Most Common French Words: The Top 100, Ranked

The 100 most common French words, counted in 321 million words of real French: what each one means, how much of the language they cover and how to learn them.

The short answer

The 10 most common French words are le (the), être (to be), je (I), de (of, from), avoir (to have), ce (it, this), que (that), un (a), pas and ne (the two halves of "not"). Together they make up 30.4% of everything said in French films and TV shows. Le alone, counted with la, l' and les, is 5.3%.

The 100 words in the table below cover 66.0% of all the words you hear: two out of every three. The first 1,000 cover 85.2%.

That 85% is the figure most word lists quote, and for French it holds, but only if you count words the way a dictionary does: est, suis, était and été all count as être. Count every spelling as a separate word and 1,000 words cover 79.4%.

We counted the ranking ourselves from 321 million words of French subtitles and grouped every form under its dictionary word with Lexique, an open French word database built by researchers. How we did it, and where the method falls short, is at the end.

The 100 most common French words

"Per million words" is how often the word appears in every million words of subtitles, all its forms together. "Running total" is how much of everything said you cover once you know every word up to that row. Where a word has several forms, the table shows the ones you will meet most.

#	French	Type	Meaning	Per million words	Running total
1	le, la, l', les	article, pronoun	the; him, her, it, them	53,454	5.3%
2	être (est, suis, était...)	verb	to be	42,958	9.6%
3	je, j'	pronoun	I	35,588	13.2%
4	de, d'	preposition	of, from	34,407	16.6%
5	avoir (a, ai, as, ont...)	verb	to have	32,799	19.9%
6	ce, c', cette, ces, cet	pronoun, determiner	it, that; this, these (c'est = it is)	24,637	22.4%
7	que, qu'	conjunction, pronoun	that, what, than	22,845	24.7%
8	un, une	article, number	a, an; one	21,231	26.8%
9	pas	adverb	not (ne ... pas)	18,056	28.6%
10	ne, n'	adverb	not (with pas)	17,658	30.4%
11	il, ils	pronoun	he, it; they	16,506	32.0%
12	vous	pronoun	you (polite or plural)	15,825	33.6%
13	tu	pronoun	you (informal)	14,943	35.1%
14	à	preposition	to, at, in	12,878	36.4%
15	et	conjunction	and	12,811	37.7%
16	aller (va, vais, allez...)	verb	to go	9,850	38.6%
17	en	preposition, pronoun	in; some, of it	9,210	39.6%
18	faire (fait, fais, font...)	verb	to do, to make	9,181	40.5%
19	ça	pronoun	that, it	9,149	41.4%
20	on	pronoun	we, one, people	8,725	42.3%
21	me, m'	pronoun	me, myself	8,073	43.1%
22	pour	preposition	for, to, in order to	7,713	43.9%
23	te, t'	pronoun	you, yourself (informal)	7,489	44.6%
24	mon, ma, mes	determiner	my	6,995	45.3%
25	pouvoir (peux, peut...)	verb	can, to be able to	6,311	45.9%
26	dire (dit, dis...)	verb	to say, to tell	6,164	46.5%
27	tout, tous, toute, toutes	determiner, pronoun	all, every, everything	6,075	47.1%
28	se, s'	pronoun	himself, herself, themselves	5,937	47.8%
29	des	article	some; of the	5,927	48.3%
30	vouloir (veux, veut...)	verb	to want	5,236	48.9%
31	elle, elles	pronoun	she, it; they	5,195	49.4%
32	qui	pronoun	who, which, that	5,194	49.9%
33	mais	conjunction	but	5,114	50.4%
34	moi	pronoun	me (stressed)	5,076	50.9%
35	nous	pronoun	we, us	5,015	51.4%
36	savoir (sais, sait...)	verb	to know	4,975	51.9%
37	dans	preposition	in, inside	4,702	52.4%
38	y	pronoun	there (il y a = there is)	4,585	52.9%
39	bien	adverb	well, good, really	4,502	53.3%
40	si	conjunction, adverb	if; so; yes (after a no)	4,392	53.7%
41	du	article	some; of the (de + le)	4,167	54.1%
42	non	adverb	no	4,037	54.6%
