Charades in Spanish: Word Lists, Rules and How to Play

To play charades in Spanish, you need three things: a Spanish word bank matched to your players' level, the handful of Spanish phrases that run a game (te toca, adivina, ¡se acabó el tiempo!), and one clear rule about which language a winning guess has to be shouted in. Everything else is ordinary charades.

This page serves the two rooms that search for charades in Spanish. One is a Spanish class or a family learning the language, where the game is vocabulary practice that does not feel like practice. The other is a Spanish-speaking household that just wants a good party game and has no interest in glosses. Both are here: the word banks below carry English translations so learners can use them, and the lists themselves are ordinary Spanish that a native speaker would recognize immediately.

What the Game Is Called in Spanish

There is no single Spanish word for charades, and which one you use depends on where you are.

The safest, most widely understood term across the Spanish-speaking world is la mímica — literally "mime" — or el juego de la mímica, "the mime game." Say that anywhere from Madrid to Mexico City to Buenos Aires and people know what you mean.

A note worth having: charada in much of Latin America means a riddle or puzzle you solve with words, not something you act out. If you ask a room to play charadas and they reach for pencils, that is why. Say mímica instead.

The Phrases That Run the Game

Learn these fifteen and you can host an entire round without switching to English.

And the nouns you will need constantly: el equipo (team), el turno (turn), el punto (point), la tarjeta (card), la palabra (word), la pista (clue), el cronómetro (timer), la categoría (category), la película (movie), la canción (song), el libro (book), la serie (TV series), la sílaba (syllable).

How to Play Charades in Spanish

The rules do not change. Only the cards and the shouting do.

If your group already plays, skip ahead to the word banks. If not, the full charades rules cover signals, timing and scoring in detail. The short version:

1. Split into two teams. Dos equipos.
2. One player draws a card and does not show it. No speaking, no pointing at real objects, no mouthing, no letters.
3. Set the timer. Sixty seconds is standard. Give beginners ninety — searching for a word in a second language costs real time.
4. The actor mimes; their own team shouts guesses.
5. A point for a correct guess before the timer runs out.

Three adjustments make it work in Spanish specifically:

• Write the article on the card. El perro, not perro. Learners absorb gender passively this way, and it costs nothing.
• Announce the category out loud in Spanish. Los animales. Las profesiones. It narrows the guessing space, which matters far more in a second language.
• Decide the language rule before the first turn. More on that below, because it is the only genuinely contested part.

The Language Rule

Pick one of three, say it out loud, and stick to it all night.

Strict. Only a guess in Spanish scores. Shouting "dog!" earns nothing even if it is right. Best for intermediate learners and Spanish-speaking families.

Bridge. A guess in English earns half a point, and the team can convert it to a full point by producing the Spanish word within ten seconds. This is the best rule for a mixed-level classroom, because it rewards recognition and then pushes for recall.

Open. Any language counts. Use this with true beginners and with young children, where the goal is exposure and confidence rather than production.

The bridge rule is the one to try first. It keeps beginners in the game and still makes Spanish the currency.

Word Banks by Level

Every list below is grouped so you can hand a whole category to a team at once. Copy them onto index cards, or pull categories on a phone — charadesgamegenerator.com deals prompts by category with a timer running, and it saves cutting paper on a school night.

Beginner (A1) — First Fifty Words

Los animales — el perro (dog), el gato (cat), el caballo (horse), la vaca (cow), el pato (duck), el pez (fish), el pájaro (bird), la rana (frog), el mono (monkey), el elefante (elephant), el león (lion), la serpiente (snake), el conejo (rabbit), la tortuga (turtle), la araña (spider), el oso (bear), el cerdo (pig), la oveja (sheep), el pingüino (penguin), el tigre (tiger).

