When starting to learn French, it is always a good idea to memorize the most common words first. This will enable you to understand many more situations than if you were leaning your French vocabulary from random sources. Here's the list of most common French words along with their English translation. Note that some words in the list perform a similar function and can be grouped into a single entry with a higher combined rank. These words include:
de and d' -- translated as of, from, by, than, in, with. Combining them brings de/d' to the second position in the list.
un, une and des -- the French equivalents for a, an and some
le, la, l' and les -- the French equivalents for the
mon, ma and mes -- the French equivalents for my
t' and te -- the French equivalents for you, yourself
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Most Used French words 1-50
| Rank | Audio__ | French word | English translation | Part of speech |
| 1. | être | to be; being | verb, auxiliary verb, noun | |
| 2. | avoir | to have | verb, auxiliary verb | |
| 3. | je | I | personal pronoun | |
| 4. | de | of, from, by, than, in, with (see #28) | preposition | |
| 5. | ne | not | adverb | |
| 6. | pas | not; step, pace | adverb, noun | |
| 7. | le | the; him, it (refering to a masculine singular noun) (see #8, 15, 18) | definite article, personal pronoun | |
| 8. | la | the; her, it (refering to a feminine singular noun) (see #7, 15, 18) | definite article, personal pronoun | |
| 9. | tu | you | personal pronoun | |
| 10. | vous | you, yourself | personal pronoun | |
| 11. | il | he, it | personal pronoun | |
| 12. | et | and | conjunction | |
| 13. | à | in, to, with | preposition | |
| 14. | un | a, an; one (used before a masculine singular noun) (see #26, 31) | indefinite article | |
| 15. | --- | l' | the (used instead of ''le'' or ''la'' before nouns that begin with a vowel) (see #7, 8, 18) | definite article, personal pronoun |
| 16. | qui | who, whom; that, which | relative pronoun, interrogative pronoun | |
| 17. | aller | to go | verb | |
| 18. | les | the; them (referring to a plural noun) (see #7, 8, 15) | definite article, personal pronoun | |
| 19. | en | in, into, to, as | preposition, personal pronoun, adverb | |
| 20. | ça | this, that (see #203) | demonstrative pronoun | |
| 21. | faire | to do, make | verb | |
| 22. | tout | all, everything, any; very, quite | adjective, indefinite adjective, indefinite pronoun, adverb, noun | |
| 23. | on | we, you | personal pronoun | |
| 24. | que | that; what; which | relative pronoun, interrogative pronoun | |
| 25. | ce | this, that (see #73, 99, 201) | demonstrative pronoun, demonstrative adjective | |
| 26. | une | a, an; one (used before a feminine singular noun); french.languagedaily.com (see #14, 31) | indefinite article | |
| 27. | mes | my (used before plural nouns) (see #50, 108) | possessive adjective | |
| 28. | --- | d' | of, from, by, than, in, with (used before a vowel or mute h) (see #4) | preposition |
| 29. | pour | for | preposition | |
| 30. | se | himself, herself, themselves (see #60) | personal pronoun | |
| 31. | des | some (used before a plural noun) (see #14, 26) | indefinite article | |
| 32. | dire | to say, tell | verb, noun | |
| 33. | pouvoir | can, to be able to | verb, noun | |
| 34. | vouloir | to want | verb | |
| 35. | mais | but | conjunction | |
| 36. | me | me, myself | personal pronoun | |
| 37. | nous | we, us | personal pronoun | |
| 38. | dans | in, into | preposition | |
| 39. | elle | she, it (refers to a feminine singular noun) | personal pronoun | |
| 40. | savoir | to know; languagedaily dot com | verb | |
| 41. | du | (de + le/les) = of the, from the | definite article | |
| 42. | où | where, that | relative pronoun, interrogative pronoun | |
| 43. | --- | y | it, there | personal pronoun |
| 44. | --- | t' | you, yourself (shortened form used before a vowel) | personal pronoun |
| 45. | bien | well, very; good | adverb, noun | |
| 46. | voir | to see | verb | |
| 47. | plus | more | adverb | |
| 48. | non | no | adverb | |
| 49. | te | you, yourself | personal pronoun | |
| 50. | mon | my (used before a masculine singular noun) (see #27, 108) | possessive adjective |
We are aware of French lists that rank 'de' as the most frequently occurring word. The position of words varies from one frequency list to another.This list ranks lemmas according to the body of movie sub-titles. An alternative ranking of lemmas according to the corpus of books would bring slightly different results.
The frequency list is based on original work of Boris New, Christophe Pallier, 2001 L'équipe de Lexique. The voice is by Vion Nicolas, a speaker from Région Parisienne, living in Paris. Audio copyright © Vion Nicolas 2006 CC-BY.
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Index of most common French words
- Top 50 French words
- Most common French words: 51-100
- Most common French words: 101-150
- Most common French words: 151-200
- Most common French words: 201-300
- Most common French words: 301-400
- Most common French words: 401-500
- Most common French words: 501-600
- Most common French words: 601-700
- Most common French words: 701-800
- Most common French words: 801-900
- Most common French words: 901-1000
