ärgern
ärgern is a German verb meaning to annoy, to make angry. It is the 972nd most common word in German, which puts it at CEFR level A1. It turns up in about 1 in 1,220 sentences of real German prose.
972
rank
of 5,000
A1
CEFR level
by frequency
1 in 1,220
sentences
contain it
76.3%
running total
of a book covered
Running total is cumulative: knowing ärgern and every German word above it covers 76.3% of the running words in a real book.
Is ärgern worth learning now?
Yes - ärgern is inside the first thousand German words, and those thousand cover 76.55% of the prose in a real book and 84.27% of everyday speech. Words this common are worth far more study time than anything further down the list.
Frequency is the honest guide to order, not to method. A word learned from a list on its own fades; the same word met inside a sentence you wanted to read stays. Check a German text against the CEFR bands to see whether what you are reading is at your level.
German words of the same frequency
- großartig #968 - magnificently, greatly
- Pass #969 - pass, mountain pass
- Schüler #970 - pupil, student, schoolboy
- wechseln #971 - to change, to exchange
- Zahn #973 - tooth
- merkwürdig #974 - strange, odd
- berühren #975 - to touch
- einladen #976 - to invite
See all 5,000 most common German words, or look up any of the 20,029 German words Einlang ranks.
Where this comes from
The rank is measured, not copied: 151 million words of subtitle dialogue for how German is spoken, and 48 public-domain books for how it is written. Conjugations and plurals count towards the word they belong to, so ärgern is ranked as a word rather than as a spelling. The meaning and part of speech come from Wiktionary. Generated 2026-07-27.
Also on Einlang: the most common French words and the most common Spanish words.
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