Skip to content
Their First Words

Home › Languages › English

English · American English

English first words and phrases for toddlers

1,000+ illustrated first words and 500+ everyday phrases in English, each one spoken by a woman and a man, both native voices — for families where English is the first language, and for the ones where it is the language of daycare. Ages 0–5.

Download on the App Store — Their First Words Get it on Google Play — Their First Words

Free to start · Works offline · No ads
$9.99 once unlocks it all — no subscription.

PhraseFree card

I love you.

Me & My People

A child kissing a parent’s cheek — the illustration on the I love you card

Hear it in English

Both clips are the app’s own audio, copied straight from the bundle. Tap one, then say it yourself — that second part is the one that counts.

1,000+illustrated words
500+everyday phrases
3,094English clips, bundled
2native voices per card

The phrases library

Say these today.

Eight real cards from the free set, grouped by the moment they belong to. Each one is exactly what the app shows. Tap a voice, then say it out loud to your child — that is the whole method.

Mealtime

  • More, please.

    I Want & I Need

  • All done.

    No, Stop & All Done

Bedtime

  • Good night, sleep tight.

    Talk With Me

  • I'm afraid of the dark.

    How I Feel

Playtime

  • Where did it go?

    Where Things Go

  • There you are!

    Where Things Go

Big Feelings

  • I'm sad.

    How I Feel

  • I'm mad!

    How I Feel

The words library

First words, in three stages.

The word library is 1,000+ illustrated cards across three stages you pick for your child. Here are twenty-four of them — the twelve with pictures are free; press a voice.

First Words 0–24 months

Free — picture, English word, both voices.

  • milk — the illustration on the milk card

    milk

    Food & Drink

  • dog — the illustration on the dog card

    dog

    Animals

  • mama — the illustration on the mama card

    mama

    People

  • ball — the illustration on the ball card

    ball

    Toys

Also in this stage, in the full library

  • water

    Food & Drink

  • apple

    Food & Drink

  • moon

    Nature & Weather

  • bird

    Animals

Growing Words 2–3 years

Free — picture, English word, both voices.

  • rainbow — the illustration on the rainbow card

    rainbow

    Nature & Weather

  • penguin — the illustration on the penguin card

    penguin

    Animals

  • castle — the illustration on the castle card

    castle

    Places

  • jump — the illustration on the jump card

    jump

    Actions

Also in this stage, in the full library

  • school

    Places

  • share

    Actions

  • doctor

    People

  • wash hands

    Actions

Word Builder 3–5 years

Free — picture, English word, both voices.

  • astronaut — the illustration on the astronaut card

    astronaut

    People

  • volcano — the illustration on the volcano card

    volcano

    Nature & Weather

  • flashlight — the illustration on the flashlight card

    flashlight

    Home

  • peacock — the illustration on the peacock card

    peacock

    Animals

Also in this stage, in the full library

  • hummingbird

    Animals

  • mermaid

    People

  • brave

    Feelings

  • celebrate

    Actions

The whole library, not a smaller edition

What’s inside for English.

  • 1,000+ words in 16 categories — Animals, Food & Drink, Body, Home, Clothes, Toys, Vehicles, Nature & Weather, Places, People, Actions, Colors, Numbers, Shapes, Feelings, and Everyday Words.
  • Three age stages — First Words (0–24 months), Growing Words (2–3 years), Word Builder (3–5 years). You choose; the app never quietly moves your child on.
  • 500+ phrases in 9 themes — I Want & I Need, No, Stop & All Done, Look at This!, What’s Happening, Where Things Go, Me & My People, Let’s Play Together, How I Feel, and Talk With Me.
  • 3,094 English clips — a woman’s and a man’s native voice on every word and every phrase, all bundled in the app so nothing needs a signal.
  • English comes with the other seven — Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Italian, Korean and Russian are in the same app, at the same one price. Switch language on the card itself, without losing your place.
  • 75 words and 35 phrases free, forever — 25 words for each stage, all in English, with both voices and their pictures.

Straight from the catalog

How the English is written.

  • American spelling, American words. color, gray, diaper, stroller, pacifier, cookie — the English of a US daycare. The two voices are native American English, one woman and one man.
  • Mostly things a child says. Of the 526 phrases, 342 are the child’s lines, 135 are the grown-up’s, 35 belong to a playmate and 14 to a narrator. A phrase library that only taught parents to give instructions would be a library of instructions; this one hands the child the sentence.
  • Short on purpose. The average phrase is under four words, 96 of them are two words or fewer (All done. Help me. Stop!), and the longest is eight. They are the sentences that actually get said at the table and the sink, not the sentences a worksheet would choose.
  • One word per card, even when the word is two. 67 cards are two-word names — guinea pig, ice cream, sweet potato, fire truck — because that is what the thing is called. The picture carries the meaning; the card carries the name a child will hear.
  • The same 75 words and 35 phrases are free in every language. English is one of the eight, with nothing reserved for it. The app’s own buttons, menus and progress screens stay in English whichever card language you pick, so a parent who reads no Korean or Russian can still run it confidently.
  • Everyday Words is a real category. Alongside animals and food there is a category for the small words that make sentences work — done, gentle, between — illustrated like everything else, because a toddler learns between from a picture of something being between, not from a definition.

Why families open the English cards

For the daycare drop-off.

In a lot of homes English is the second language — the one the daycare speaks, the one the child will meet at the door on Monday. A parent who is fluent in another language and rusty in this one wants to hand their child the twenty things the room will say: All done. My turn. Help me. Where did it go? Those are free cards, with a native voice on each, and the pictures are the same ones the child already knows from the home-language cards.

For the English-speaking family the use is plainer: one clear picture and one clear word, said by a voice that is not yours, so that your child hears the word in more than one mouth. Then you say it. You are the third voice, and the one that counts most.

Either way the method is the same and small. Pick five words the day actually contains. Say them at the moment they belong to — milk when you hand over the cup, shoe at the door. Tap the speaker if you want a model, then say it yourself. When they try it, tap Mark Learned, or Said It for a phrase, and put the phone down.

Questions parents ask

English questions.

Is this American or British English?

American, in spelling and vocabulary: color, gray, diaper, stroller, pacifier. Both voices are native American English. A British family will understand every card, and where your word is different — nappy, pushchair, dummy — your word is the right one to say out loud after the clip.

We don’t speak English at home. Is this for us?

Yes, and it is the most common reason a family opens the English cards. Set the child’s profile to your home language for everyday use, and switch the card to English from the language pill when you want the daycare word — the same picture, the English text and an English voice. Nothing about the app assumes the parent speaks English well; the buttons are simple and the cards do the saying.

Is English included in the free version?

Yes. The free set is 75 words and 35 phrases, and it is the same in every one of the eight languages, with both voices. No account, no trial clock, no ads. The one $9.99 purchase opens the rest of both libraries in all eight languages at once.

Everything else — teaching a language you don’t speak, screen time for a baby, what the $9.99 unlocks — is answered on the FAQ.

Simple Words, Special Moments

Start with one word.

75 words and 35 phrases are free, forever — in English, with both voices. One $9.99 purchase opens the rest of the 1,000+ words and 500+ phrases, in all eight languages at once. No subscription, nothing renews.

Download on the App Store — Their First Words Get it on Google Play — Their First Words
No ads, ever Private by design Works offline No account needed Up to 4 children iPhone, iPad, and Android

On Apple, the purchase is set up for Family Sharing. Google Play has no in‑app‑purchase family sharing, so on Android it stays with the account that bought it.

Same app, same card

More languages.

English sits alongside seven others in the same app, on the same card. If your family runs on two of them, both are already here.