The 5,000 most common Tamil 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 Tamil and you follow 40.8% of everyday speech. The first 1000 take you to 69.2%. After that every thousand words buys less than the thousand before it, which is exactly why the order matters.
| Words known | Speech followed | |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | 16.2% | |
| 50 | 32.8% | |
| 100 | 40.8% | |
| 250 | 52.1% | |
| 500 | 60.7% | |
| 1,000 | 69.2% | |
| 2,000 | 77.5% | |
| 3,000 | 82.1% | |
| 5,000 | 87.4% | |
| 8,000 | 91.9% | |
| 10,000 | 93.5% | |
| 15,000 | 97.0% |
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 Tamil
In order. The percentage is the share of ordinary speech you cover once you know that word and every word above it.
- 1நான்4.01%
- 2நீங்கள்6.68%
- 3ஒரு8.74%
- 4இல்லை10.11%
- 5என்ன11.33%
- 6என்று12.49%
- 7வேண்டும்13.63%
- 8இந்த14.55%
- 9நாம்15.39%
- 10சரி16.21%
- 11என்17.03%
- 12அது17.84%
- 13நீ18.62%
- 14அவர்19.35%
- 15உங்கள்20.03%
- 16இது20.69%
- 17எனக்கு21.32%
- 18மற்றும்21.93%
- 19உள்ளது22.5%
- 20அதை23.06%
- 21என்னை23.62%
- 22தான்24.17%
- 23அவர்கள்24.7%
- 24ஆனால்25.2%
- 25அந்த25.65%
- 26செய்ய26.09%
- 27இங்கே26.5%
- 28ஆமாம்26.9%
- 29முடியும்27.27%
- 30நாங்கள்27.61%
- 31இப்போது27.95%
- 32பற்றி28.28%
- 33தெரியும்28.61%
- 34முடியாது28.9%
- 35ஓ29.19%
- 36இருந்தது29.47%
- 37எப்படி29.74%
- 38சில30.01%
- 39இருக்க30.26%
- 40ஏன்30.51%
- 41அனைத்து30.76%
- 42இருக்கும்31.01%
- 43நல்ல31.25%
- 44அவரை31.49%
- 45வெளியே31.72%
- 46இருக்கிறது31.95%
- 47அவள்32.17%
- 48மிகவும்32.39%
- 49செய்து32.6%
- 50இருந்து32.82%
- 51பார்க்க33.03%
- 52மீண்டும்33.25%
- 53அங்கு33.46%
- 54இன்னும்33.66%
- 55உங்களுக்கு33.87%
- 56நன்றி34.07%
- 57வேண்டாம்34.26%
- 58என்றால்34.45%
- 59வேலை34.63%
- 60யார்34.82%
- 61கிடைத்தது35.01%
- 62உனக்கு35.19%
- 63நேரம்35.37%
- 64அல்லது35.55%
- 65போகிறேன்35.73%
- 66போது35.91%
- 67எந்த36.08%
- 68விட்டு36.26%
- 69எனவே36.43%
- 70ஏய்36.59%
- 71எங்கே36.76%
- 72வரை36.93%
- 73நன்றாக37.09%
- 74இருக்கிறேன்37.25%
- 75அவரது37.42%
- 76எடுத்து37.57%
- 77பெற37.72%
- 78உன்னை37.87%
- 79கீழே38.02%
- 80கிடைக்கும்38.17%
- 81சொல்ல38.31%
- 82தெரியாது38.46%
- 83உள்ளன38.6%
- 84மனிதன்38.74%
- 85ஆம்38.88%
- 86போ39.02%
- 87இரண்டு39.16%
- 88மீது39.3%
- 89இங்கு39.43%
- 90மக்கள்39.56%
- 91ஏதாவது39.7%
- 92எங்கள்39.83%
- 93வா.39.96%
- 94நினைக்கிறேன்40.09%
- 95இல்ல40.21%
- 96உன்40.34%
- 97கூட40.46%
- 98போன்ற40.58%
- 99உண்மையில்40.7%
- 100வா40.82%
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 Tamil comes from
Dravidian › Tamil
Older in India than the Indo-European languages that arrived later and took the north.
Where the numbers come from
Frequencies counted over the OpenSubtitles 2018 dialogue corpus, 144,058 tokens of Tamil 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.