In writing the most frequent word is - Word и Excel - помощь в работе с программами

Comparing word frequencies is an interesting way to think about some of the differences between speech and writing. Which are the most frequent words in speech, and how do they compare with the most frequent words in writing?

The Activity page appears in the menu entitled ‘This Unit’ in the upper right corner of this page. The Activity page can be displayed on a projector or smart board. The Activity page presents the ten most frequently used words in speech and in writing. How do we know which words are used most frequently? We use a corpus! These figures are are based on the British National Corpus (BNC), a very large collection of real spoken and written British English. More information on the BNC can be found here.

Ask students the following questions:

What words appear in both lists?
What words appear only in the spoken list, or only in the written list?
What do you notice about the differences between the spoken and written lists?
Can you think of any possible reasons for the differences?

They might have noticed the following points:

The spoken list has the contracted verb form ’s while the written list has the full form of the same verb, is. Contracted verb forms like this are much more frequent in speech than in writing.
The spoken list has the personal pronouns I and you, which are not in the written list. This reflects the personal involvement and interactivity which are typical of spoken dialogue. Speakers often refer to themselves and to the people they are talking to (called interlocutors). Writers do so less often.
Only the written list has the past tense form was. The past tense is used more frequently in writing than in speech, as participants in spoken dialogue tend to talk more about the ‘here’ and ‘now’ than about the past.

We need to remember that these contrasts involve frequency differences rather than hard-and-fast rules. For instance, the past tense is of course not restricted to written English. We can and do use the past tense to discuss past events in spoken interaction too. It’s just that there is a strong tendency to talk more often about the present than the past.

Another point to remember is that not all types of written English work in a similar way, and nor do all types of spoken English. Informal types of written English (like social letters or texts) tend to be more like conversation, while a formal prepared speech tends to be more like writing.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Studies that estimate and rank the most common words in English examine texts written in English. Perhaps the most comprehensive such analysis is one that was conducted against the Oxford English Corpus (OEC), a massive text corpus that is written in the English language.

In total, the texts in the Oxford English Corpus contain more than 2 billion words.^[1] The OEC includes a wide variety of writing samples, such as literary works, novels, academic journals, newspapers, magazines, Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, blogs, chat logs, and emails.^[2]

Another English corpus that has been used to study word frequency is the Brown Corpus, which was compiled by researchers at Brown University in the 1960s. The researchers published their analysis of the Brown Corpus in 1967. Their findings were similar, but not identical, to the findings of the OEC analysis.

According to The Reading Teacher’s Book of Lists, the first 25 words in the OEC make up about one-third of all printed material in English, and the first 100 words make up about half of all written English.^[3] According to a study cited by Robert McCrum in The Story of English, all of the first hundred of the most common words in English are of Old English origin,^[4] except for «people», ultimately from Latin «populus», and «because», in part from Latin «causa».

Some lists of common words distinguish between word forms, while others rank all forms of a word as a single lexeme (the form of the word as it would appear in a dictionary). For example, the lexeme be (as in to be) comprises all its conjugations (is, was, am, are, were, etc.), and contractions of those conjugations.^[5] These top 100 lemmas listed below account for 50% of all the words in the Oxford English Corpus.^[1]

100 most common words

A list of 100 words that occur most frequently in written English is given below, based on an analysis of the Oxford English Corpus (a collection of texts in the English language, comprising over 2 billion words).^[1] A part of speech is provided for most of the words, but part-of-speech categories vary between analyses, and not all possibilities are listed. For example, «I» may be a pronoun or a Roman numeral; «to» may be a preposition or an infinitive marker; «time» may be a noun or a verb. Also, a single spelling can represent more than one root word. For example, «singer» may be a form of either «sing» or «singe». Different corpora may treat such difference differently.

The number of distinct senses that are listed in Wiktionary is shown in the polysemy column. For example, «out» can refer to an escape, a removal from play in baseball, or any of 36 other concepts. On average, each word in the list has 15.38 senses. The sense count does not include the use of terms in phrasal verbs such as «put out» (as in «inconvenienced») and other multiword expressions such as the interjection «get out!», where the word «out» does not have an individual meaning.^[6] As an example, «out» occurs in at least 560 phrasal verbs^[7] and appears in nearly 1700 multiword expressions.^[8]

The table also includes frequencies from other corpora. Note that as well as usage differences, lemmatisation may differ from corpus to corpus – for example splitting the prepositional use of «to» from the use as a particle. Also the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) list includes dispersion as well as frequency to calculate rank.

