The 5,000 most common Indonesian 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 Indonesian and you follow 49.1% of everyday speech. The first 1000 take you to 77.1%. 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 | 39.8% | |
| 100 | 49.1% | |
| 250 | 61.4% | |
| 500 | 69.7% | |
| 1,000 | 77.1% | |
| 2,000 | 83.7% | |
| 3,000 | 87.2% | |
| 5,000 | 91.0% | |
| 8,000 | 94.0% | |
| 10,000 | 95.1% | |
| 15,000 | 96.9% | |
| 20,000 | 97.9% |
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 Indonesian
In order. The percentage is the share of ordinary speech you cover once you know that word and every word above it.
- 1aku3.75%
- 2kau6.36%
- 3yang8.66%
- 4tidak10.63%
- 5ini12.27%
- 6itu13.87%
- 7dan15.31%
- 8dia16.72%
- 9di18.12%
- 10akan19.47%
- 11apa20.79%
- 12kita21.93%
- 13untuk22.88%
- 14bisa23.69%
- 15ada24.45%
- 16tak25.2%
- 17mereka25.91%
- 18anda26.6%
- 19tahu27.27%
- 20dengan27.94%
- 21saya28.56%
- 22dari29.16%
- 23ya29.71%
- 24tapi30.25%
- 25kami30.76%
- 26ke31.26%
- 27harus31.73%
- 28sudah32.2%
- 29kamu32.63%
- 30adalah33.05%
- 31orang33.47%
- 32saja33.9%
- 33seperti34.29%
- 34ingin34.68%
- 35jika35.05%
- 36pergi35.42%
- 37hanya35.78%
- 38semua36.12%
- 39sekarang36.47%
- 40sini36.81%
- 41jadi37.15%
- 42dalam37.48%
- 43bukan37.79%
- 44baik38.09%
- 45bagaimana38.39%
- 46jangan38.68%
- 47lagi38.97%
- 48punya39.26%
- 49lebih39.53%
- 50oh39.81%
- 51pada40.08%
- 52mungkin40.33%
- 53kalian40.59%
- 54lakukan40.84%
- 55karena41.09%
- 56sangat41.33%
- 57satu41.56%
- 58juga41.78%
- 59apakah42.0%
- 60mau42.22%
- 61pernah42.43%
- 62siapa42.65%
- 63telah42.85%
- 64ayo43.06%
- 65hal43.26%
- 66saat43.45%
- 67kenapa43.65%
- 68hari43.84%
- 69kembali44.03%
- 70atau44.23%
- 71datang44.42%
- 72begitu44.6%
- 73sesuatu44.79%
- 74banyak44.97%
- 75benar45.16%
- 76kasih45.33%
- 77menjadi45.51%
- 78melihat45.69%
- 79terjadi45.86%
- 80melakukan46.04%
- 81terima46.21%
- 82tentang46.38%
- 83lihat46.55%
- 84seorang46.72%
- 85bahwa46.88%
- 86kalau47.05%
- 87hei47.2%
- 88bagus47.36%
- 89bilang47.51%
- 90masih47.67%
- 91oke47.81%
- 92lain47.96%
- 93sana48.1%
- 94waktu48.24%
- 95baiklah48.38%
- 96tempat48.52%
- 97mana48.66%
- 98keluar48.8%
- 99lalu48.94%
- 100malam49.07%
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 Indonesian comes from
Austronesian › Indonesian
Spread by boat from Taiwan to Madagascar and Easter Island.
The widest reach of any family before Europe.
Words Indonesian has that English never built
- jayus JAH-yoosA joke so badly told that you laugh anyway
Where the numbers come from
Frequencies counted over the OpenSubtitles 2018 dialogue corpus, 54,684,802 tokens of Indonesian 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.