A French frequency list can be a game-changer when learning the language.
Instead of spending hours and hours studying hundreds or thousands of vocabulary words, you can start with the most common.
It’s the more efficient way to learn the language and improve your comprehension.
In this post, you’ll get 500 of the most frequently used French words, along with four other places to find great French frequency lists for your studies.
A French frequency list is a curated compilation of words ranked by their frequency of use in the French language. It serves as a strategic tool for language learners by highlighting the most commonly used words in written and spoken French.
By prioritizing the study of words based on their occurrence in everyday communication, you can streamline your efforts, focusing on the essentials for effective communication and comprehension.
Using a French frequency list enhances vocabulary acquisition, accelerates language proficiency and provides a structured approach to mastering the language.
500 Most Common French Words
Here are 500 of the most common words in the French language:
Whether you’re a beginner building your basic vocabulary or a more advanced student looking to fill in the gaps, the following three online resources are well-suited to optimal learning. As a bonus, they’re all completely free!
AnkiWeb offers a flashcard deck containing the 5,000 most frequently used French words and their English translations conveniently sorted by order of frequency.
They come with the part of speech, frequency, example sentences in English and French and audio recordings of the words and example sentences.
After downloading the flashcards, you can make personal changes to them like adding notes or flagging difficult words. To download these flashcards, you’ll need to download the Anki program first, which is free and easy to do.
This PDF list of 5,000 common French words was compiled from written and spoken resources by several professors at Brigham Young University.
You can search the list by frequency, alphabetically or by themes like animals or verbs of communication. There are also tons of helpful example sentences included.
This frequency list is one of the easiest to read as the entries are exactly as you’d expect to find them in a dictionary, with English translations of both the words and example sentences.
This website is run by Le Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale (the National Ministry of French Education) and contains lists of the 1,500 most frequently used words.
The lists contain the same information but are organized differently, such as by alphabetical order and order of frequency. English definitions aren’t provided, but the lists are still helpful for knowing what to study.
The lists are available to be downloaded as Excel spreadsheets, PDFs or Open Office documents and each contains additional information on the words such as part of speech, frequency, etc.
Now that you have some great resources to get you started, try to master the most commonly used words on the lists above before moving on to the rest.
Use them daily, practice with a good French flashcard app and look out for them being used in context in French conversation and media.
Soon these French frequency lists will be secured in your memory and become part of your natural vocabulary!
If you like learning French on your own time and from the comfort of your smart device, then I'd be remiss to not tell you about FluentU.
FluentU has a wide variety of great content, like interviews, documentary excerpts and web series, as you can see here:
FluentU brings native French videos with reach. With interactive captions, you can tap on any word to see an image, definition and useful examples.
For example, if you tap on the word "crois," you'll see this:
Practice and reinforce all the vocabulary you've learned in a given video with learn mode. Swipe left or right to see more examples for the word you’re learning, and play the mini-games found in our dynamic flashcards, like "fill in the blank."
All throughout, FluentU tracks the vocabulary that you’re learning and uses this information to give you a totally personalized experience. It gives you extra practice with difficult words—and reminds you when it’s time to review what you’ve learned.
