Most Common French Words

Most common French words
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Les mots les plus fréquents

Start learning French or just satisfy your curiosity with this list of the most common French words, with links to detailed lessons.

1. le, la, l’
les		definite articlesthe
2. de, d’prepositionof, from, about
3. êtreverbto be
4. un, uneindefinite articles
numbers		a, an
one
5.  avoirverbto have
6.  ilsubject pronounhe, it
7. nenegative particle~not
8. ce, c’
(c’est)		indefinite demonstrative pronounit, this, that
(it is)
9. àprepositionto, at, in
10. etcoordinating conjunctionand
11. je, j’subject pronounI
12. pasnegative adverbnot
13. enprepositionto, in, at
14. onsubject pronounone, we, they
15. que, qu’subordinating conjunctionthat
16.  vouspersonal pronounyou
17. faireverbto do, to make
18. pourprepositionfor, in order to
19. çaindefinite demonstrative pronounthis, that
20. ouianswering questionsyes
21. dansprepositionin, into
22. quiinterrogative pronoun
relative pronoun		who, whom
who, what
23. maiscoordinating conjunctionbut
24. se, s’reflexive pronounhimself, herself, itself,
oneself, themselves
25. le, la, l’
les		direct object pronounsit
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.

  1. French Language Daily Most Common French Words
  2. Memrise Most Common French Words
  3. Worldlex_FR

 Related lessons

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Top 25 French words

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