby while you write, saves a lot of embarrassment.
Word order works differently in Spanish. Adjectives almost always follow the noun they describe (una casa grande instead of “a big house”), and subject pronouns are frequently left out because verb conjugation already signals who is speaking. A sentence like “I eat rice” becomes simply como arroz in everyday speech. If your translated text feels stiff or overly formal, try removing the pronoun and check whether the sentence reads better. Also pay attention to double negatives: Spanish requires them. “I don't want anything” becomes no quiero nada, which translates word for word as “I don't want nothing.” That is not a mistake; it is correct Spanish grammar.
Before feeding text into any translator, break long sentences into shorter ones. A complex English sentence with three clauses and a parenthetical remark will almost certainly produce a messy Spanish output. Two or three clean, short sentences give the tool far less room to stumble. This applies to human translators just as much as automated ones; clarity in the source always leads to a better result on the other side.
About the Spanish language
Spanish grew out of Vulgar Latin on the Iberian Peninsula and first appeared in written records during the 10th century. After the colonial expansion of the 15th and 16th centuries, it spread across the Americas, the Philippines, and parts of Africa. Today it holds official status in 20 countries, making it one of the most geographically widespread languages on earth. The largest Spanish-speaking country by population is Mexico (around 130 million speakers), followed by Colombia, Argentina, and Spain itself.
One of the most noticeable differences within the language is pronunciation. In central and northern Spain, the letters c (before e or i) and z are pronounced with a “th” sound, similar to the English word “think.” In Latin America and southern Spain, those same letters are pronounced as a plain “s.” Neither version is more correct than the other; the distinction is purely regional and has no effect on written Spanish. Vocabulary also shifts between regions: a car is coche in Spain, carro in Mexico, and auto in Argentina. A computer is ordenador in Spain but computadora nearly everywhere else. When translating, consider where your reader lives and adjust accordingly.
Frequently asked questions
Completely free. There is no account to create, no trial period, and no premium tier. You can translate up to 100 words per request, as many times as you need. The site is funded through advertising, so the tool stays open and accessible to everyone.
The translator produces standard Spanish that readers in any country will understand without trouble. That said, certain words differ between regions. A bus is autobús in Spain, camión in Mexico, and colectivo in Argentina. If your audience is in a specific country, it helps to review the output and swap in the local term where needed. The grammar and sentence structure, however, are consistent across all major variants.
Yes. After the translation appears, click the speaker icon to hear it read aloud. The phrase table on this page also has individual speaker buttons next to each entry, so you can listen to both the English and the Spanish pronunciation side by side. If you want to keep the audio, click the download button to save it as an MP3 file.
Tú is the informal “you” and is used with friends, family members, children, and people roughly your own age. Usted is the formal version, reserved for strangers, older people, professional contacts, and anyone you want to show respect to. In most Latin American countries, usted is used more broadly than in Spain, where tú dominates casual settings. If you are unsure, starting with usted is always safe; the other person will usually tell you to switch to tú if they prefer it.
For everyday messages, travel phrases, social media posts, and casual emails, the output is reliable and natural-sounding. Complex or highly technical texts (legal contracts, medical records, academic papers) benefit from a human review because a single wrong word can change the meaning in ways that matter. If the stakes are high, use the tool for a first draft and then have a native speaker check the result before sending.
You can paste anything from a single word to full paragraphs. The tool handles everyday messages, travel phrases, product descriptions, social media captions, and informal emails well. For highly specialized content like patents, court filings, or clinical trial reports, a professional translator will catch details that automated tools tend to miss.
Spanish is widely considered one of the easier languages for English speakers. The two languages share thousands of cognates (words that look and mean the same, like hotel, animal, chocolate), and Spanish spelling is almost entirely phonetic. The U.S. Foreign Service Institute estimates that an English speaker needs roughly 600 hours of study to reach professional proficiency in Spanish.
Both mean "to be," but they are not interchangeable. Ser describes permanent or defining traits: identity, origin, profession, and time (soy profesor means "I am a teacher"). Estar describes temporary states, locations, and conditions (estoy cansado means "I am tired"). Mixing them up can change meaning significantly. Saying es aburrido means "he is boring," while está aburrido means "he is bored."
This tool is built for text blocks up to 100 words at a time. For a full website, you would need to copy sections individually and translate them one by one. If your site has hundreds of pages, a professional localization service or a dedicated website translation plugin will save you a lot of time and produce more consistent results across all your content.
No. Your text is sent to the translation engine, processed in real time, and returned to your screen. Nothing is stored on our servers and nothing is shared with third parties. Once you close or refresh the page, the text is gone.
Looking for the other direction? Try Spanish to English translation.