43	avec	preposition	with	3,916	55.0%
44	devoir (dois, doit...)	verb	must, to have to	3,873	55.3%
45	son, sa, ses	determiner	his, her, its	3,806	55.7%
46	plus	adverb	more; no longer (ne ... plus)	3,780	56.1%
47	voir (vois, vu...)	verb	to see	3,739	56.5%
48	ton, ta, tes	determiner	your (informal)	3,474	56.8%
49	au	article	to the, at the (à + le)	3,460	57.2%
50	oui	adverb	yes	3,122	57.5%
51	sur	preposition	on, about	2,869	57.8%
52	toi	pronoun	you (stressed, informal)	2,830	58.0%
53	quoi	pronoun	what	2,788	58.3%
54	votre, vos	determiner	your (polite or plural)	2,767	58.6%
55	comme	conjunction	like, as	2,696	58.9%
56	venir (viens, vient...)	verb	to come	2,433	59.1%
57	lui	pronoun	him; to him, to her	2,333	59.4%
58	ici	adverb	here	2,263	59.6%
59	bon, bonne	adjective	good; well, OK	2,258	59.8%
60	est-ce (que)	question word	asks a question: est-ce que...?	2,204	60.0%
61	là	adverb	there, here	2,167	60.2%
62	pourquoi	adverb	why	2,048	60.4%
63	parler	verb	to speak, to talk	2,046	60.6%
64	une chose	noun (f)	thing	2,044	60.9%
65	penser	verb	to think	2,014	61.0%
66	où	pronoun, adverb	where	2,006	61.2%
67	rien	pronoun	nothing	1,989	61.5%
68	prendre (pris, prends...)	verb	to take	1,889	61.6%
69	quand	conjunction	when	1,865	61.8%
70	alors	adverb	so, then	1,689	62.0%
71	comment	adverb	how	1,648	62.2%
72	croire (crois, cru...)	verb	to believe, to think	1,632	62.3%
73	par	preposition	by, through	1,625	62.5%
74	aimer	verb	to love, to like	1,609	62.6%
75	notre, nos	determiner	our	1,571	62.8%
76	ou	conjunction	or	1,550	63.0%
77	passer	verb	to pass, to spend (time)	1,518	63.1%
78	trouver	verb	to find	1,478	63.3%
79	merci	interjection	thank you	1,470	63.4%
80	juste	adjective, adverb	just, only; fair	1,456	63.5%
81	monsieur (M.)	noun (m)	sir, Mr.	1,446	63.7%
82	très	adverb	very	1,441	63.8%
83	jamais	adverb	never	1,361	64.0%
84	laisser	verb	to leave, to let	1,354	64.1%
85	aussi	adverb	also, too	1,333	64.2%
86	autre	adjective	other	1,332	64.4%
87	vraiment	adverb	really	1,319	64.5%
88	même	adverb, adjective	even; same	1,319	64.6%
89	attendre	verb	to wait (for)	1,271	64.8%
90	falloir (il faut)	verb	to be necessary (il faut = you have to)	1,252	64.9%
91	deux	number	two	1,221	65.0%
92	arriver	verb	to arrive, to happen	1,217	65.1%
93	donner	verb	to give	1,166	65.2%
94	appeler	verb	to call (je m'appelle = my name is)	1,148	65.4%
95	maintenant	adverb	now	1,148	65.5%
96	le temps	noun (m)	time; weather	1,122	65.6%
97	petit, petite	adjective	small, little	1,112	65.7%
98	peu (un peu)	adverb	little, not much (un peu = a little)	1,106	65.8%
99	quelque	determiner	some (quelque chose = something)	1,104	65.9%
100	regarder	verb	to look at, to watch	1,096	66.0%

Only three nouns make the top 100: chose (thing) at 64, monsieur (sir) at 81 and temps (time) at 96. Everything else is the frame of a sentence: who, what, not, and the verbs that carry it. Merci is the only greeting or thank-you word in the list, at 79. Bonjour is number 184.

How much French do these words cover?

Line chart: share of all words in French subtitles covered by the most common words. Dictionary words: top 10 30.4%, top 100 66.0%, top 500 80.5%, top 1,000 85.2%, top 5,000 93.1%. Word forms counted one by one: top 10 18.2%, top 100 56.7%, top 1,000 79.4%, top 5,000 90.1%.

The 100 most common French words cover two thirds of everything said on screen; 1,000 cover 85%, but only if est, suis and était count as one word (être). Data: OpenSubtitles2018 French frequency list (FrequencyWords project, CC BY-SA 4.0), 321 million words; forms grouped into dictionary words with Lexique 3.83 (CC BY-SA 4.0) and counted by Mindomax on 2026-10-22. Chart by Mindomax.