Word	Parts of speech	OEC rank	COCA rank^[9]	Dolch level	Polysemy
the	Article	1	1	Pre-primer	12
be	Verb	2	2	Primer	21
to	Preposition	3	7, 9	Pre-primer	17
of	Preposition	4	4	Grade 1	12
and	Conjunction	5	3	Pre-primer	16
a	Article	6	5	Pre-primer	20
in	Preposition	7	6, 128, 3038	Pre-primer	23
that	Conjunction et al.	8	12, 27, 903	Primer	17
have	Verb	9	8	Primer	25
I	Pronoun	10	11	Pre-primer	7
it	Pronoun	11	10	Pre-primer	18
for	Preposition	12	13, 2339	Pre-primer	19
not	Adverb et al.	13	28, 2929	Pre-primer	5
on	Preposition	14	17, 155	Primer	43
with	Preposition	15	16	Primer	11
he	Pronoun	16	15	Primer	7
as	Adverb, conjunction, et al.	17	33, 49, 129	Grade 1	17
you	Pronoun	18	14	Pre-primer	9
do	Verb, noun	19	18	Primer	38
at	Preposition	20	22	Primer	14
this	Determiner, adverb, noun	21	20, 4665	Primer	9
but	Preposition, adverb, conjunction	22	23, 1715	Primer	17
his	Possessive pronoun	23	25, 1887	Grade 1	6
by	Preposition	24	30, 1190	Grade 1	19
from	Preposition	25	26	Grade 1	4
they	Pronoun	26	21	Primer	6
we	Pronoun	27	24	Pre-primer	6
say	Verb et al.	28	19	Primer	17
her	Possessive pronoun	29, 106	42	Grade 1	3
she	Pronoun	30	31	Primer	7
or	Conjunction	31	32	Grade 2	11
an	Article	32	(a)	Grade 1	6
will	Verb, noun	33	48, 1506	Primer	16
my	Possessive pronoun	34	44	Pre-primer	5
one	Noun, adjective, et al.	35	51, 104, 839	Pre-primer	24
all	Adjective	36	43, 222	Primer	15
would	Verb	37	41	Grade 2	13
there	Adverb, pronoun, et al.	38	53, 116	Primer	14
their	Possessive pronoun	39	36	Grade 2	2
what	Pronoun, adverb, et al.	40	34	Primer	19
so	Conjunction, adverb, et al.	41	55, 196	Primer	18
up	Adverb, preposition, et al.	42	50, 456	Pre-primer	50
out	Preposition	43	64, 149	Primer	38
if	Conjunction	44	40	Grade 3	9
about	Preposition, adverb, et al.	45	46, 179	Grade 3	18
who	Pronoun, noun	46	38	Primer	5
get	Verb	47	39	Primer	37
which	Pronoun	48	58	Grade 2	7
go	Verb, noun	49	35	Pre-primer	54
me	Pronoun	50	61	Pre-primer	10
when	Adverb	51	57, 136	Grade 1	11
make	Verb, noun	52	45	Grade 2 [as «made»]	48
can	Verb, noun	53	37, 2973	Pre-primer	18
like	Preposition, verb	54	74, 208, 1123, 1684, 2702	Primer	26
time	Noun	55	52	Dolch list of 95 nouns	14
no	Determiner, adverb	56	93, 699, 916, 1111, 4555	Primer	10
just	Adjective	57	66, 1823		14
him	Pronoun	58	68		5
know	Verb, noun	59	47		13
take	Verb, noun	60	63		66
people	Noun	61	62		9
into	Preposition	62	65		10
year	Noun	63	54		7
your	Possessive pronoun	64	69		4
good	Adjective	65	110, 2280		32
some	Determiner, pronoun	66	60		10
could	Verb	67	71		6
them	Pronoun	68	59		3
see	Verb	69	67		25
other	Adjective, pronoun	70	75, 715, 2355		12
than	Conjunction, preposition	71	73, 712		4
then	Adverb	72	77		10
now	Preposition	73	72, 1906		13
look	Verb	74	85, 604		17
only	Adverb	75	101, 329		11
come	Verb	76	70		20
its	Possessive pronoun	77	78		2
over	Preposition	78	124, 182		19
think	Verb	79	56		10
also	Adverb	80	87		2
back	Noun, adverb	81	108, 323, 1877		36
after	Preposition	82	120, 260		14
use	Verb, noun	83	92, 429		17
two	Noun	84	80		6
how	Adverb	85	76		11
our	Possessive pronoun	86	79		3
work	Verb, noun	87	117, 199		28
first	Adjective	88	86, 2064		10
well	Adverb	89	100, 644		30
way	Noun, adverb	90	84, 4090		16
even	Adjective	91	107, 484		23
new	Adjective et al.	92	88		18
want	Verb	93	83		10
because	Conjunction	94	89, 509		7
any	Pronoun	95	109, 4720		4
these	Pronoun	96	82		2
give	Verb	97	98		19
day	Noun	98	90		9
most	Adverb	99	144, 187		12
us	Pronoun	100	113		6

Parts of speech

The following is a very similar list, subdivided by part of speech.^[1] The list labeled «Others» includes pronouns, possessives, articles, modal verbs, adverbs, and conjunctions.

