The 5,000 most common Polish 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 Polish and you follow 43.5% of everyday speech. The first 1000 take you to 68.4%. After that every thousand words buys less than the thousand before it, which is exactly why the order matters.
| Words known | Speech followed | |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | 19.1% | |
| 50 | 35.4% | |
| 100 | 43.5% | |
| 250 | 53.7% | |
| 500 | 61.2% | |
| 1,000 | 68.4% | |
| 2,000 | 75.1% | |
| 3,000 | 78.9% | |
| 5,000 | 83.4% | |
| 8,000 | 87.4% | |
| 10,000 | 89.2% | |
| 15,000 | 92.4% | |
| 20,000 | 94.5% |
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 Polish
In order. The percentage is the share of ordinary speech you cover once you know that word and every word above it.
- 1nie3.86%
- 2to6.74%
- 3się9.05%
- 4w10.85%
- 5na12.37%
- 6i13.83%
- 7że15.25%
- 8z16.64%
- 9co17.92%
- 10jest19.15%
- 11do20.19%
- 12tak21.18%
- 13o21.98%
- 14jak22.75%
- 15ale23.43%
- 16a24.11%
- 17mnie24.74%
- 18mi25.28%
- 19za25.74%
- 20ja26.14%
- 21tym26.53%
- 22tego26.91%
- 23go27.28%
- 24ci27.65%
- 25po28.01%
- 26tylko28.37%
- 27czy28.73%
- 28tu29.09%
- 29może29.45%
- 30jestem29.79%
- 31ma30.14%
- 32ty30.48%
- 33cię30.81%
- 34mam31.13%
- 35jesteś31.45%
- 36już31.76%
- 37jeśli32.06%
- 38dla32.35%
- 39wiem32.65%
- 40coś32.94%
- 41dobrze33.2%
- 42więc33.47%
- 43od33.73%
- 44teraz33.98%
- 45pan34.23%
- 46wszystko34.47%
- 47być34.71%
- 48będzie34.93%
- 49masz35.15%
- 50nic35.38%
- 51tam35.6%
- 52mogę35.81%
- 53proszę36.03%
- 54jej36.24%
- 55sÄ…36.45%
- 56gdzie36.65%
- 57kiedy36.85%
- 58ten37.05%
- 59on37.25%
- 60ciebie37.44%
- 61by37.63%
- 62sobie37.82%
- 63ze38.01%
- 64był38.2%
- 65wiesz38.39%
- 66bardzo38.58%
- 67było38.76%
- 68przez38.94%
- 69jego39.11%
- 70jÄ…39.29%
- 71chcę39.46%
- 72dlaczego39.63%
- 73pani39.8%
- 74jeszcze39.97%
- 75mój40.14%
- 76nas40.3%
- 77żeby40.46%
- 78no40.62%
- 79bo40.78%
- 80chcesz40.93%
- 81ich41.09%
- 82też41.24%
- 83tutaj41.39%
- 84naprawdę41.53%
- 85nigdy41.67%
- 86mamy41.81%
- 87kto41.95%
- 88możesz42.08%
- 89dobra42.22%
- 90przepraszam42.35%
- 91mu42.48%
- 92gdy42.6%
- 93muszę42.72%
- 94porzÄ…dku42.84%
- 95dziękuję42.96%
- 96nawet43.08%
- 97chyba43.2%
- 98domu43.31%
- 99ona43.43%
- 100prawda43.54%
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 Polish comes from
Proto-Indo-European › Balto-Slavic › Slavic › West Slavic › Polish
Spread very fast and very recently, which is why Slavic languages are still unusually close to each other.
Where the numbers come from
Frequencies counted over the OpenSubtitles 2018 dialogue corpus, 222,279,707 tokens of Polish 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.