The curve rises fast and then flattens. The first 10 words cover 30.4% of what people say on screen, the first 100 cover 66.0% and the first 500 cover 80.5%. After that, each extra thousand words adds less than the one before: 1,000 words reach 85.2%, 2,000 reach 89.3% and 5,000 reach 93.1%.

The dashed line shows why lists disagree about these numbers. A list that counts each spelling separately (est, suis, était, sont) needs more entries to cover the same French, because one verb like être appears in dozens of forms. Ten such forms cover only 18.2%, and 1,000 cover 79.4%. Both counts are useful. Dictionary words are what you learn; forms are what you hear, and each one has to be recognised by ear.

Coverage is not the same as understanding. Researchers usually put comfortable reading at about 98% of the words in a text (Hu and Nation, 2000), and listening research suggests something close to 95%. The top 100 words carry the grammar of almost every sentence, but most of the meaning sits in the last third: the nouns, names and verbs that tell you what the conversation is about.

What the top 100 is made of

Sorted by type, the 100 words fall into a few clear groups:

• 49 small words (articles, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, possessives like mon and ton, and the number deux) make up 43.0% of all the words in French conversation.

• 25 verbs make up 14.8%. Être and avoir alone are 7.6% of everything said and a third of all verb use. The 10 most common verbs (être, avoir, aller, faire, pouvoir, dire, vouloir, savoir, devoir, voir) make up 55.8% of all verb use.

• 18 adverbs, including oui, non and the two halves of "not", make up 7.0%.

• 4 adjectives (bon, juste, autre, petit), 3 nouns (chose, monsieur, temps) and merci are about 1% together.

So learning the top 100 teaches you how French sentences are built. It does not teach you what they are about. That is why a learner who knows these words recognises two words out of three in a film and still loses the plot: the missing third is where the content lives.

The 20 most common French nouns

Nouns carry most of the meaning, and each one comes with a gender you need to learn at the same time: le or la, un or une. These are the 20 most common nouns in the same count, with their place in the full ranking:

Rank	Noun	Meaning
64	une chose	thing
81	un monsieur	sir, gentleman
96	le temps	time; weather
105	un homme	man
107	un besoin	need (avoir besoin de = to need)
108	la vie	life
117	une fois	time, as in "one time"
120	une femme	woman; wife
123	un jour	day
127	le monde	world (tout le monde = everyone)
128	un ami, une amie	friend
132	une fille	girl; daughter
140	un an	year
141	un père	father
142	Dieu	God
152	une mère	mother
155	un or une enfant	child
156	les gens	people
157	une heure	hour; o'clock
159	une maison	house, home

Eight of the 20 are feminine, nine are masculine, ami and enfant can be either (un ami, une amie; un enfant, une enfant), and gens is always plural. Two of them rank high because of set phrases: tout le monde (everyone) keeps monde in the top 130, and une fois (once) is how French says "one time". Dieu is mostly "mon Dieu" (my God).

Two more words are nouns in the dictionary but work like adverbs in speech: peu, as in "un peu" (a little), would be the fourth noun at 98, and accord is almost always "d'accord" (OK), number 111.

Speech or books? The words that change

Lexique counts every word twice: in 50 million words of film and TV subtitles and in 14.7 million words of novels. That makes it possible to see which common words belong to conversation and which belong to stories.

Bar chart: how many times more common each word is in French film and TV subtitles than in novels: tu 5.8, toi 5.6, te 5.4, oui 5.0, ici 5.0, ton/ta/tes 4.4, pourquoi 4.1, vous 3.9, ça 3.6, non 3.5. More common in novels: son/sa/ses 3.1, par 2.1, sur 2.1, se 2.1, lui 1.8, dans 1.8.

Film and TV dialogue talks to someone (tu, vous, ton) and asks why; novels tell what he or she did (son, se, lui). Data: Lexique 3.83 (CC BY-SA 4.0), frequency per million words in about 50 million words of film and TV subtitles and 14.7 million words of novels published 1950 to 2000, all forms of each word together; compared by Mindomax on 2026-10-22. Chart by Mindomax.

