Despacito
by Luis Fonsi ft. Daddy Yankee
Do not let the A1+ grade convince you this is a free ride. The vocabulary really is easy — boca, cuello, pelo, playa, pared are the concrete nouns of a first course — but the verbs are where the work is. Several are imperatives with a pronoun stuck on the end: muéstrame, déjame. That fusion is one of the first things that makes written Spanish look impenetrable, and one of the fastest to stop mattering once you have seen it a few times. The other thing worth pocketing is the pair suave and suavecito. The -ito ending is not baby talk; it is how Spanish softens almost anything, and you will use it constantly. Probably the best first Spanish card in the catalogue.
How to study this song
“Despacito” carries 44 Spanish words, 7 adjectives and 52 verb forms — 103 study entries in all, graded A1+. Work through the glossary first: apellido, apuro and belleza are the words you will lean on most. This one leans on its verbs: 52 distinct forms against 7 adjectives, so conjugation is where the effort goes. At this level the goal is recognition: hear a word, place it, keep going.
The words of this song, in several languages
Every word below is taken from this song and translated by us. Nothing here is the lyric itself — these are the individual words you need in order to follow it.
Vocabulary
| ES | EN | IT | FR | PT | NL | DE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| apellido | surname | cognome | nom de famille | sobrenome |
What this song teaches you
Level · A1+
- Vocabulary words
- 44
- Adjectives
- 7
- Word combos
- 11
- Expressions
- 7
- Verb forms
- 52
- Quiz questions
- 35
Background
About the song
“Despacito” is a reggaeton and Latin-pop single released in January 2017 by the Puerto Rican singer Luis Fonsi alongside the reggaeton pioneer Daddy Yankee.
Built on a warm acoustic-guitar riff and a slow, sensual reggaeton beat, it was co-written by Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and the songwriter Erika Ender and recorded mostly in Spanish.
A remix released three months later added guest vocals from the Canadian pop star Justin Bieber, and that version turned an already large Latin hit into a global phenomenon, helping spark a wave of mainstream interest in Spanish-language pop across English-speaking markets.
The music video was filmed in the historic La Perla neighbourhood of Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. Fonsi wrote it with the Panamanian songwriter Erika Ender and Daddy Yankee, and Mauricio Rengifo and Andrés Torres produced it in Miami.
The video was shot in December 2016 in the La Perla district of San Juan and at the bar La Factoría, with Zuleyka Rivera, Miss Universe 2006, as the dancer.
Did you know?
The single spent sixteen weeks at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 — at the time tying the record for the longest run ever — and became the first mostly Spanish-language track to top that chart since Los del Río’s “Macarena” in 1996.
Its video made YouTube history as the first ever to pass three, four and then five billion views, and it went on to become the most-watched clip on the platform.
The song also collected four Latin Grammy Awards in 2018, including Record of the Year, and earned Luis Fonsi several Guinness World Records for its streaming feats.