The 5,000 most common Swedish 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 Swedish and you follow 58.9% of everyday speech. The first 1000 take you to 81.4%. After that every thousand words buys less than the thousand before it, which is exactly why the order matters.
| Words known | Speech followed | |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | 24.3% | |
| 50 | 49.3% | |
| 100 | 58.9% | |
| 250 | 69.0% | |
| 500 | 75.7% | |
| 1,000 | 81.4% | |
| 2,000 | 86.3% | |
| 3,000 | 88.8% | |
| 5,000 | 91.7% | |
| 8,000 | 94.0% | |
| 10,000 | 95.0% | |
| 15,000 | 96.7% | |
| 20,000 | 97.7% |
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 Swedish
In order. The percentage is the share of ordinary speech you cover once you know that word and every word above it.
- 1jag4.14%
- 2det7.97%
- 3är11.28%
- 4du14.24%
- 5att16.4%
- 6inte18.52%
- 7en20.1%
- 8och21.62%
- 9har22.98%
- 10vi24.33%
- 11på25.63%
- 12i26.79%
- 13för27.83%
- 14han28.8%
- 15med29.74%
- 16som30.68%
- 17om31.61%
- 18var32.53%
- 19vad33.43%
- 20mig34.32%
- 21här35.19%
- 22dig36.04%
- 23så36.83%
- 24den37.61%
- 25kan38.36%
- 26till39.09%
- 27de39.76%
- 28men40.35%
- 29ett40.9%
- 30ska41.44%
- 31ni41.99%
- 32av42.5%
- 33hon42.97%
- 34vill43.44%
- 35ja43.88%
- 36vet44.32%
- 37nu44.75%
- 38nej45.16%
- 39bara45.56%
- 40hur45.94%
- 41min46.32%
- 42kommer46.68%
- 43där47.03%
- 44måste47.38%
- 45honom47.73%
- 46gör48.05%
- 47din48.37%
- 48skulle48.68%
- 49när48.98%
- 50då49.27%
- 51kom49.56%
- 52ha49.84%
- 53bra50.11%
- 54får50.38%
- 55man50.64%
- 56vara50.9%
- 57oss51.15%
- 58ut51.4%
- 59ta51.65%
- 60er51.89%
- 61göra52.13%
- 62okej52.36%
- 63eller52.58%
- 64hade52.79%
- 65från53.01%
- 66varför53.23%
- 67dem53.45%
- 68alla53.66%
- 69tror53.86%
- 70sig54.06%
- 71allt54.26%
- 72henne54.46%
- 73upp54.65%
- 74sa54.84%
- 75ingen55.03%
- 76tack55.22%
- 77gå55.41%
- 78in55.59%
- 79igen55.78%
- 80få55.95%
- 81nåt56.12%
- 82se56.29%
- 83går56.46%
- 84mycket56.61%
- 85hej56.77%
- 86vem56.92%
- 87kanske57.07%
- 88lite57.23%
- 89behöver57.38%
- 90ser57.53%
- 91mitt57.68%
- 92aldrig57.82%
- 93finns57.97%
- 94än58.11%
- 95inget58.24%
- 96efter58.38%
- 97blir58.51%
- 98ju58.64%
- 99hans58.77%
- 100sen58.9%
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 Swedish comes from
Proto-Indo-European › Germanic › North Germanic › Swedish
Old Norse, carried by ships.
Swedish, Danish and Norwegian are still close enough to argue about whether they are separate languages.
Words Swedish has that English never built
- lagom LAH-gomNot too much, not too little, exactly enough
- mångata MONG-ah-taThe road the moon lays on the water
- fika FEE-kaCoffee and cake as an institution, not a break
Where the numbers come from
Frequencies counted over the OpenSubtitles 2018 dialogue corpus, 108,649,190 tokens of Swedish 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.