The 5,000 most common Romanian 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 Romanian and you follow 49.0% of everyday speech. The first 1000 take you to 75.2%. After that every thousand words buys less than the thousand before it, which is exactly why the order matters.
| Words known | Speech followed | |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | 17.8% | |
| 50 | 39.8% | |
| 100 | 49.0% | |
| 250 | 60.2% | |
| 500 | 68.0% | |
| 1,000 | 75.2% | |
| 2,000 | 81.4% | |
| 3,000 | 84.6% | |
| 5,000 | 88.4% | |
| 8,000 | 91.6% | |
| 10,000 | 93.0% | |
| 15,000 | 95.3% | |
| 20,000 | 96.7% |
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 Romanian
In order. The percentage is the share of ordinary speech you cover once you know that word and every word above it.
- 1de3.06%
- 2nu5.86%
- 3să8.29%
- 4o9.77%
- 5în11.19%
- 6ce12.57%
- 7e13.94%
- 8că15.27%
- 9ÅŸi16.59%
- 10la17.84%
- 11a19.07%
- 12cu20.13%
- 13pe21.17%
- 14am22.19%
- 15un23.18%
- 16mai24.06%
- 17asta24.87%
- 18pentru25.63%
- 19este26.31%
- 20sunt26.97%
- 21ai27.62%
- 22te28.26%
- 23bine28.89%
- 24da29.52%
- 25ca30.13%
- 26dar30.71%
- 27se31.25%
- 28din31.77%
- 29fost32.29%
- 30care32.81%
- 31fi33.3%
- 32mă33.77%
- 33eu34.23%
- 34aici34.67%
- 35sa35.09%
- 36dacă35.48%
- 37trebuie35.85%
- 38va36.19%
- 39cum36.53%
- 40si36.86%
- 41tu37.18%
- 42acum37.51%
- 43aÅŸa37.8%
- 44el38.1%
- 45ar38.39%
- 46lui38.68%
- 47ceva38.96%
- 48când39.24%
- 49doar39.52%
- 50eÅŸti39.79%
- 51ei40.06%
- 52ne40.32%
- 53mine40.57%
- 54tine40.83%
- 55poate41.07%
- 56pot41.31%
- 57voi41.55%
- 58face41.78%
- 59cred42.02%
- 60îmi42.24%
- 61au42.47%
- 62mea42.69%
- 63spus42.9%
- 64ÅŸtiu43.11%
- 65unde43.31%
- 66vă43.51%
- 67meu43.71%
- 68ea43.91%
- 69mult44.1%
- 70vreau44.29%
- 71s-a44.48%
- 72despre44.66%
- 73vrei44.85%
- 74sau45.02%
- 75tot45.2%
- 76foarte45.37%
- 77pare45.55%
- 78acolo45.72%
- 79chiar45.89%
- 80in46.06%
- 81noi46.22%
- 82bună46.39%
- 83ta46.55%
- 84era46.72%
- 85nimic46.88%
- 86faci47.03%
- 87are47.19%
- 88făcut47.35%
- 89cine47.5%
- 90nici47.65%
- 91putea47.8%
- 92ÅŸtii47.94%
- 93fac48.08%
- 94fie48.22%
- 95nevoie48.35%
- 96trebui48.49%
- 97rău48.62%
- 98atunci48.75%
- 99timp48.88%
- 100tău49.0%
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 Romanian comes from
Proto-Indo-European › Italic › Latin › Romance › Eastern Romance › Romanian
Latin that stayed east of everyone else, surrounded by Slavic for a thousand years and still recognisably Latin.
Words Romanian has that English never built
- dor dorLonging for someone or somewhere, felt as a physical weight
- a se descurca a se des-kur-KATo manage, improvise and get by whatever the situation
- lehamite le-ha-MEE-teWeary disgust at something you have put up with too long
- alean a-LE-anA quiet, old sadness that has settled and stayed
Where the numbers come from
Frequencies counted over the OpenSubtitles 2018 dialogue corpus, 322,864,386 tokens of Romanian 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.