Las acciones — correr (to run), saltar (to jump), dormir (to sleep), comer (to eat), beber (to drink), bailar (to dance), cantar (to sing), llorar (to cry), reír (to laugh), nadar (to swim), escribir (to write), leer (to read), cocinar (to cook), caminar (to walk), volar (to fly), abrir la puerta (to open the door).

La comida — la manzana (apple), el pan (bread), el queso (cheese), la pizza (pizza), el helado (ice cream), la sopa (soup), el pollo (chicken), el arroz (rice), el huevo (egg), la leche (milk), el pastel (cake), la sandía (watermelon), la zanahoria (carrot), el plátano (banana), las palomitas (popcorn).

La familia — la madre (mother), el padre (father), el hermano (brother), la hermana (sister), el abuelo (grandfather), la abuela (grandmother), el bebé (baby), el tío (uncle), la tía (aunt), el primo (male cousin).

Beginner words share one quality: they can be acted with the whole body and guessed by shape alone. That is exactly what you want when the guessers are also fighting for the vocabulary.

Intermediate (A2–B1)

Las profesiones — el médico / la médica (doctor), el maestro / la maestra (teacher), el bombero (firefighter), el policía (police officer), el cocinero (cook), el cantante (singer), el piloto (pilot), el dentista (dentist), el peluquero (hairdresser), el mecánico (mechanic), el jardinero (gardener), el fotógrafo (photographer), el astronauta (astronaut), el payaso (clown), el granjero (farmer), el futbolista (soccer player).

Los deportes — el fútbol (soccer), el baloncesto (basketball), el tenis (tennis), la natación (swimming), el ciclismo (cycling), el boxeo (boxing), el béisbol (baseball), el patinaje (skating), el esquí (skiing), la gimnasia (gymnastics), el voleibol (volleyball), el karate (karate).

Las emociones — feliz (happy), triste (sad), enojado (angry), asustado (scared), cansado (tired), aburrido (bored), sorprendido (surprised), nervioso (nervous), emocionado (excited), celoso (jealous), avergonzado (embarrassed), orgulloso (proud), confundido (confused), enamorado (in love).

Los lugares — la playa (the beach), la escuela (school), el hospital (hospital), el supermercado (supermarket), la biblioteca (library), el aeropuerto (airport), la montaña (mountain), el cine (movie theater), el restaurante (restaurant), el parque (park), el zoológico (zoo), la piscina (swimming pool), el banco (bank).

La rutina diaria — despertarse (to wake up), ducharse (to shower), vestirse (to get dressed), desayunar (to eat breakfast), cepillarse los dientes (to brush your teeth), peinarse (to comb your hair), tomar el autobús (to take the bus), hacer la tarea (to do homework), lavar los platos (to wash the dishes), sacar la basura (to take out the trash), poner la mesa (to set the table), acostarse (to go to bed).

El clima — llover (to rain), nevar (to snow), hacer viento (to be windy), hacer calor (to be hot), hacer frío (to be cold), la tormenta (storm), el arcoíris (rainbow).

Reflexive verbs are the quiet win here. Ducharse, vestirse, peinarse and acostarse are miserable to drill and obvious to mime, so the game teaches them faster than a worksheet does.

Advanced (B2+) — Expressions

Los modismos. These are the cards that make an advanced class genuinely hard and genuinely funny, because the mime has to work from the literal image while the guess has to be the figurative phrase.

Advanced groups can also play with películas y canciones — movie and song titles in Spanish, using the standard word-count and syllable signals. Announce the category first, because a title without a category is close to impossible in a second language.

For Spanish Teachers and Learners

Charades in Spanish is total physical response with a scoreboard attached, and that is why it sticks.

Vocabulary learned through movement is recalled faster than vocabulary read off a list. The game also does something a worksheet cannot: it forces retrieval under mild pressure, in front of people, with a clock running. That is close to what real conversation feels like.

