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Les mots les plus fréquents
Start learning French or just satisfy your curiosity with this list of the 25 most common French words.
Click any link for a detailed lesson about that word or set of words.*
| 1. | le, la, l’ les |
definite articles | the |
| 2. | de, d’ | preposition | of, from, about |
| 3. | être | verb | to be |
| 4. | un, une | indefinite articles numbers |
a, an one |
| 5. | avoir | verb | to have |
| 6. | il | subject pronoun | he, it |
| 7. | ne | negative particle | ~not |
| 8. | ce, c’ (c’est) |
indefinite demonstrative pronoun | it, this, that (it is) |
| 9. | à | preposition | to, at, in |
| 10. | et | coordinating conjunction | and |
| 11. | je, j’ | subject pronoun | I |
| 12. | pas | negative adverb | not |
| 13. | en | preposition | to, in, at |
| 14. | on | subject pronoun | one, we, they |
| 15. | que, qu’ | subordinating conjunction | that |
| 16. | vous | personal pronoun | you |
| 17. | faire | verb | to do, to make |
| 18. | pour | preposition | for, in order to |
| 19. | ça | indefinite demonstrative pronoun | this, that |
| 20. | oui | answering questions | yes |
| 21. | dans | preposition | in, into |
| 22. | qui | interrogative pronoun relative pronoun |
who, whom who, what |
| 23. | mais | coordinating conjunction | but |
| 24. | se, s’ | reflexive pronoun | himself, herself, itself, oneself, themselves |
| 25. | le, la, l’ les |
direct object pronouns | it them |
* Notes
- I combined different forms (masculine, feminine, plural, contractions) of the same word into a single entry.
- Whenever possible, I kept homographs with different grammatical functions separate.
Sources
There are numerous "most common French words" lists out there, none of which I entirely agree with. They vary greatly due to the source documents used in the determination, so to create this list, I consulted three sources and combined / sorted them into what makes the most sense to me.
Related lessons
- Introduction to French
- French for beginners
- Contractions
- Gender
- Parts of speech
- Plurals
- Top 10 French verbs
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