Film and TV dialogue talks to someone. Tu is 5.8 times as common on screen as in novels, toi 5.6 times, te 5.4 times and ton, ta and tes 4.4 times. Even the polite vous is 3.9 times as common. Dialogue also asks and answers: pourquoi (why) 4.1 times, comment (how) 3.9 times, oui 5.0 times, non 3.5 times. And it says thank you: merci is 13.7 times as common in subtitles as in novels.

Novels describe what someone else did. Son, sa and ses (his, her) are 3.1 times as common in books, and se (himself, herself, as in "il se lève") 2.1 times, like the prepositions par and sur. Lui is 1.8 times as common in books.

The practical point: if your goal is conversation, the "you" words, the question words and ça matter more than a list built from books would suggest. If you mostly want to read, son, se and lui deserve an early place.

Where are bonjour and merci?

Textbooks start with greetings. Real conversation uses them less often than you might expect:

Word or phrase	Meaning	Rank
merci	thank you	79
désolé	sorry	122
s'il vous plaît, s'il te plaît (plaire)	please	158
voilà	there you go, here it is	160
salut	hi, bye (informal)	181
bonjour	hello, good morning	184
excusez-moi (excuser)	excuse me	233
au revoir (revoir)	goodbye	251
pardon	sorry, excuse me	327
bonsoir	good evening	617

Learn them on day one anyway: you will need them the first time you walk into a French shop. Just do not expect them to fill a conversation.

The same goes for textbook nouns. Pain (bread) is number 1,345 and fromage (cheese) 1,848, while tuer (to kill) is number 113, ahead of comprendre (to understand) at 133. That last pair tells you more about the films than about France, which is one of the limits of subtitles.

How to learn the 100 most common French words

1. Learn the small words in short phrases, not alone. C'est (it is), il y a (there is), je ne sais pas (I don't know), qu'est-ce que c'est (what is it) and ça va (how are you, I'm fine) put twelve of the top 40 words into five phrases you will use every day.

2. Learn the present tense of être, avoir, aller and faire first, in the forms you will hear most: est, suis, a, ai, va, vais, fait. These four verbs alone are 42% of all verb use.

3. Put the article on every noun card: la chose, le temps, une fois. A noun learned without its gender has to be learned twice.

4. Review on a schedule. Ten new words a day takes ten days; spaced review, where each card comes back just before you would forget it, keeps them. Our guides to the spacing effect and the testing effect explain why this beats rereading a list, and how to make flashcards covers the cards themselves.

5. Then listen. Two words in three in French film dialogue are on this list, so a French series with French subtitles turns into a review session after the first two weeks.

Apps that help you drill them

You can learn 100 words with paper cards. An app helps with three things paper is bad at: playing the word aloud, showing it in a real sentence and bringing it back just before you forget it. Prices are from the US App Store and Google Play.

App	Good for	Price (checked 2026-10-22)	Limitation
TV5MONDE EDU (iPhone, Android, web)	Free video lessons from the French-language TV network, A1 to B2, with French from Paris, Montreal, Dakar and Brussels	Free, no in-app purchases (checked 2026-10-22)	Built around video lessons, so there is no word list to drill
Reverso Context (iPhone, Android, web)	Any French word in real translated sentences, with its conjugation and a flashcard mode for saved words	Free; Premium listed from $4.99 a month (checked 2026-10-22)	Built for looking words up: you choose and save the words to review yourself
WordReference (iPhone, Android, web)	A dictionary plus forum threads where native speakers explain how a word is used	Free (checked 2026-10-22)	Needs an internet connection, and the forum answers are not sorted by level
French Conjugation by Vatefaireconjuguer (iPhone, Android)	Every tense of être, avoir, aller, faire and thousands of other verbs, with no ads	Free (checked 2026-10-22)	A reference, not a trainer: it shows the forms but does not test you
Clozemaster (iPhone, Android, web)	Filling the missing word into real sentences, most common words first	Free; Pro listed from $8.99 a month or $69.99 a year (checked 2026-10-22)	Made for learners past the basics (A2 to C1, says the developer)
Lingvist (iPhone, Android, web)	Typing the missing word in sentences, most frequent words first	Free; plans listed from $9.99 a month or $79.99 a year (checked 2026-10-22)	The listing shows several price tiers for the same plan
Drops (iPhone, Android)	Five-minute picture games for vocabulary	Free; plans listed from $7.99 for a month (checked 2026-10-22)	Single words with pictures, so it barely touches small words like que, en or y
Anki (Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iPhone)	Free flashcards with spaced repetition; shared French decks to download	Free; iPhone app $24.99 (checked 2026-10-22)	You build or pick decks yourself; the iPhone app was last updated in September 2025
Mindomax (iPhone, Android, web)	AI flashcards from your own word list, with spaced review and pronunciation	Free; Premium free until the end of 2027 (checked 2026-10-22)	New, with no App Store or Google Play ratings in the US yet

