Most common English words

April 24, 2006 9:57 AM

What are the 500 most commonly used words in the English language ? Where can I get such a list ?

I am trying to learn a new regional language. And this list of 500 most common English words will help me get up to speed in my learning effort by finding out their equivalent in the regional language.

posted by inquisitive to writing & language (15 comments total)

Googling for "most commonly used words" gives you several pages of lists to choose from.
posted by CunningLinguist at 9:59 AM on April 24, 2006

WordCount.
posted by Gyan at 10:13 AM on April 24, 2006

1 the
2 of
3 to
4 and
5 a
6 in
7 is
8 it
9 you
10 that
11 he
12 was
13 for
14 on
15 are
16 with
17 as
18 I
19 his
20 they
21 be
22 at
23 one
24 have
25 this
26 from
27 or
28 had
29 by
30 hot
31 but
32 some
33 what
34 there
35 we
36 can
37 out
38 other
39 were
40 all
41 your
42 when
43 up
44 use
45 word
46 how
47 said
48 an
49 each
50 she
posted by ND¢ at 10:18 AM on April 24, 2006

And is there a similar list of most-commonly used sentences ?
posted by inquisitive at 10:35 AM on April 24, 2006

why do you assume that the 500 most common English words will also be the 500 most common words of the regional language that you are seeking to learn? Is that regional language also English, or is it another language entirely?

these 500 words might not be as common in that language as they are in English.

which regional language are you seeking to learn?
posted by seawallrunner at 10:49 AM on April 24, 2006

Keep in mind that these word lists are almost certainly based on written works. Spoken english probably has a lot more "dude," "beer," and "um" in it.
posted by b1tr0t at 10:51 AM on April 24, 2006

why do you assume that the 500 most common English words will also be the 500 most common words of the regional language that you are seeking to learn?

The poster doesn't assume that.
posted by malp at 11:37 AM on April 24, 2006

I'm surprised at how much higher "he" is than "she" on the list provided by ND¢. Definitely is a male-centric world, I guess.
posted by educatedslacker at 12:38 PM on April 24, 2006

>The poster doesn't assume that

I believe that yes inquisitive does: "And this list of 500 most common English words will help me get up to speed in my learning effort by finding out their equivalent in the regional language otherwise inquisitive would be wasting his/her time learning perhaps-not-as-common words translated into another language

@inquisitive, would you mind shedding some light as to which language you are wishing to learn, is it a regional version of English, or is it a regional variant of another idiom?
posted by seawallrunner at 12:43 PM on April 24, 2006

I'm surprised at how much higher "he" is than "she" on the list provided by ND¢. Definitely is a male-centric world, I guess.

Well, "king" apears before "money", which amazes me.
posted by delmoi at 1:01 PM on April 24, 2006

Some problems: some languages don't have articles, some have more than one pronoun to correspond to the English ones, prepositions don't often translate directly, etc., etc. You might be better off searching for the 500 most common words in the language you're studying.
posted by dmo at 1:04 PM on April 24, 2006

You might be better off searching for the 500 most common words in the language you're studying.

Change "might be" to "would definitely be."
posted by languagehat at 3:02 PM on April 24, 2006

The Moby Project

You may be interested in this list of words.
posted by tumble at 4:10 PM on April 24, 2006

Odd how ND¢'s source's top 500 includes no profanity. You don't have to be a Soprano to know that's some fucked-up shit!
posted by rob511 at 6:49 PM on April 24, 2006

As other posters have pointed out, the most-used words might not be the best thing for what you want. Try Basic English instead (wikipedia entry).
posted by sennoma at 9:31 PM on April 24, 2006