Rank	Nouns	Verbs	Adjectives	Prepositions	Others
1	time	be	good	to	the
2	person	have	new	of	and
3	year	do	first	in	a
4	way	say	last	for	that
5	day	get	long	on	I
6	thing	make	great	with	it
7	man	go	little	at	not
8	world	know	own	by	he
9	life	take	other	from	as
10	hand	see	old	up	you
11	part	come	right	about	this
12	child	think	big	into	but
13	eye	look	high	over	his
14	woman	want	different	after	they
15	place	give	small		her
16	work	use	large		she
17	week	find	next		or
18	case	tell	early		an
19	point	ask	young		will
20	government	work	important		my
21	company	seem	few		one
22	number	feel	public		all
23	group	try	bad		would
24	problem	leave	same		there
25	fact	call	able		their

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d «The Oxford English Corpus: Facts about the language». OxfordDictionaries.com. Oxford University Press. What is the commonest word?. Archived from the original on December 26, 2011. Retrieved June 22, 2011.
^ «The Oxford English Corpus». AskOxford.com. Archived from the original on May 4, 2006. Retrieved June 22, 2006.
^ The First 100 Most Commonly Used English Words Archived 2013-06-16 at the Wayback Machine.
^ Bill Bryson, The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way, Harper Perennial, 2001, page 58
^ Benjamin Zimmer. June 22, 2006. Time after time after time…. Language Log. Retrieved June 22, 2006.
^ Benjamin, Martin (2019). «Polysemy in top 100 Oxford English Corpus words within Wiktionary». Teach You Backwards. Retrieved December 28, 2019.
^ Garcia-Vega, M (2010). «Teasing out the meaning of «out»«. 29th International Conference on Lexis and Grammar.
^ «out — English-French Dictionary». www.wordreference.com. Retrieved November 22, 2022.
^ «Word frequency: based on 450 million word COCA corpus». www.wordfrequency.info. Retrieved April 11, 2018.

External links

Источник

When you hear somebody asking about the most commonly used words (be those nouns or articles) you tend to firstly think it over but then it appears quite a vague issue. How can we know that? Is there a person who analyzes all the literary heritage and our everyday conversations and then counts all English words? Otherwise, it is impossible to tell for sure how often we use this or that word, isn’t it? Actually, it is possible and we shall discuss here what the language corpus is and how interesting it may be.

Let us start with a piece of lexicological statistics. If you haven’t known, according to Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.), the English language possesses:

171,476 words in current use
47,156 obsolete words
9,500 derivatives

Over a half of them are nouns, about a quarter go to adjectives and verbs take about a seventh. The rest is made up of interjections, prepositions, conjunctions, etc. But when we count all compounds (age + less = ageless), inflected forms (like running and runs), blendings (gigantic + enormous = ginormous), clipped words (gymnasium – gym), and slang words, we get 1,025,109.8 words as Global Language Monitor reports. Besides, Shakespeare himself invented over 1,700 words, so you can also try. As you see, you still have a lot to learn. But don’t worry, to speak English fluently and understand others, you need about only 2,000 of them.

7wA8BHP

All those words are found in the collection of “world texts” accessed via the internet containing the authentic spoken and written language that altogether make a corpus. The latter, therefore, is a systematic and computerized collection of the naturally occurred language samples used for linguistic analysis.
The analysis itself deals with the frequency of the phenomenon under investigation and, of course, is performed with special computer software. But okay, how exactly does it work?

Global Language Monitor, which we’ve previously mentioned, is a company that analyzes and tracks language usage trends worldwide. GLM main technology is called Narrative Tracker that is based on global discourse on the Internet, print and electronic global media, blogosphere, and social media sources. It provides real-time picture of the current language situation at any point in time. Although the most popular word appears to be an article “the” and there’s nothing strange about it, we offer you to take a look at the following set of words (from other parts of speech) that are the most frequent at the moment:

All these words are listed in the General Service List and its updated version (New General Service List) that gathers approximately 2,000 of the most “popular” words. Top 5 of them are easy to memorize: the, be, of, a, to. The complete list you may found here.

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Online Spell check, Grammar, and Thesaurus checking

Pen

January 3, 2011

The English language is a living entity that is constantly growing and changing to adapt to modern culture and technology. Despite the increasing size of the lexicon, the most frequent words in English remain largely the same. According to statistics, the 100 most frequent words make up approximately 50% of all written content while the top 25 words comprise 30% of the same content. Among the list of the 100 most frequent words in the English vocabulary are restrictive determiners like definite articles and possessive pronouns as well as prepositions, conjunctions, verbs, helping verbs and a variety of other essential parts of speech.

