1000 Most Common French Words - Frequency Vocabulary to Speak in a Snap (2024)

• June 12, 2021
• French, French Vocab

Our list of the 1000 most common French words is a great way to EFFICIENTLY improve your conversational skills and effectively tackle a lot of new vocabulary. Check out our post on the 1000 Most Common French Wordsbelow. This is a French frequency vocabulary list, which means the 1st word is used twice as much as the one below it and so on. This is a great hack to learn the French language in a straightforward and painless manner.

OTHER PAINLESS FRENCH LEARNING HACKS:

1. Get your tongue moving with these French tongue twisters
2. Enroll in a fun online French group class or get a world-class French tutor!
3. 70% of French students dont know these words, do you?Free quiz (no email or info necessary)
4. Get original French language films with this Netflix hack that will help you learn a language.
5. Upgrade with this quick list of common French idioms
6. Take our quick (and accurate) French placement test to see where you stand and track your progress.

Whats your French level? Take our 5-min French Level Test

Our list of the 1000 most common words in French below:

When learning a new language the amount of vocabulary can be daunting.Have you heard people say things like: “We only use around 700 words when we talk?”This is true to some degree. The number of words to learn to speak a language really depends on your purpose. Remember that 300 to 600 words may be enough to travel, but at least 1000 wordsare necessary for a conversation. The most important thing is not knowing how many words you need to speak a language, but which words to know. Complete fluency is in the 10,000 word range. According to the economist: “Most adult native test-takers range from 20,000–35,000 words. Average native test-takers of age 8 already know 10,000 words. Average native test-takers of age 4 already know 5,000 words. Adult native test-takers learn almost 1 new word a day until middle age”

10,000 words. Wow. That does seem daunting when you are first starting out. But like anything new, you just have to start small and keep adding to it.

That’s why we wrote this blog article: Find the1000 words used most often in spoken French below.

Why these 1000 Most Common French Words?

Let’s imagine that you just got a job as a bartender. Would you try to learn every co*cktail known to man, or would you focus on the co*cktails that are most popular in your area? We developed this list of words based on the idea of the 80/20 principle (the cornerstone of results-based living). This strategy developed by David Kock says :”The 80/20 Principle asserts that a minority of causes, inputs or efforts usually lead to a majority of the results, outputs or rewards” So instead of learning 10,000 words in no particular order, learn the most common 100 words, then the most common 500 words, and then the 1000 Most Common French Words. If you want to check out this classic business book, you can order it here.

Other great ways to improve your vocabulary:

1. Watch Netflix in Original language with original language captions
2. Check out a great book like this: 2000 most frequently used French words
3. Do some quick daily exercises on DuoLingo or any other free language learning app
4. Take some classes with us at Strømmen and speak to a real human in person or online

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