75 of the Most Common English Words Every Beginner Should Know

When you start your English learning journey, basic words should be your focus. That’s because they give you a foundation to add more skills in the future, and they allow you to communicate in most real-life situations.

It can be tempting to learn interesting and complicated words (who doesn’t like to show off their vocab skills?). But don’t. The most common English words are more useful for most English communication.

In this article, you’ll discover 75 basic English words for beginners, based on data from the Oxford English Corpus. We’ve included 25 nouns, 25 verbs, and 25 adjectives, each with an example sentence.

Note: This article is for beginning learners. If you’ve already made some progress in English, read these articles about cool words, and funny words in English.

What are basic words in English?

Basic words are those that appear most frequently in English. These are what you should focus on as a beginning language learner. If you can master the 1,000 most common words in English, you’ll have a great start. You’ll have access to more learning materials, and you’ll be able to progress more.

One thousand words sounds like a lot, but there are almost 30,000 English words in daily use. If you remember the top 1,000, you can understand around 80% of daily communication. Learning the most common 1,000 words is a suitable goal for beginning English learners. It won’t happen overnight, but you’ll get there.

Before we get into our list of basic words, though, let’s talk about different types of words. We call these ‘parts of speech.’

English parts of speech

There are eight parts of speech in English. As a beginning English learner, learning them will help you understand how to make sentences. The eight parts of speech include the following:

• Nouns
• Verbs
• Adjectives
• Pronouns
• Adverbs
• Prepositions
• Conjunctions
• Interjections

You’ll learn the most common English nouns, verbs and adjectives in this article. Nouns are the names we give to people (for example, ‘Chris’), places (such as ‘Africa’), ideas (such as ‘love’), and things (like ‘TV’). Verbs are words for actions (such as ‘do’), feelings (like ‘hate’), and states (for example, ‘be’). We use adjectives to describe nouns (‘big,’ ‘hot,’ or ‘old,’ for example).

The most common English nouns

All the words on these lists come from analysis of the Oxford English Corpus, a collection of books, magazines, newspapers and websites. By analyzing this collection, experts have discovered the most common English words. Let’s start with a list of the 25 most common nouns.

Note: We haven’t included the word meanings in these lists. If you don’t know the meaning of a word, take a look at the sentence and try to guess the meaning (this is one of the best ways to learn vocabulary). Then, check your guess in a dictionary.

1. Time
Example sentence: I don't have much time to do my hobby at the moment.

2. Person
Example sentence: She’s a very helpful and kind person.

3. Year
Example sentence: Last year, I went on a fantastic vacation to Canada.

4. Way
Example sentence: Can you show me the way to the nearest bus stop?

5. Day
Example sentence: I have a busy day ahead of me, so I can’t meet you for lunch.

6. Thing
Example sentence: There are too many things in this house. It’s getting difficult to move around in here.

7. Man
Example sentence: The man across the street waved at me.

8. World
Example sentence: I want to travel around the world someday.

9. Life
Example sentence: Life is full of ups and downs.

10. Hand
Example sentence: I injured my left hand playing rugby.

11. Part
Example sentence: The car chase was the best part of the movie.

12. Child
Example sentence: As a child, I loved playing in the park.

13. Eye
Example sentence: Close your eyes and make a wish.

14. Woman
Example sentence: The woman at the store was very helpful.

15. Place
Example sentence: Let's meet at the usual place for coffee.

16. Work
Example sentence: I have to go to work early tomorrow because I have an important meeting.

17. Week Example sentence: Do you have time to meet for dinner next week?

18. Case
Example sentence: There wasn’t enough room to fit all my shoes and clothes in my case.

19. Point
Example sentence: That’s a very important point you just made.

20. Government
Example sentence: The government announced several new policies today.

21. Company
Example sentence: I work for a small software company.

22. Number
Example sentence: Can I have your phone number?

23. Group
Example sentence: Our group project is due next week.

24. Problem
Example sentence: I'm having a problem with my computer.

25. Fact
Example sentence: It's a fact that exercise is good for your health.

The most common English verbs

Verbs are the ‘action words’ of the sentence. They also include words to describe feelings and states. Here are the top 25:

1. Be
Example sentence: I am happy to be here with you.

2. Have
Example sentence: I have two brothers and one sister.

3. Do
Example sentence: What do you want to do this weekend?

4. Say
Example sentence: Can you say that again, please?

5. Get
Example sentence: I need to get groceries after work.

6. Make
Example sentence: Let's make dinner together tonight.

7. Go
Example sentence: I'm going to the gym later.

8. Know
Example sentence: Do you know where the nearest post office is?

9. Take
Example sentence: I'll take the bus to the city center.

10. See
Example sentence: I can't see without my glasses.

11. Come
Example sentence: Come here and take a look at this insect.

12. Think
Example sentence: I think it's going to rain tomorrow.

13. Look
Example sentence: Look at that beautiful sunset!

14. Want
Example sentence: I want to learn how to play the guitar.

15. Give
Example sentence: Can you give me a ride to the airport?

16. Use
Example sentence: I use this app to track my expenses.

17. Find
Example sentence: I need to find my keys before I leave.

18. Tell
Example sentence: Please tell me if you need any help.

19. Ask
Example sentence: I wanted to ask you a question about the project.

20. Work
Example sentence: I work from home on Fridays.

21. Seem
Example sentence: You seem tired today. Is everything okay?

22. Feel
Example sentence: I feel great after that workout!

23. Try
Example sentence: I'll try to finish the report by the end of the day.

24. Leave
Example sentence: I’m tired of this party. When do you want to leave?

25. Call
Example sentence: Give me a call when you're free to chat.

The most common English adjectives

Adjectives are used with nouns to describe them in more detail. Here are the 25 most common ones:

1. Good
Example sentence: The food at that restaurant was really good.

2. New
Example sentence: I just bought a new pair of shoes.

3. First
Example sentence: This is my first time visiting New York City.

4. Last
Example sentence: I saw her last week at the conference.

5. Long
Example sentence: The movie was longer than I expected.

6. Great
Example sentence: We had a great time at the beach.

7. Little
Example sentence: I just need a little more time to finish this task.

8. Own
Example sentence: I prefer to make my own decisions.

9. Other
Example sentence: Let's explore other options before making a final choice.

10. Old
Example sentence: My grandparents live in an old farmhouse.

11. Right
Example sentence: Take a right turn at the next intersection.

12. Big
Example sentence: That's a big dog you have there!

13. High
Example sentence: The prices at that store are too high for my budget.

14. Different
Example sentence: I'm looking for something different to do this weekend.

15. Small
Example sentence: I prefer living in a small town rather than a big city.

16. Large
Example sentence: Our family has six people, so we need a large dinner table.

17. Next
Example sentence: The next train leaves in 15 minutes.

18. Early
Example sentence: I have an early morning tomorrow – I need to wake up at five.

19. Young
Example sentence: My niece is very young.

20. Important
Example sentence: It's important to exercise and be healthy.

21. Few
Example sentence: Only a few tickets remain for tonight's show.

22. Public
Example sentence: There is a public park near my home.

23. Bad
Example sentence: I had a bad headache yesterday.

24. Same
Example sentence: We both ordered the same dish at the restaurant.

25. Able
Example sentence: I'm so glad I was able to help you with your project.

The best way to learn English vocabulary

These 75 basic words are a great place to start for beginning English learners. If you learn them all, you’ll have a good foundation to grow your skills.

Learning vocabulary takes a lot of time and practice so be patient. Try methods like spaced repetition to help you memorize words. Practice using the words you learn in real communication, and before long, you’ll master these basic English words and be ready for more!