In the interactive infographic from WordCount™, the articles “a” and “the,” which are always paired with nouns, are listed among the top five most frequent words. Likewise, the numbers one through six, which function as nouns, pronouns and adjectives, are included among the 500 most frequent words. Helping verbs also called auxiliaries, which include have, had, has and will, was, is, were, etc., consistently rank among the among the most frequently used words.

The analysis and study of the constantly growing vocabulary is an art form of its own. Not only is the study of word usage important from a cultural standpoint, character frequency is also an essential element of code breaking. Google, Harvard and the Oxford English Dictionary as well as organizations like the British National Corpus are all involved in compiling a comprehensive representation or corpus of the English language. The Oxford English Corpus includes a scientific sampling of more than one billion words collected from news sources, scientific journals, novels, chatrooms, emails and everyday correspondences that reflect current language trends.

In June, 2009, the English lexicon officially reached 1 million words with more than 1,000 new words added every year. Although research shows 14 new words are created every day, the most frequent English words remain quite static. The newest additions to the dictionary range from sociological terms like viral video, which was coined by journalist Douglas Rushkoff, to obscure entries like the 2003 addition Nipkow disc-nuculoid and humorous blend words like ginormous. Historically, the definition and function of words has also changed over the decades, a phenomenon seen most recently with words like cool and awesome.

Despite regional differences in American vernaculars like soda and pop as well as international differences between American English, British English and Australian variations, the most frequent words in English are extremely consistent. On a larger scale, anyone who has taken a foreign language course will recognize many of the 100 and 500 most common English words as the same vocabulary words stressed in foreign languages courses and textbooks, which shows the prevalence of common words and parts of speech is universal.

Although current vocabulary estimates for college graduates range from 25,000 to more 100,000 words, only 100 words make up roughly half of written English. What buzz words have you noticed popping up in the media or in your own conversations recently?

vocabulary

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The words we’ve compiled here probably look familiar: they are the 100 most frequently written words in the English language. Many of the most frequently used words in English are important, fundamental parts of speech like articles, conjunctions, and prepositions.

If those terms sound like gobbledygook to you, or you haven’t heard them since third grade English class, we understand. So we’re going to give you a rundown of these frequently-used words and break down their parts of speech along the way. As an added bonus, we have some helpful suggestions for more interesting synonyms (or words with similar meanings) that you might want to try instead.

Note: this list doesn’t include multiple forms of the same word. For example, we have only included do, not does, doing, and did. Also, each of these words may have multiple meanings. We have listed them here by their most common part of speech. For example, the word this can be a pronoun, adjective, or adverb, depending on the context, but we have it listed under pronoun because that’s one of its most common uses.

Ready? Let’s go!

Most-used articles

An article denotes whether a noun is specific or unspecific. There are three articles in English, and they are some of the most frequently used words:

Most-used verbs

A verb is a word that describes an action, state, or a relation between two things.

To be or not to be?

The verb to be and its various forms (is, am, were, etc.) is used constantly in writing and speech. It’s an important verb, to be sure (we just used it again), but be mindful of how often it pops up in your writing. Try substituting one of these alternatives:

continue
hold
remain
occur
transpire

Helper (auxiliary) verbs

These overused verbs are used to create verb forms that indicate time or mood and are not usually found on their own.

may
can
will

Action verbs

These frequently used verbs describe movements and actions. And these verbs, like to be, have a tendency to get overused. When you’re writing, instead of repeating these same verbs, mix it up with some of the synonyms we have suggested after each below:

do: accomplish, prepare, resolve, work out
say: suggest, disclose, answer
go: continue, move, lead
get: bring, attain, catch, become
make: create, cause, prepare, invest
know: understand, appreciate, experience, identify
think: contemplate, remember, judge, consider
take: accept, steal, buy, endure
see: detect, comprehend, scan
come: happen, appear, extend, occur
want: choose, prefer, require, wish
look: glance, notice, peer, read
use: accept, apply, handle, work
find: detect, discover, notice, uncover
give: grant, award, issue
tell: confess, explain, inform, reveal

Most-used adverbs

An adverb is a word that modifies verbs, clauses, adjectives, and other adverbs. For example, in the sentence I drove quickly, the word quickly is an adverb modifying the verb drove. The most common adverbs are:

when
now
how
also
not
as
up
here
there
so
very

Instead of these typical adverbs, why not choose some of these more colorful alternatives?

immediately
initially
additionally
nearby
extremely
greatly

Most-used nouns

A noun is a word that describes a person, place, or thing. There are surprisingly few nouns in the top 100 most frequently written words in the English language. However, the nouns we do use most describe things that are fundamental:

time
year
people
day
man
thing
woman
work
child
life
world
way
back

The thing about “thing”…

One of the most common nouns is thing. When you’re writing, you should try to avoid this word as much as possible! Nine times out of 10, thing can be replaced with a more accurate and precise description. For instance, instead of writing “We weren’t able to find the thing,” write, “We weren’t able to find the million-dollar treasure.” It is more clear, interesting, and compelling.

