The 5,000 most common German 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 German and you follow 52.9% of everyday speech. The first 1000 take you to 79.8%. After that every thousand words buys less than the thousand before it, which is exactly why the order matters.
| Words known | Speech followed | |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | 20.0% | |
| 50 | 42.0% | |
| 100 | 52.9% | |
| 250 | 65.5% | |
| 500 | 73.3% | |
| 1,000 | 79.8% | |
| 2,000 | 85.3% | |
| 3,000 | 88.1% | |
| 5,000 | 91.2% | |
| 8,000 | 93.7% | |
| 10,000 | 94.8% | |
| 15,000 | 96.5% | |
| 20,000 | 97.6% |
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 German
In order. The percentage is the share of ordinary speech you cover once you know that word and every word above it.
- 1ich3.88%
- 2sie6.39%
- 3das8.45%
- 4ist10.44%
- 5du12.39%
- 6nicht14.2%
- 7die15.84%
- 8es17.36%
- 9und18.87%
- 10der20.01%
- 11wir21.14%
- 12was22.26%
- 13zu23.2%
- 14er24.09%
- 15ein24.96%
- 16in25.77%
- 17ja26.46%
- 18mir27.14%
- 19mit27.81%
- 20wie28.42%
- 21den29.02%
- 22mich29.61%
- 23auf30.19%
- 24dass30.77%
- 25aber31.34%
- 26eine31.89%
- 27so32.43%
- 28hat32.95%
- 29hier33.45%
- 30haben33.94%
- 31für34.42%
- 32sind34.9%
- 33war35.37%
- 34von35.84%
- 35wenn36.3%
- 36dich36.75%
- 37ihr37.18%
- 38nein37.61%
- 39habe38.03%
- 40an38.44%
- 41bin38.82%
- 42noch39.2%
- 43nur39.57%
- 44da39.94%
- 45dir40.31%
- 46sich40.66%
- 47einen41.01%
- 48uns41.35%
- 49hast41.69%
- 50dem42.0%
- 51kann42.3%
- 52gut42.6%
- 53auch42.9%
- 54schon43.19%
- 55als43.48%
- 56sein43.77%
- 57mal44.06%
- 58jetzt44.34%
- 59ihn44.63%
- 60dann44.91%
- 61aus45.19%
- 62meine45.47%
- 63um45.74%
- 64im46.01%
- 65wird46.27%
- 66mein46.52%
- 67bist46.78%
- 68doch47.03%
- 69alles47.27%
- 70weiß47.51%
- 71keine47.74%
- 72oder47.96%
- 73nach48.18%
- 74s48.38%
- 75nichts48.58%
- 76man48.78%
- 77muss48.98%
- 78werden49.17%
- 79will49.36%
- 80ihnen49.56%
- 81geht49.75%
- 82wo49.94%
- 83etwas50.13%
- 84oh50.32%
- 85mehr50.5%
- 86bei50.68%
- 87also50.87%
- 88bitte51.04%
- 89immer51.21%
- 90hab51.38%
- 91warum51.54%
- 92vor51.7%
- 93los51.86%
- 94können52.02%
- 95wieder52.18%
- 96sagen52.34%
- 97machen52.49%
- 98danke52.64%
- 99sehr52.79%
- 100alle52.94%
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 German comes from
Proto-Indo-European › Germanic › West Germanic › German
A second sound shift split it from Dutch and English.
Luther's Bible then froze one dialect as the standard.
Words German has that English never built
- Waldeinsamkeit VALD-ayn-zam-kiteThe particular calm of being alone in a forest
- Fernweh FERN-vayHomesickness for a place you have never been
- Torschlusspanik TOR-shloos-pah-nikThe panic that the gate is closing on your life
- Kummerspeck KOO-mer-shpekThe weight you put on from grief eating
Where the numbers come from
Frequencies counted over the OpenSubtitles 2018 dialogue corpus, 151,705,378 tokens of German 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.