English students often ask us what’s the #1 English learning hack as a beginner?

We always answer: learn the most common English words. Better yet, learn the first 100 as soon as you can.

The reason why you want to focus on the most common English words is because we rarely use all the words we have in our toolbelt. Think about how you speak your native language. You’ll find that you can have a great conversation in most situations by using only 20% of the vocabulary you already know.

I mean, when’s the last time you used to words ‘microchip’ or ‘tricycles’ in your conversation? If you did happen to use it, how long do you think it’ll be until you use it again? On the other hand, you’ll likely be using words like: ‘yes’, ‘as’, ‘what’, or ‘how’ in nearly every conversation you have with someone.

This is the simple language hack that will help you save months of time. Instead of focusing on the uncommon words that you’ll rarely use, just focus on the most common English words.

1,000 Most Common English words = 88% of comprehension

Studies show that…

Studying the first 1000 most frequently used words in the language will familiarize you with 76.0% of all vocabulary in non-fiction literature, 79.6% of all vocabulary in fiction literature, and 87.8% of vocabulary in oral speech.

Studying the 2000 most frequently used words will familiarize you with 84% of vocabulary in non-fiction, 86.1% of vocabulary in fictional literature, and 92.7% of vocabulary in oral speech.

And studying the 3000 most frequently used words will familiarize you with 88.2% of vocabulary in non-fiction, 89.6% of  vocabulary in fiction, and 94.0% of vocabulary in oral speech.

100 Most Common English Words

To save you time, we’ve curated the 100 most common English words that you can write down, copy and paste, or print out for reference. If you’re interested in finding out the other 900 list of the most common Englishwords, here they are:

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