What writing system does Spanish use?

Latin script. The alphabet has 27 letters, adding ñ to the basic 26, and the acute accent (á, é, í, ó, ú) marks stress. Questions and exclamations open with ¿ and ¡.

Is Stichos suitable for complete beginners with zero prior knowledge (A0)?

Yes. A0 is a primary focus, designed for readers with no prior knowledge. A1 then adds basic everyday vocabulary and simple connected clauses as your foundation grows.

Are Stichos levels the same as CEFR levels?

Not exactly. Stichos levels use the familiar CEFR names, from A0 to B2, and are modelled on the CEFR (the Common European Framework of Reference), so a Stichos B1 is meant to feel close to a B1 in your course book. They aren't an official CEFR rating, and different books and exams draw the lines in slightly different places. A0 is Stichos's own addition, just below the framework's first level.

Are the stories written by AI, and how accurate are they?

Yes. Stories are generated by AI and then checked by further automated steps against the grammar and vocabulary rules for your level. That catches most problems, but it isn't a human editor, so an occasional unnatural phrase or slip can get through. Treat Stichos as practice material, and check anything you're unsure of with a teacher or a reference.

Can I read stories with explanations in my native language?

Yes. Stichos allows you to pair any target language with any native support language. You can read a Croatian story with French glosses, or a German story with Spanish explanations.

How does word lookup work while reading?

Tap or click any word for its meaning in that sentence, explained in your own language. In the full version, you can save any word to your Vocab Bank for later review.

Is the preview free, and what happens to my email?

Yes. The preview is free and needs no account. If you join the Reading List, we use your email to send your 3 free sample stories (PDF, after you confirm your address) and to let you know when we fully open. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle it.

Do stories include audio or narration?

Story narration isn't part of the preview. At launch, the Premium Audio add-on reads every story aloud in a natural-sounding AI voice, in 39 of our 40 languages (Esperanto doesn't have audio support yet).

Read Beginner Spanish Stories with AI

Explore a free A1 Spanish passage generated live with interactive translations.

Stichos creates A0 and A1 reading passages live, offering tap-to-translate words and line-by-line translations in your own language.

Carlos en el café

Es una mañana muy bonita.

It is a very pretty morning.

Un chico llamado Carlos camina despacio.

A boy named Carlos walks slowly.

Carlos entra en un café.

Carlos enters a café.

Tiene mucha hambre.

He is very hungry.

Carlos ve a la camarera.

Carlos sees the waitress.

Ella sonríe con alegría.

She smiles with joy.

Carlos habla con la camarera.

Carlos speaks with the waitress.

Pide un café con leche.

He orders a coffee with milk.

También pide un bocadillo.

He also orders a sandwich.

El bocadillo es de queso.

The sandwich is cheese.

La comida huele muy bien.

The food smells very good.

Carlos saca su dinero.

Carlos takes out his money.

Paga la cuenta en seguida.

He pays the bill right away.

Carlos dice gracias.

Carlos says thank you.

La camarera le dice adiós.

The waitress says goodbye to him.

Carlos toma su comida.

Carlos takes his food.

Sale del café alegre.

He leaves the café happy.

Camina hacia el parque.

He walks toward the park.

Busca un banco cómodo.

He looks for a comfortable bench.

Carlos come con mucho gusto.

Carlos eats with great pleasure.

Quick facts about Spanish

Speakers

About 519 million people speak Spanish as a first language and about 117 million as a second language (2025 estimates).¹

Did you know?

Spanish spelling is close to phonemic: the pronunciation of a word can largely be predicted from its spelling, with the letter x (as in México) the main exception.²

The main challenge

Spanish has two verbs for "to be": ser for what something essentially is, and estar for the state or condition it happens to be in. Some adjectives change meaning with the verb: es aburrido (he is boring) but está aburrido (he is bored).³

Sources

About the Spanish language

Language family	Indo-European → Romance → Ibero-Romance (West Iberian)¹
Speakers	About 636 million in total: roughly 519 million native and 117 million second-language speakers (2025 estimates). It is the world’s second most spoken native language.¹
Primary script	Latin script. The alphabet has 27 letters, adding ñ to the basic 26, and the acute accent (á, é, í, ó, ú) marks stress. Questions and exclamations open with ¿ and ¡.²
Word order & typology	Inflected, with verbs marked for person and number, so subject pronouns are usually dropped (pro-drop). The unmarked order is subject–verb–object, but topic and focus move words freely.³
Official status	Official in 21 sovereign states (the main language in 20, a second official language in Antigua and Barbuda) and in Puerto Rico. One of the six official languages of the United Nations, and official in the European Union, the Organization of American States and the African Union.⁴^,5

Spanish reading proficiency benchmarks (ACTFL)

Stichos level	Approximate framework equivalent	Reader profile
A0	ACTFL Novice Low–Mid	Early Beginner
A1	ACTFL Novice High–Intermediate Low	Beginner
A2	ACTFL Intermediate Mid	Elementary
B1	ACTFL Intermediate High–Advanced Low	Intermediate
B2	ACTFL Advanced Mid	Upper Intermediate

Framework equivalents are approximate and describe reading. ACTFL publishes how its ratings correspond to CEFR levels, not the reverse, so treat this column as a rough guide rather than an official equivalence. The Instituto Cervantes’ DELE diplomas are set at each CEFR level from A1 to C2.

