The 5,000 most common Russian 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 Russian and you follow 46.4% of everyday speech. The first 1000 take you to 70.5%. After that every thousand words buys less than the thousand before it, which is exactly why the order matters.
| Words known | Speech followed | |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | 19.8% | |
| 50 | 37.9% | |
| 100 | 46.4% | |
| 250 | 56.5% | |
| 500 | 63.7% | |
| 1,000 | 70.5% | |
| 2,000 | 76.8% | |
| 3,000 | 80.3% | |
| 5,000 | 84.5% | |
| 8,000 | 88.2% | |
| 10,000 | 90.0% | |
| 15,000 | 92.9% | |
| 20,000 | 94.8% |
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 Russian
In order. The percentage is the share of ordinary speech you cover once you know that word and every word above it.
- 1я3.51%
- 2не6.5%
- 3что8.96%
- 4в11.0%
- 5и13.01%
- 6ты14.89%
- 7это16.72%
- 8на17.86%
- 9с18.9%
- 10он19.79%
- 11мы20.63%
- 12как21.44%
- 13вы22.24%
- 14да23.03%
- 15мне23.78%
- 16у24.5%
- 17нет25.23%
- 18меня25.93%
- 19так26.61%
- 20но27.3%
- 21а27.97%
- 22его28.49%
- 23все28.99%
- 24она29.48%
- 25тебя29.97%
- 26о30.45%
- 27если30.88%
- 28за31.3%
- 29бы31.71%
- 30тебе32.11%
- 31они32.48%
- 32чтобы32.81%
- 33же33.14%
- 34есть33.45%
- 35просто33.76%
- 36из34.07%
- 37к34.37%
- 38для34.66%
- 39ну34.96%
- 40когда35.25%
- 41хорошо35.54%
- 42здесь35.82%
- 43по36.1%
- 44был36.37%
- 45знаю36.64%
- 46то36.91%
- 47только37.17%
- 48всё37.43%
- 49было37.68%
- 50вас37.93%
- 51может38.18%
- 52нас38.42%
- 53вот38.66%
- 54от38.89%
- 55быть39.11%
- 56кто39.31%
- 57будет39.52%
- 58почему39.73%
- 59вам39.93%
- 60их40.12%
- 61очень40.32%
- 62могу40.51%
- 63уже40.7%
- 64спасибо40.89%
- 65или41.08%
- 66нам41.27%
- 67еще41.45%
- 68там41.64%
- 69нужно41.81%
- 70сейчас41.99%
- 71где42.16%
- 72чем42.34%
- 73хочу42.51%
- 74ничего42.68%
- 75этого42.86%
- 76была43.02%
- 77мой43.18%
- 78ее43.34%
- 79ладно43.5%
- 80знаешь43.66%
- 81п43.82%
- 82до43.97%
- 83этом44.12%
- 84потому44.27%
- 85теперь44.42%
- 86думаю44.56%
- 87больше44.7%
- 88её44.84%
- 89со44.98%
- 90раз45.11%
- 91ему45.24%
- 92надо45.37%
- 93время45.51%
- 94этот45.63%
- 95ли45.76%
- 96ещё45.88%
- 97пока46.01%
- 98даже46.13%
- 99привет46.25%
- 100сказал46.37%
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 Russian comes from
Proto-Indo-European › Balto-Slavic › Slavic › East Slavic › Russian
Written in an alphabet built on purpose, by Greek missionaries, to fit sounds Greek did not have.
Words Russian has that English never built
- тоска tos-KAAn ache of the soul with no object, longing for nothing nameable
- почемучка po-che-MOOCH-kaA person, usually a small child, who asks why about everything
- разлюбить raz-lyu-BEETTo fall out of love, as a completed action
- авось a-VOSThe hope that things will somehow work out with no plan behind it
- простор pros-TORWide open space, felt as freedom rather than measured as distance
- белоручка be-lo-ROOCH-kaSomeone who avoids dirty or hard work
- переподвыподверт pe-re-pod-vih-POD-vertDoing something in a needlessly convoluted way
Where the numbers come from
Frequencies counted over the OpenSubtitles 2018 dialogue corpus, 144,780,175 tokens of Russian 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.