If a person is faced with the task of mastering a foreign language, he cannot do without learning specific words. GLM (USA) is an organization that keeps records of the English vocabulary and the emergence of new concepts. To date, she has recorded 1 million 19 thousand 729 words. But in order to communicate with English-speaking citizens, it is enough to know about 1.5 thousand. Free reading of texts and newspapers will require learning the 10 thousand most commonly used lexical units and idiomatic expressions. Be sure to start with the common ones. The topic of the article is the 100 most popular English words. So, more details.
How to determine the most used words
N. A. Bonk, from whose textbooks the entire Soviet Union studied, included 1250 nouns, adjectives, verbs and stable expressions, which are often taken as a basis by other sources. There is an approach when the most popular English words are determined by the analysis of literary works in the original language. Up to 700 works are studied, and the list includes not only full-fledged units of speech, but also common articles, verbs, pronouns. Dictionaries of 300, 500, 3000 words are compiled.
Thanks to research from the University of Oxford, the first hundred most used words have been selected. Scientists have analyzed various sources: fiction, periodicals, Internet sites, and specialized magazines. The first twenty-five words are found in a third of all studied works. And all one hundred words - in half of the sources. The most common of all parts of speech are verbs.
List of the most popular English words: verbs
It is from this part of the speech that one should begin the study of the English language, paying attention to the following fact: it is characterized by a strict construction of sentences. Often a word can be both subject and predicate. The translation depends on where it appeared. The subject is always put on the first. So, the most popular English words open verbs:
- be (am, is, are) - can act as an independent verb (to be, to exist), and as a connective in the meaning of "is" in the composition of a nominal predicate; Past Simple uses was, were; in Past Participle - been;
- have (had) - have;
- do (did, done) - do;
- say - to speak;
- get (got) - receive, get;
- make (made) - do;
- can (could) - be able to;
- like - like;
- know (knew, known) - to know;
- take (took, taken) - take;
- see (saw, seen) - to see;
- look - look, look;
- come (came, come) - to come;
- use - use (as the noun has the meaning of "use");
- work - work;
- want - want;
- give (gave, given) - give.
- think (thought) - to think, to think.
For irregular verbs in parentheses are past tense forms (Past Simple), as well as past participles - Past Participle. If they are identical, then indicated once.
Nouns
English words are best taught in a certain context. This is especially true for nouns that are used in several meanings and can be translated in different ways. The task for beginners is facilitated by the fact that the most popular words in the English language have no special difficulties. Which ones are in the top 100 most common?
- Year - year.
- Time - time.
- Person - personality, person, person.
- Way is the way.
- Day - day.
As for speaking, up to 100 nouns are distinguished, without which communication with English-speaking citizens is extremely difficult. Among them: word (word), boy (boy), people (people), man (man), land (earth), woman (woman), girl (girl), name (name), home (house), mother ( mother), country (country), sun (sun), question (question), city (city), life (life), children (children), book (book), family (family), color (color) and others. For convenience, phrasebooks are created, where words are collected on the topics: “At the store”, “At the pharmacy”, “On the street”, “Weather”, “Family”. But today we are talking about the most common words according to the Oxford study.
Prepositions, pronouns and articles
Most often in the English language , certain and indefinite articles are used that do not have an independent translation. In the first place among all such words by frequency of use is the. This is a definite article facing a noun and indicating that we are talking about a specific subject: the letter is not just a letter, but the one we are talking about. The indefinite articles are not translated - a, an. The second is used if the word begins with a vowel. The use of articles indicates that the conversation is about a general concept, and not about a specific thing. For example, a pen (pen), an air (air).
It is impossible to translate phrases and build sentences without knowing the prepositions. These are the most popular English words: to (k), of (of), in (in), for (for), on (on), with (c), at (y), by (when), from (from) , into (in), after (after), as (how), over (above).
One of the most used words is the pronoun "I". In English, it is capitalized - I. For example, I know that ... (I know that). That translates as "that, that, that." Common pronouns include: it (this), he (he), you (you), this (this, this, this), his (him), they (they), her (her), she (she), my ( mine), me (me), who (who), which (which), your (your), him (him), them (their), our (ours), these (these), us (us, us), all (all), we (we).
Adjectives, conjunctions and adverbs
What epithets do English most often use? There are only a few, but they deserve our attention: good (good), any (any), new (new), other (other), first (first). The latter is a numeral, which is in 88th place in terms of frequency of use.
There are not many in the top 100 dialects, but among them: most (most, most), even (even), back (back), well (good), also (also), only (only), now (now) , then (then), some (a little, a few), just (just), when (when), up (up), there (there).
The most popular English words are unions connecting complex sentences. The fifth line in the top 100 is occupied by “and”, in the original language - and. Slightly less commonly used: or (or), so (so, so), how (how, how), because (because).
What else to know
The list will be incomplete if you do not include particles in it: no, not (no), would (would); as well as numerals: two (two), one (one). Oxford scholars analyzed texts, so consensus was not included in the hundred most used words - the word "yes", which is often used in colloquial speech. In English, yes. When starting to learn a foreign language, you need to know that its feature is not only difficulties in pronouncing sounds unusual for Russians, but also difficulties in reading.
The most popular words in English with translation should include transcription - recording sound using phonetic symbols. For reading, it is important to know not only its rules, but also the types of syllable (there are five of them), which significantly affect the pronunciation of letter combinations. However, Google makes the task easier by offering the voice sound of the words searched in the search engine, which allowed us not to use transcription.
For successful language learning you need to pay attention to idiomatic expressions and other stable phrases, which should also be remembered along with simple words. This is especially important for the development of colloquial speech.