Most-used pronouns

A pronoun is a word that replaces a noun. We use pronouns to avoid repeating the same nouns.

I
you
your
he
she
them
their
her
him
me
my
it
its
our
these
this
that
those
who
what
which

Most-used adjectives

An adjective is a word that modifies, or describes, a noun or pronoun.

Is “good” really good enough?

One of the most frequently used adjectives is good. We think good is, well, not that good of a word. It’s boring! Instead of this common word, try one of these more illustrative synonyms next time:

acceptable
competent
satisfying
efficient
adept
honest
sound

Other frequently used adjectives are not as easily replaced. Makes sense why they are used all the time then, right?

all
just
even
first
many
one
two
some
like
other
more
new
any
down

Most-used conjunctions

A conjunction is a word that links words, phrases, clauses, or sentences. These little words do important work, which helps explain why we rely on them so much.

Here are the most-used conjunctions:

and
or
if
because
but
than

Most-used prepositions

A preposition is a word that links one phrase to a phrase that is modifying or describing, it. Often it is used to describe the spatial or temporal relationships between things: in The book is on the table, the preposition on describes where the book is.

Here are some common prepositions:

of
in
to
for
with
on
by
out
into
about

There are around 150 prepositions or prepositional phrases in the English language. And many of them don’t get much use. Some prepositions you might want to try to spice up your writing are:

atop
astride
notwithstanding
vis-à-vis
pursuant to
based on
by virtue of

When writing, keep this list in mind. Some words you can’t necessarily avoid—like prepositions and conjunctions—but, when it comes to verbs or adjectives, try to think outside of the box and pick words that might not get their time in the spotlight.

It will make your work more interesting to read—and build your vocabulary, too!

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What are the most Frequently Used Words in English?

Based on the evidence of the billion-word Oxford English Corpus, it is possible to identify the hundred commonest English words found in writing around the world. These are listed below.

It is noticeable that many of the most frequently used words are short ones whose main purpose is to join other longer words rather than determine the meaning of a sentence. These are known as

Function Words. It could be said that the more interesting facts about word frequency are to be found a little further down the list and we explore this below.

Interestingly, the analysis reveals that the vast majority of the words we use most frequently are from Old English: the basic elements of nearly any sentence that any of us utters were in place before the Norman Conquest of England in 1066.The Most Frequently Used Words are:

1. The
2. Be
3. To
4. Of
5. And
6. A
7. In
8. That
9. Have
10. I
11. It
12. For
13. Not
14. On
15. With
16. He
17. As
18. You
19. Do
20. At
21. This
22. But
23. His
24. By
25. From
26. They
27. We
28. Say
29. Her
30. She
31. Or
32. An
33. Will
34. My
35. One
36. All
37. Would
38. There
39. Their
40. What
41. So
42. Up
43. Out
44. If
45. About
46. Who
47. Get
48. Which
49. Go
50. Me
51. When
52. Make
53. Can
54. Like
55. Time
56. No
57. Just
58. Him
59. Know
60. Take
61. Person
62. Into
63. Year
64. Your
65. Good
66. Some
67. Could
68. Them
69. See
70. Other
71. Than
72. Then
73. Now
74. Look
75. Only
76. Come
77. Its
78. Over
79. Think
80. Also
81. Back
82. After
83. Use
84. Two
85. How
86. Our
87. Work
88. First
89. Well
90. Way
91. Even
92. New
93. Want
94. Because
95. Any
96. These
97. Give
98. Day
99. Most
100. Us

Nouns:

The commonest nouns are time, person and year followed by way and day (month is 40th). The majority of the top 25 nouns (15) are from Old English and of the remainder most came into medieval English from Old French and before that from Latin. The exception is group (French from Italian) which did not appear until the 17th century.

Notice that many of these words are very common because they have more than one meaning: way and part, for example, are listed in this dictionary as having 18 and 16 different meanings respectively. Another reason for a word’s high position on the list is that it forms part of many common phrases:

For Example: Most of the frequency of time comes from adverbial phrases like on time, in time, last time, next time, this time, etc.

