The 1,000 Most Common German Words

Ranked by real-world frequency. Study all of them free with spaced repetition.

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The 1,000 Most Common German Words: the list

Tips for learning German words

• Watch out for the false friend also: in German it means 'so', not English 'also' -- the word you want for that sense is auch. Mixing up these two is a very common slip.
• Modal verbs such as müssen and sollen send the main verb (for example gehen, tun or sehen) to the end of the clause in its infinitive form. Drill modals inside a short sentence rather than on their own so this word order becomes automatic.
• werden does double duty: on its own it means 'become', and it also forms the German future tense and the passive. Learn it early and pay attention to which job it is doing in each sentence you meet.
• waschen is a strong verb, so its stem vowel changes in some forms -- don't assume it behaves like a regular weak verb. Whenever you hit an irregular verb on the list, check its present-tense forms instead of guessing.
• da can mean 'there', but it also works as a subordinating conjunction meaning 'since/because'. Note both uses on your flashcards so context doesn't trip you up later.
• Short, high-frequency adverbs like sehr, jetzt, dann and immerhin don't change form, so they are some of the cheapest vocabulary wins here -- learn them as fixed words and you'll immediately understand more of what you read.