The 5,000 most common Slovak 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 Slovak and you follow 45.6% of everyday speech. The first 1000 take you to 71.6%. After that every thousand words buys less than the thousand before it, which is exactly why the order matters.
| Words known | Speech followed | |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | 19.9% | |
| 50 | 37.4% | |
| 100 | 45.6% | |
| 250 | 56.4% | |
| 500 | 64.4% | |
| 1,000 | 71.6% | |
| 2,000 | 78.1% | |
| 3,000 | 81.5% | |
| 5,000 | 85.6% | |
| 8,000 | 89.1% | |
| 10,000 | 90.7% | |
| 15,000 | 93.5% | |
| 20,000 | 95.2% |
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 Slovak
In order. The percentage is the share of ordinary speech you cover once you know that word and every word above it.
- 1to3.45%
- 2sa5.95%
- 3je8.42%
- 4si10.44%
- 5som12.44%
- 6a14.37%
- 7na15.93%
- 8že17.47%
- 9čo18.78%
- 10nie19.95%
- 11v21.11%
- 12ako21.99%
- 13tak22.71%
- 14ale23.43%
- 15by24.14%
- 16s24.84%
- 17mi25.43%
- 18o26.01%
- 19tu26.59%
- 20do27.13%
- 21ja27.66%
- 22sme28.19%
- 23ste28.67%
- 24áno29.14%
- 25z29.59%
- 26len30.03%
- 27ma30.46%
- 28už30.84%
- 29aby31.23%
- 30dobre31.6%
- 31ho31.96%
- 32keď32.32%
- 33ak32.66%
- 34ty32.99%
- 35ti33.32%
- 36za33.65%
- 37ťa33.94%
- 38bol34.24%
- 39pre34.53%
- 40sú34.81%
- 41tam35.09%
- 42prečo35.37%
- 43niečo35.65%
- 44toto35.92%
- 45no36.18%
- 46teraz36.44%
- 47aj36.69%
- 48hej36.95%
- 49mám37.19%
- 50byť37.43%
- 51ich37.65%
- 52bude37.87%
- 53ju38.08%
- 54takže38.28%
- 55ten38.48%
- 56všetko38.68%
- 57tom38.88%
- 58nič39.07%
- 59vás39.27%
- 60kde39.46%
- 61kto39.64%
- 62k39.83%
- 63po40.01%
- 64bolo40.19%
- 65bola40.37%
- 66ešte40.55%
- 67vám40.73%
- 68toho40.9%
- 69alebo41.07%
- 70jej41.24%
- 71má41.41%
- 72môj41.58%
- 73jeho41.75%
- 74myslím41.92%
- 75máš42.08%
- 76viem42.24%
- 77vieš42.4%
- 78mňa42.55%
- 79poriadku42.71%
- 80tým42.86%
- 81veľmi43.02%
- 82mal43.17%
- 83prosím43.32%
- 84potom43.46%
- 85nikdy43.61%
- 86možno43.76%
- 87od43.91%
- 88nás44.05%
- 89ani44.2%
- 90so44.34%
- 91povedal44.48%
- 92chcem44.61%
- 93neviem44.74%
- 94mu44.87%
- 95ďakujem45.0%
- 96ísť45.13%
- 97vy45.25%
- 98naozaj45.37%
- 99stále45.49%
- 100teba45.61%
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 Slovak comes from
Proto-Indo-European › Balto-Slavic › Slavic › West Slavic › Slovak
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, 47,918,044 tokens of Slovak 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.