Reference corpora

Large reference corpora cover Spanish, from a 455-million-word reference corpus to a web corpus of about two billion words.¹

CORPES XXI: The Real Academia Española’s Corpus of 21st-Century Spanish draws written and transcribed spoken texts from Spain, the Americas, the Philippines and Equatorial Guinea. Version 1.5 (June 2026) holds nearly 420,000 documents and about 455 million word forms.¹
Corpus del Español: Web/Dialects: About two billion words of Spanish from about two million web pages in 21 Spanish-speaking countries, gathered over three to four years. The US National Endowment for the Humanities funded it as an update of the original Corpus del Español (2002).²

Readability design principles

Spanish has its own adaptations of the Flesch reading-ease formula.¹

Fernández Huerta (1959): José Fernández Huerta’s 1959 lecturabilidad formula adapted Flesch Reading Ease to Spanish: shorter words and shorter sentences give a higher score, meaning an easier text.²
Szigriszt-Pazos and INFLESZ: Szigriszt-Pazos (a 1992 doctoral thesis at the Complutense University of Madrid) recalibrated Flesch for Spanish as the perspicuidad index. Barrio-Cantalejo and colleagues (2008) validated the INFLESZ scale on 210 Spanish documents, with five bands from “very difficult” (below 40) to “very easy” (above 80).¹
Stichos: Stichos sets difficulty with level-by-level grammar rules and sentence-length limits rather than a single readability score.

Script & grammar scaffolding

Past tenses: A0 uses only the present indicative. A1 adds the pretérito perfecto (he comido) and ir a plus the infinitive for plans. The pretérito indefinido and pretérito imperfecto arrive together at A2 for narrating the past.
Future, conditional and subjunctive: The futuro simple and the condicional open at B1, along with the subjunctive for wishes and requests (quiero que vengas). The full present and imperfect subjunctive and the pluscuamperfecto come at B2. At A0 an automatic check also flags conditional and imperfect-subjunctive forms such as quisiera.
Object pronouns: Unstressed pronouns attach to infinitives, gerunds and affirmative commands (dámelo, quiero verlo) but come before a conjugated verb (lo veo).
Register: Strangers, service staff and elders are addressed with usted, and friends, family and peers with tú.

Related academic & framework resources

Plan curricular del Instituto Cervantes: Niveles de referencia para el español: the Instituto Cervantes’ level-by-level inventories of grammar, functions, notions and culture, developed from the CEFR.
DELE (Instituto Cervantes): The official diplomas of Spanish as a foreign language, awarded on behalf of Spain’s Ministry of Education at levels A1 to C2.
Assigning CEFR Ratings to ACTFL Assessments: How ACTFL ratings correspond to CEFR levels, in one direction only.
CORPES XXI (Real Academia Española): The RAE’s reference corpus of Spanish written and spoken since 2001.
Corpus del Español: Web/Dialects: The corpus’s own page, with its size, sources and funding.
Validación de la Escala INFLESZ: Barrio-Cantalejo and colleagues in Anales del Sistema Sanitario de Navarra 31(2), 2008, on measuring the readability of Spanish texts.
Fernández Huerta formula (Spanish Wikipedia): The Spanish adaptation of the Flesch formula and how it is calculated.

Frequently asked questions

What writing system does Spanish use?: Latin script. The alphabet has 27 letters, adding ñ to the basic 26, and the acute accent (á, é, í, ó, ú) marks stress. Questions and exclamations open with ¿ and ¡.
Is Stichos suitable for complete beginners with zero prior knowledge (A0)?: Yes. A0 is a primary focus, designed for readers with no prior knowledge. A1 then adds basic everyday vocabulary and simple connected clauses as your foundation grows.
Are Stichos levels the same as CEFR levels?: Not exactly. Stichos levels use the familiar CEFR names, from A0 to B2, and are modelled on the CEFR (the Common European Framework of Reference), so a Stichos B1 is meant to feel close to a B1 in your course book. They aren't an official CEFR rating, and different books and exams draw the lines in slightly different places. A0 is Stichos's own addition, just below the framework's first level.
Are the stories written by AI, and how accurate are they?: Yes. Stories are generated by AI and then checked by further automated steps against the grammar and vocabulary rules for your level. That catches most problems, but it isn't a human editor, so an occasional unnatural phrase or slip can get through. Treat Stichos as practice material, and check anything you're unsure of with a teacher or a reference.
Can I read stories with explanations in my native language?: Yes. Stichos allows you to pair any target language with any native support language. You can read a Croatian story with French glosses, or a German story with Spanish explanations.
How does word lookup work while reading?: Tap or click any word for its meaning in that sentence, explained in your own language. In the full version, you can save any word to your Vocab Bank for later review.
Is the preview free, and what happens to my email?: Yes. The preview is free and needs no account. If you join the Reading List, we use your email to send your 3 free sample stories (PDF, after you confirm your address) and to let you know when we fully open. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle it.
Do stories include audio or narration?: Story narration isn't part of the preview. At launch, the Premium Audio add-on reads every story aloud in a natural-sounding AI voice, in 39 of our 40 languages (Esperanto doesn't have audio support yet).

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