What are the most common French words? Here are numbers 21 to 30.
21) mais but
conjunction
22) elle / elles* she / they
subject pronouns
23) en in, to
preposition
24) le, la, l' / les it / them
direct object pronouns
25) dire to say, tell
all about dire
26) y there
adverbial pronoun
27) du / des of, from the
contraction of de + definite article le / les
28) pour for
preposition
29) dans in
preposition
30) me me, myself
personal pronoun
Notes
*I would have listed elle and elles 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 direct object pronouns) 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