The Most Frequently Used Words ( NOUNS ) are:

1 Time
2 Person
3 Year
4 Way
5 Day
6 Thing
7 Man
8 World
9 Life
10 Hand
11 Part
12 Child
13 Eye
14 Woman
15 Place
16 Work
17 Week
18 Case
19 Point
20 Government
21 Company
22 Number
23 Group
24 Problem
25 Fact

A look at some pairs or groups of words makes interesting reading:

• man is 7th, whereas child is 12th and woman 14th
• the highest-ranking body part, hand, is 10th — eye is the next in 13th place, followed by head at 27
• Work is at number 16 whereas play and rest do not feature in the top 100!
• war is at 49 with no sign of peace
• problem is 24th and there is no solution in sight
• friend is 30th with no enemy or foe
• book is number 41 whereas computer does not feature in the top 100 and is below paper
• Money is surprisingly low at 65 and cash is nowhere to be seen: this low ranking is perhaps explained by the fact that we have so many synonyms for money.

Verbs:

As one would expect, the commonest verbs express basic concepts. Strikingly, the 25 most frequent verbs are all one-syllable words. The first two syllable verbs are

become (26th) and include (27th). Furthermore 20 of these 25 are Old English words and three more get, seem and want entered English from Old Norse in the early medieval period. Only try and use came from Old French. It seems that English prefers terse, ancient words to describe actions or occurrences.

The Most Frequently Used Words ( VERBS ) are:

1 Be
2 Have
3 Do
4 Say
5 Get
6 Make
7 Go
8 Know
9 Take
10 See
11 Come
12 Think
13 Look
14 Want
15 Give
16 Use
17 Find
18 Tell
19 Ask
20 Work
21 Seem
22 Feel
23 Try
24 Leave
25 Call

Adjectives:

Again, most of the top adjectives are one-syllable words and 17 out of 25 are from Old English. Only

different, large and important are from Latin. In terms of the words’ meanings great is higher in the ranking than big probably because of its informal sense very good. Little is surprisingly high at 7 as compared with small at 15. Bad is unexpectedly low at 23: is this because we have such a large choice of synonyms available for expressing bad things?
The Most Frequently Used Words ( ADJECTIVES ) are:

1 Good
2 New
3 First
4 Last
5 Long
6 Great
7 Little
8 Own
9 Other
10 Old
11 Right
12 Big
13 High
14 Different
15 Small
16 Large
17 Next
18 Early
19 Young
20 Important
21 Few
22 Public
23 Bad
24 Same
25 Able

It is noticeable that many of the most frequently used words are short ones whose main purpose is to join other longer words rather than determine the meaning of a sentence. The Oxford English Corpus is a collection of real twenty-first century English and is a major part of the Oxford Language Research Programme. Its research findings are used to write and revise Oxford dictionaries, including the latest revised edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary.

Frequently Used Nouns
Frequently Used Verbs
Frequently Used Adjectives

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•

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Frequently Asked Questions Index

From Frequently Used Words to HOME PAGE

Источник

Word Frequencies

Top Twenty Most Used Words in Written English

^{the of to in and a for was is that on at he with by be it an as his}

Top Twenty Most Used Words in Spoken English

^{the and I to of a you that in it is yes was this but on well he have for}

Two Letter Word Frequency

^{of to in it is be as at so we he by or on do if me my up an go no us am}

Three Letter Word Frequency

^{the and for are but not you all any can had her was one our out day get has

him his how man new now old see two way who boy did its let put say she too use}

Four Letter Word Frequency

^{that with have this will your from they know want been good much some time very

when come here just like long make many more only over such take than them well were}