A sentence app (Clozemaster, Lingvist or Reverso) and a flashcard app (Anki or Mindomax) make a good pair: the first shows the small words at work, the second makes sure you still know them next month. If you already use Anki, our guide to Anki for language learning covers the settings that matter for vocabulary.

How we counted

The counts come from the French frequency list of the FrequencyWords project (CC BY-SA 4.0), built from OpenSubtitles2018: 318 million words of film and TV subtitles, or 321 million once forms like dis-moi are split into dire and moi. Subtitles are the best open stand-in for everyday speech. Word counts from subtitles predict how quickly French speakers recognise words better than counts from books (New, Brysbaert, Véronis and Pallier, 2007). We used the same method for the most common Spanish words.

We grouped the forms into dictionary words with Lexique 3.83 (CC BY-SA 4.0), the open French database created by Boris New and Christophe Pallier. When a spelling belongs to two words, we split its count the way Lexique's tagged corpus does: 99.6% of est is a form of être and 0.4% is the noun for east; 94.5% of été is a form of être and 5.5% means summer.

Some fixes were made by hand. Lexique has no entry for c', j', qu' and m', which together are 3.4% of all the words in the subtitles, so we added them to ce, je, que and me. It tags about half of "suis" as a form of suivre (to follow), which cannot be right in "je suis", so all of it counts as être. Subtitles drop the accent on capital letters (Ecoute for Écoute) and write œ where Lexique writes oe; we matched those too.

Le, la, l' and les count as one word, and so do un and une, mon, ma and mes, and the other possessives. Du, des, au and aux are listed separately, because learners meet them as words of their own. Interjections (oh, ah, ouais, ok, euh) and swear words count toward the totals but are not in the list; oh would be number 89. Names, English words and other strings Lexique does not know (3.7% of the subtitles) count toward the totals and are never ranked.

The speech-or-books comparison uses Lexique alone: about 50 million words of subtitles from 9,474 films and series against 14.7 million words from 218 novels published between 1950 and 2000.

The limits: most of these subtitles are translations of American and British films and series (in Lexique's corpus, 46 of the 50 million words), so the counts lean toward thrillers and family drama, which is how tuer ends up in the top 120. Spelling is not sound, and a written list cannot show how much French drops ne in speech. Treat every share as a close estimate: below the top 30, neighbouring words can swap places.

If you would rather not type 100 words into flashcards yourself, you can paste this list into Mindomax and try it for free.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the 10 most common French words?

In spoken French they are le (the), être (to be), je (I), de (of), avoir (to have), ce (it, this), que (that), un (a), pas and ne (not). Together they make up 30.4% of all the words in our count of 321 million words of subtitles.

What are 20 basic French words?

The first 20 rows of the table: the ten above plus il (he), vous (you), tu (you), à (to), et (and), aller (to go), en (in), faire (to do), ça (that) and on (we). Together they are 42.3% of everything said on screen.

What are 100 French words?

The full table above, from le (the) at number 1 to regarder (to look at) at number 100. Together they cover 66.0% of all the words in French film and TV subtitles.

How many French words do I need to know?

1,000 dictionary words cover 85.2% of what is said in French films and TV, 2,000 cover 89.3% and 5,000 cover 93.1%. Following a conversation comfortably takes several thousand words, so treat the first 1,000 as the base, not the goal.

What is the most common word in French?

Le, the word for "the", counted together with la, l' and les: 5.3% of all words. If you count each spelling separately, the most common single form is de (of).

What is the most common French verb?

Être (to be), at 4.3% of all words, then avoir (to have) at 3.3%. Together they are a third of all verb use, which is why est, suis, a and ai are among the first forms to learn.

Should I learn tu or vous first?

Both: vous is number 12 in the ranking and tu number 13, almost equally common. Use vous with strangers and anyone you would call monsieur or madame, and tu with friends, family and children.