Practical classroom notes:

• One category per round. Thirty animal words in a row builds a cluster in memory. Thirty random words builds nothing.
• Pre-teach for two minutes. Show the category list, say each word once, then hide it. The game is retrieval practice, not first exposure.
• Let the actor whisper-check with you. A student who cannot read the card silently is stuck. Let them come to your desk and ask.
• Use the bridge rule so weaker students still contribute.
• End with the list back on the board and have students mark what they missed. Two minutes, and it doubles what the game is worth.
• Verbs in the infinitive on cards for beginners, conjugated for intermediates: él corre, ella cocina. Conjugation is invisible in a mime, so it forces the guess to be spoken precisely.

For large classes, the relay format in running charades works well because it keeps twenty students active instead of two.

For Spanish-Speaking Families

If Spanish is the language of the house, ignore the glosses and just use the lists as categories.

A few things this game does well in a bilingual family. Children who understand Spanish but answer in English get pulled into producing it, without anyone making it a lesson. Grandparents who are the strongest Spanish speakers in the room become the strongest players, which flips the usual dynamic in a way kids notice.

Regional vocabulary is a feature, not a problem. Plátano or banana, carro or coche or auto, palomitas or crispetas — accept every regional variant your family actually uses and let the disagreement be part of the evening. If two players say different words for the same picture, both score.

For mixed-age nights, the pacing advice in family charades applies directly: shorter turns, easier categories for the youngest, and no adult-versus-child teams.

Running a Bilingual Round

The cleanest bilingual format is the switch round: the actor draws a Spanish card, and the point goes to whichever team says the word in Spanish first — including the actor's opponents.

Open guessing changes the energy completely. Everyone watches every mime, nobody sits out, and the room hears the target word said out loud four or five times instead of once.

Two more formats that work:

Translation relay. The first guesser says the English word, the second must produce the Spanish. Two points, two skills, one card.

Mixed deck. Half the cards in Spanish, half in English, drawn blind. The actor does not announce which language the card is in, and the guess must be in the card's language. Chaotic and excellent for confident intermediates.

Whatever you pick, name the format before the first turn and do not change it mid-game. Charades arguments are almost always about a rule nobody agreed on in advance.

Spelling, Accents and Getting It Right

If you are making cards for a class, get the accents right — students copy what they see.

The words most often written wrong on homemade charades cards: el pingüino (needs the diaeresis over the u), el león, el pájaro, la sandía, el esquí, el béisbol, el fotógrafo, el zoológico, reír, el arcoíris, la mímica itself, and el cronómetro.

Two more habits worth keeping: Spanish questions and exclamations open with ¿ and ¡, so write ¿Listos? and ¡Ya! in full on any poster you print. And ñ is its own letter — el niño, la piña, la araña, el año — not an n with decoration.

If you are printing card sets, the layout advice in printable charades cards applies the same way, with one addition: use a font that renders accents cleanly at small sizes. Several condensed display fonts drop or clip them.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you say "charades" in Spanish? La mímica or el juego de la mímica is understood everywhere. Dígalo con mímica is common in Latin America. Avoid las charadas, which in many countries means a written riddle rather than an acting game.

What level do you need to play charades in Spanish? Absolute beginners can play from their first week using animals and simple actions, as long as you announce the category and allow the bridge rule. The game scales all the way up — idiom cards are hard for advanced students.

Should the cards have English translations on them? Put the translation on the back, never the front. The actor should see only Spanish. If they are stuck, they flip the card, and that moment of struggle before flipping is where the learning happens.

How many words do you need for a class of thirty? About sixty cards for a forty-minute lesson, or two categories of thirty. In relay format you burn through fewer cards, because each one takes longer.

Can you play with movie and song titles in Spanish? Yes, for B2 and above. Announce the category, use the standard word-count and syllable signals, and stick to titles the whole room plausibly knows. The signal vocabulary is listed in the charades terms glossary.

What if players use different regional words? Accept them all. A Mexican student saying palomitas and a Colombian saying crispetas are both right, and pointing that out is one of the most useful things the game will teach that day.