The 5,000 most common Estonian words
Ranked by how often they actually turn up in spoken dialogue, not by how useful somebody guessed they would be.
Every number below is counted from a corpus, and the corpus is named at the bottom.
What each step buys you
Learn the first 100 words of Estonian and you follow 45.1% of everyday speech. The first 1000 take you to 72.9%. After that every thousand words buys less than the thousand before it, which is exactly why the order matters.
| Words known | Speech followed | |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | 19.5% | |
| 50 | 36.4% | |
| 100 | 45.1% | |
| 250 | 57.0% | |
| 500 | 65.5% | |
| 1,000 | 72.9% | |
| 2,000 | 79.5% | |
| 3,000 | 83.0% | |
| 5,000 | 87.1% | |
| 8,000 | 90.4% | |
| 10,000 | 91.9% | |
| 15,000 | 94.4% | |
| 20,000 | 95.9% |
Comfortable reading starts around 98%. Everything before that is still worth doing, but the first hundred words buy you a foothold, not comprehension.
The first 100 words of Estonian
In order. The percentage is the share of ordinary speech you cover once you know that word and every word above it.
- 1on3.45%
- 2ma6.45%
- 3ei8.98%
- 4sa10.94%
- 5see12.87%
- 6et14.59%
- 7ja16.17%
- 8ta17.62%
- 9kui18.68%
- 10seda19.54%
- 11kas20.38%
- 12me21.12%
- 13mis21.85%
- 14mida22.52%
- 15pole23.16%
- 16jah23.71%
- 17aga24.26%
- 18oma24.78%
- 19siis25.29%
- 20nii25.8%
- 21olen26.28%
- 22ära26.76%
- 23oli27.23%
- 24oled27.7%
- 25mu28.15%
- 26siin28.59%
- 27kõik29.03%
- 28nad29.46%
- 29selle29.87%
- 30midagi30.28%
- 31mind30.68%
- 32te31.05%
- 33mul31.42%
- 34mulle31.76%
- 35minu32.09%
- 36kes32.42%
- 37su32.74%
- 38nüüd33.05%
- 39sind33.37%
- 40kuidas33.67%
- 41ole33.96%
- 42ka34.25%
- 43mitte34.52%
- 44välja34.8%
- 45tema35.07%
- 46nagu35.34%
- 47mina35.61%
- 48sinu35.88%
- 49miks36.14%
- 50sulle36.39%
- 51veel36.64%
- 52või36.88%
- 53meie37.12%
- 54tagasi37.36%
- 55sul37.6%
- 56hea37.83%
- 57küll38.05%
- 58sina38.27%
- 59väga38.49%
- 60teda38.71%
- 61saa38.93%
- 62seal39.13%
- 63teie39.33%
- 64lihtsalt39.53%
- 65üks39.72%
- 66need39.91%
- 67kus40.09%
- 68oleks40.27%
- 69palju40.44%
- 70tea40.61%
- 71teha40.78%
- 72tead40.95%
- 73siia41.11%
- 74kuid41.28%
- 75hästi41.44%
- 76pärast41.61%
- 77palun41.77%
- 78tean41.93%
- 79eest42.09%
- 80olla42.26%
- 81sellest42.42%
- 82meil42.57%
- 83tere42.72%
- 84tule42.88%
- 85juba43.03%
- 86oleme43.18%
- 87olgu43.33%
- 88keegi43.48%
- 89isa43.62%
- 90ainult43.76%
- 91peale43.89%
- 92pean44.03%
- 93tahad44.16%
- 94neid44.29%
- 95tahan44.42%
- 96ju44.56%
- 97talle44.68%
- 98kunagi44.81%
- 99sest44.94%
- 100just45.06%
Open all 5,000 words in the codex →
In the codex you tap the ones you already know and the number moves. It stays in your browser, no account.
Where Estonian comes from
Uralic › Estonian
Finnish has fifteen cases, Hungarian eighteen.
Neither is related to the languages surrounding them.
Where the numbers come from
Frequencies counted over the OpenSubtitles 2018 dialogue corpus, 62,163,674 tokens of Estonian in total. Lists compiled by Hermit Dave, released under CC BY-SA 3.0. Subtitles skew towards conversation, which is the point: this is the language people speak, not the language people publish.