What are the most common French words? Here are the top 10.
1) le, la, l', les the
definite article
2) être to be
all about être
3) avoir to have
all about avoir
4) de of, from
preposition
5) un, une, des a, an, some
indefinite article
6) je I
subject pronoun
7) il / ils* he, it / they
subject pronouns
8) ce this
indefinite demonstrative pronoun
9) pas not
negative adverb
10) à to, in
preposition
Notes
*I would have listed il and ils separately, but they were combined in the source document.
Words with different forms but the same essential meaning (such as le and la: masculine and feminine definite articles) are combined into a single listing.
Words with different grammatical functions (such as le: definite article and le: direct object pronoun) are usually listed separately.
This list of the most common French words is adapted from the following source:
- Boris New, Christophe Pallier, Ludovic Ferrand, Rafael Matos. (2001) "Une base de données lexicales du français contemporain sur LEXIQUE," L'Année psychologique, 101, 447-462. http://www.lexique.org