Word Frequency for the Most Common Words

^{the of and to in a is that be it by are for was as he with on his at which

but from has this will one have not were or all their an i there been many more

so when had may today who would time we about after dollars if my other some

them being its no only over very you into most than they day even made out first

great must these can days every found general her here last new now people

public said since still such through under up war well where while years before

between country debts good him interest large like make our take upon what}

100 Most Frequently Used Words

^{about after all am an and are as at back be because been big but by came

can come could day did do down first for from get go going got had has have he

her here him his I if in into is it just like little look made make me more my

no not now of off on one only or our out over said saw see she so some that the

their them then there they this to two up very was we well went were what when

where which who will with would you your}

50 Most Frequently Used UK Operators

^{come get give go keep let make put seem take be do have say see send may will

about across after against among at before between by down from in off on over

through to under up with as for of till than a the all any every no other some

such that this I he you who and because but or if through while how when where

why again ever far forward hear near now out still there then together well

almost enough even little much not only quite so very tomorrow yesterday north

south east west please yes}

50 Most Frequently Used UK General Things

^{account act addition adjustment advertisement agreement air amount amusement

animal answer apparatus approval argument art attack attempt attention

attraction authority back balance base behavior belief birth bit bite blood blow

body brass bread breath brother building burn burst business butter canvas care

cause chalk chance change cloth coal color comfort committee company comparison

competition condition connection control cook copper copy cork cotton cough

country cover crack credit crime crush cry current curve damage danger daughter

day death debt decision degree design desire destruction detail development

digestion direction discovery discussion disease disgust distance distribution

division doubt drink driving dust earth edge education effect end error event

example exchange existence expansion experience expert fact fall family father

fear feeling fiction field fight fire flame flight flower fold food force form

friend front fruit glass gold government grain grass grip group growth guide

harbor harmony hate hearing heat help history hole hope hour humor ice idea

impulse increase industry ink insect instrument insurance interest invention

iron jelly join journey judge jump kick kiss knowledge land language laugh law

lead learning leather letter level lift light limit linen liquid list look loss

love machine man manager mark market mass meal measure meat meeting memory metal

middle milk mind mine minute mist money month morning mother motion mountain

move music name nation need news night noise note number observation offer oil

operation opinion order organization ornament owner page pain paint paper part

paste payment peace person place plant play pleasure poison point polish porter

position powder power price print process produce profit property prose protest

pull punishment purpose push quality question rain range rate ray reaction

reading reason record regret relation religion representative request respect

rest reward rhythm rice river road roll room rub rule run salt sand scale

science sea seat secretary selection self sense servant sex shade shake shame

shock side sign silk silver sister size sky sleep slip slope smash smell smile

smoke sneeze snow soap society son song sort sound soup space stage start

statement steam steel step stitch stone stop story stretch structure substance

sugar suggestion summer support surprise swim system talk taste tax teaching

tendency test theory thing thought thunder time tin top touch trade transport

trick trouble turn twist unit use value verse vessel view voice walk war wash

waste water wave wax way weather week weight wind wine winter woman wood wool

word work wound writing year}

50 Most Frequently Used UK Picturable Things

^{angle ant apple arch arm army baby bag ball band basin basket bath bed bee bell

berry bird blade board boat bone book boot bottle box boy brain brake branch

brick bridge brush bucket bulb button cake camera card carriage cart cat chain

cheese chest chin church circle clock cloud coat collar comb cord cow cup

curtain cushion dog door drain drawer dress drop ear egg engine eye face farm

feather finger fish flag floor fly foot fork fowl frame garden girl glove goat

gun hair hammer hand hat head heart hook horn horse hospital house island jewel

kettle key knee knife knot leaf leg library line lip lock map match monkey moon

mouth muscle nail neck needle nerve net nose nut office orange oven parcel pen

pencil picture pig pin pipe plane plate plough pocket pot potato prison pump

rail rat receipt ring rod roof root sail school scissors screw seed sheep shelf

ship shirt shoe skin skirt snake sock spade sponge spoon spring square stamp

star station stem stick stocking stomach store street sun table tail thread

throat thumb ticket toe tongue tooth town train tray tree trousers umbrella wall

watch wheel whip whistle window wing wire worm}

50 Most Frequently Used UK Qualities

^{able acid angry automatic beautiful black boiling bright broken brown cheap

chemical chief clean clear common complex conscious cup deep dependent early

elastic electric equal fat fertile first fixed flat free frequent full general

good great grey hanging happy hard healthy high hollow important kind like

living long male married material medical military natural necessary new normal

open parallel past physical political poor possible present private probable

quick quiet ready red regular responsible right round same second separate

serious sharp smooth sticky stiff straight strong sudden sweet tall thick tight

tired true violent waiting warm wet wide wise yellow young}

50 Most Frequently Used UK Opposites

^{awake bad bent bitter blue certain cold complete cruel dark dead dear delicate

different dirty dry false feeble female foolish future green ill last late left

loose loud low mixed narrow old opposite public rough sad safe secret short shut

simple slow small soft solid special strange thin white wrong}

American Heritage Word Frequency Book

^{the of and a to in is you that it he for was on are as with his they at be this

from I have or by one had not but what all were when we there can an your which

their said if do will each about how up out them then she many some so these

would other into has more her two like him see time could no make than first

been its who now people my made over did down only way find use may water long

little very after words called just where most know get through back much before

go good new write out used me man too any day same right look think also around

another came come work three word must because does part even place well such

here take why things help put years different away again off went old number

great tell men say small every found still between name should Mr. home big give

air line set own under read last never us left end along while might next sound

below saw something thought both few those always looked show large often

together asked house don’t world going want school important until 1 form food

keep children feet land side without boy once animals life enough took sometimes

four head above kind began almost live page got earth need far hand high year

mother light parts country father let night following 2 picture being study

second eyes soon times story boys since white days ever paper hard near sentence

better best across during today others however sure means knew it’s try told

young miles sun ways thing whole hear example heard several change answer room

sea against top turned 3 learn point city play toward five using himself usually}

