What’s the most common word in french ? It’s actually a very interesting and practical thing to know. Do you know why ? Because it is going to solve one of the most annoying problem when speaking French.
Should I lift the veil?
Don’t forget to grab your goodie at the end of the article!
What's the most common french word ?
You’ll find plenty of lists on the internet. The one I took as a reference is the Brunet list. It is the list French school teachers use to assess their students vocabulary skills.
This list is based on the written language. So obviously it can variate a bit. But most lists you’ll find have the same top 20 words.
Ok, j’accouche (which literally means ‘I give birth’) :
The most common French word is ‘le’.
It is actually fairly common since it scored a whooping 1,050,561 frequency score.
So what does it tell us? Let’s take a look at the list.
What strikes you? How can you use this list to improve your French?
A tool to learn vocabulary
N’est ce pas?
That’s an obvious thing to do. Each day, learn a new word.
That being said, some words are particularly tricky to master. Like que or de. They are hard to use when you’re a beginner.
Here’s my advice if you are a beginner: concentrate on the verbs and nouns for the moment. Building your vocabulary is essential to your progression. The small words related to grammar are merely tools to link your ideas together.
A guide to assess your level
Perhaps you’re not a beginner anymore. Or so you think.
Try to use the list as a guide.
Do you know how to use the top 20 words? Can you use them in a sentence right now?
A glimpse into French
Être and Avoir, to start with. Those two verbs are crucial if you ever wish to speak French. They are the auxiliaries.
In fact the top 50 words are core words: à, il, au, me, on, par, elle, ce,…
They tell you what you need to learn:
- Pronouns
- Prepositions
- Personal pronouns
- Adjectives
- Adverbs
A statistic guide to choose when in doubt
That’s what stroke me at first. Because, as a native French person, I get asked all the time how to know when to use masculine and feminine.
And, yeah, it’s tricky. I know my genres because I’m a native. Meaning, I do not think about grammar when I talk. I know because I’ve heard it so many times as a baby.
Don’t get me wrong, I too make mistakes sometimes. To this day, I’m still not sure if pétale is feminine or masculine. (I checked. It’s masculine.) And I always says la ketchup, when everyone else is saying le ketchup.
If the most common French word is le, then statistically, when in doubt, use the masculine.
And it applies to other words in this list. Like the auxiliary. You don’t know which one to use? Statically, you have more chances to be right if you use être.
Interesting, n’est ce pas?
1 thought on “The most common french word is going to solve one of your biggest problem”
This information is extremely useful. Thanks so much
Au Voir!!