Question 1

How many French words do you need to know?

Accepted Answer

The first 1,000 French word families on Einlang's frequency list cover 81.81% of everyday spoken French and 75.99% of the prose in real books. Two thousand reach 86.28% and 82.53%, and the full 5,000 reach 90.58% and 89.43%. Coverage climbs steeply at first and then flattens, which is why the first thousand words are worth far more study time than the fifth.

Question 2

What are the 100 most common French words?

Accepted Answer

In order, the commonest French word families are le (the), de (of), être (to be), un (an, a), avoir (to have), je (I), et (and), il (he), que (that), pas (The most common adverb of negation in French, typically translating into English as not, don't, doesn't, etc.), ce (this, that), vous (the plural personal pronoun in the second person), en (in), ne (not), faire (to do), pour (for), on (one, people, you, someone), tout (all), qui (who, whom), dans (in, inside), elle (she), aller (to go), pouvoir (to be possible), dire (to say, to tell), tu (you), mais (but, although), bien (well), plus (used to express the comparative and superlative of a following adjective or adverb), se (The third-person reflexive and reciprocal direct and indirect object pronoun.), nous (the plural personal pronoun in the first person:), livre (book), avec (with), si (if, whether), me (me), sur (on, upon), vouloir (to want, wish, desire), voir (to see), savoir (to know), comme (as), devoir (must, to have to, should). The first 100 together cover 60.69% of everyday speech and 53.52% of a book. They are almost entirely function words - articles, pronouns, prepositions and the handful of verbs every sentence is built from.

Question 3

How is this French frequency list built?

Accepted Answer

Einlang blends two corpora: 281 million words of subtitle dialogue for modern everyday language, and 76 public-domain books for written and literary language. Words are grouped into families, so one entry covers a verb and its conjugations rather than scattering them across dozens of ranks. Where one spelling is two different words, its occurrences are divided between them on corpus evidence rather than given to the commoner one, so both keep a row. Headwords, parts of speech and meanings come from Wiktionary. Proper nouns are removed - 1,394 of them - along with anything no French dictionary recognises.

Question 4

How do I look up a French word?

Accepted Answer

Type it into the search box on this page. Einlang ranks 20,063 French words and recognises 27,038 inflected spellings, so a conjugation or a plural resolves to the word it belongs to and comes back with its meaning, its part of speech and how common it is. A word too rare for the 5,000 rows published here still returns its rank rather than nothing.

Question 5

Can I download this French word list for Anki?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Einlang's list downloads as a tab-separated Anki file with three columns - the French word, its meaning, and its CEFR level as a tag - and also as CSV or plain text. It is free, needs no account, and you can filter to a single CEFR band first so you only export the words at your level.

#	Word	Part of speechType	Meaning	CEFR
1	le	determinerdet.	the (definite article)	A1	1 in 3	6.4%
2	de	prepositionprep.	of (expresses belonging)	A1	1 in 3	11.6%
3	être	verbverb	to be	A1	1 in 5	14.0%
4	un	determinerdet.	an, a	A1	1 in 4	17.5%
5	avoir	verbverb	to have; to own; to possess; to get	A1	1 in 7	19.0%
6	je	pronounpron.	I	A1	1 in 13	19.9%
7	et	conjunctionconj.	and	A1	1 in 5	22.4%
8	il	pronounpron.	he (third-person singular masculine subject pronoun for human subject)	A1	1 in 6	24.3%
9	que	conjunctionconj.	that (introducing a clause); than (in comparisons)	A1	1 in 8	25.6%
10	pas	adverbadv.	The most common adverb of negation in French, typically translating into English as not, don't, doesn't, etc.	A1	1 in 13	26.4%
11	ce	determinerdet.	this, that	A1	1 in 8	27.7%
12	vous	pronounpron.	the plural personal pronoun in the second person	A1	1 in 19	28.4%
13	en	prepositionprep.	in (used to indicate space, also see usage notes)	A1	1 in 8	29.6%
14	ne	particlepart.	not (used alone to negate a verb, now chiefly with only a few particular verbs; see usage notes)	A1	1 in 11	30.5%
15	faire	verbverb	to do	A1	1 in 15	31.2%
16	pour	prepositionprep.	for (meant for, intended for)	A1	1 in 15	31.8%
17	on	pronounpron.	one, people, you, someone (an unspecified individual)	A1	1 in 20	32.4%
18	tout	determinerdet.	all	A1	1 in 13	33.1%
19	qui	pronounpron.	who, whom	A1	1 in 11	34.1%
20	dans	prepositionprep.	in, inside (enclosed in a physical space, a group, a state)	A1	1 in 12	35.0%
21	elle	pronounpron.	she	A1	1 in 15	35.8%
22	aller	verbverb	to go	A1	1 in 33	36.1%
23	pouvoir	verbverb	to be possible; may, could be	A1	1 in 21	36.6%
24	dire	verbverb	to say, to tell (to express through speech)	A1	1 in 18	37.1%
25	tu	pronounpron.	you (singular)	A1	1 in 85	37.2%
26	mais	conjunctionconj.	but, although	A1	1 in 19	37.7%
27	bien	adverbadv.	well	A1	1 in 25	38.1%
28	plus	adverbadv.	used to express the comparative and superlative of a following adjective or adverb	A1	1 in 19	38.6%
29	se	pronounpron.	The third-person reflexive and reciprocal direct and indirect object pronoun.	A1	1 in 12	39.5%
30	nous	pronounpron.	the plural personal pronoun in the first person:	A1	1 in 33	39.8%
31	livre	nounnoun	book	A1	1 in 23	40.3%
32	avec	prepositionprep.	with	A1	1 in 21	40.8%
33	si	conjunctionconj.	if, whether	A1	1 in 28	41.1%
34	me	pronounpron.	me (direct object)	A1	1 in 31	41.5%
35	sur	prepositionprep.	on, upon	A1	1 in 18	42.0%
36	vouloir	verbverb	to want, wish, desire	A1	1 in 50	42.2%
37	voir	verbverb	to see (visually)	A1	1 in 32	42.5%
38	savoir	verbverb	to know (something)	A1	1 in 48	42.7%
39	comme	conjunctionconj.	as (in the role of, by way of)	A1	1 in 27	43.1%
40	devoir	verbverb	must, to have to, should (as a requirement)	A1	1 in 40	43.4%
41	ils	pronounpron.	they (male or mixed group)	A1	1 in 36	43.7%
42	lui	pronounpron.	him, he, it; the third-person masculine singular personal pronoun used after a preposition, or as the predicate of a ...	A1	1 in 18	44.3%
43	mon	determinerdet.	my (used to qualify masculine nouns and vowel-initial words regardless of gender)	A1	1 in 39	44.5%
44	son	determinerdet.	his, her, their, its (used to qualify masculine nouns and before a vowel)	A1	1 in 17	45.1%
45	par	prepositionprep.	through	A1	1 in 21	45.6%
46	non	adverbadv.	no	A1	1 in 85	45.7%
47	moi	pronounpron.	me (first-person singular disjunctive pronoun)	A1	1 in 60	45.9%
48	meilleur	nounnoun	best	A1	1 in 61	46.0%
49	venir	verbverb	to come (to move from one place to another that is nearer the speaker)	A1	1 in 46	46.2%
50	votre	determinerdet.	your, belonging to you (plural or formal)	A1	1 in 72	46.4%

The 5,000 most common French words

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