Poetic Annex to Basic English Words

^{angel arrow beast blind bow breast bride brow bud calm child cross crown curse

dawn delight dew dove dream eagle eternal evening evil fair faith fate feast

flock flow fountain fox gentle glad glory God grace grape grief guest hawk

heaven hell hill holy honey honor image ivory joy lamb lark life lion lord

meadow melody mercy noble passion perfume pity pool praise prayer pride priest

purple rapture raven robe rock rose rush search shining shower sorrow soul spear

spirit storm strength sword their tower travel valley veil vine violet virtue

vision wandering wealth weariness weeping wisdom wolf wonder}

Источник

Teaching high frequency words and sight words is a key practice in most early learning classrooms. You might be wondering what’s the difference between the two sets of words, and how to help students learn these words. Keep reading to find out! (If you are looking for ways to practice these words in quick games, read part 2 of the series.)

What’s the difference between high frequency words and sight words?

High frequency words and sight words are often thought to mean the same thing. However, there are some subtle differences between the two terms.

High frequency words are the words that appear most frequently in written text. Some examples of high frequency words include: the, to, have, went. These words are included in popular word lists, such as the Fry and Dolch lists, as well as lists from various textbook companies.

Photo of a list of 44 common high frequency words.

This is part of an extensive word list from This Reading Mama.

Sight words are words that a student can read quickly and automatically, or by sight. As adults, most words we read are sight words. We don’t spend much mental energy solving sight words – we just know them. Sight words don’t fall under any particular list – they can vary from student to student. Early sight words often include the student’s name and names of family members (mom, dad), names of friends and other words that are important to the student. They can also include some high frequency words.

When teaching high frequency words, our goal is to increase the number of words that a student knows by sight. We hope that the most common words (high frequency words) become sight words for our students.

Do kids just have to memorize high frequency words?

A common misperception about high frequency words is that the only way kids can learn to read them is by memorizing them. This is not exactly true. In fact, reading researcher Nell Duke recommends that we teach high frequency words in much the same way we teach decodable words. (Her article is really helpful.)

Some high frequency words are phonetically regular (such as “can,” “in” and “and.”) These words can be solved by “sounding them out” – saying each sound and blending those sounds together. Frequent practice reading these kinds of words (in isolation and within continuous text) helps them become sight words.

Other high frequency words are phonetically irregular. You can’t avoid using words like “the” and “was” until kids are in late 1st or even 2nd grade. They show up often enough that kids need to know them.

When teaching irregular words like these, it is still important to help students look carefully at the letters from left to right as they learn these words. This careful attention helps kids notice the letters and distinguish similar words, such as “is” and “in.”

As students are learning these irregular words, it’s still important to help them pay attention to the letter sounds. For instance, in “you,” the y says /y/ – it’s regular sound. Connecting to something known makes learning new things easier.

Finally, it can be helpful to teach these words in groups, such as “to, do” or “we, he, me, she.” Focusing on the similarities between these words helps students use what they know about one word to read a similar word.

Why teach high frequency words?

For very early readers, high frequency words help students to monitor their reading. At times, beginning readers point to a word, but say something completely different. Teaching high frequency words (even just a few) allows them to “anchor” their reading to the text – when they point to the word “like” they say “like.”

For slightly more advanced readers, increasing sight words improves fluency, particularly reading rate and phrasing. When students know words automatically, they are more likely to read the words quickly and in meaning-based phrases. Reading words automatically can also allow more mental energy to be devoted to expression, the role of punctuation, comprehension, and solving unknown words.

Another reason for teaching high frequency words, is that well-known words can help readers solve new words. If a student knows the word “look” automatically, it can help them read the word “book” by using the “-ook” part of “look.” Developing the ability to use a known word to solve an unfamiliar word helps students to solve words quickly, on-the-run.

What words should I start with?

Initially, you will want to start with words that your students are seeing over and over, in multiple settings. Even though they are not high frequency words, you might start with the names of the students in your class. Names are powerful words for young readers. Your students will be very engaged as you work with their names.

To select actual high frequency words, think about words that appear often in your classroom instruction. If your shared reading books/poems include “I” and “like,” teach those words to your students. Or if your first guided reading books say “We can…” teach those words.

This poem is part of the dramatic play school center – but any shared reading poem will work. In this poem students can practice words such as: up, I, you.

One final consideration… When selecting additional words to focus on, frequently choose words your students “partially know.” This means words that they sometimes know quickly and sometimes have to think about – or they may know it in one book, but not consistently in another. Your students will learn partially known words faster than unknown words (they already know something about that word). That will help them learn these words more rapidly and feel successful. This is especially true for your students who need the most support with reading.

How many words should I focus on at a time?

There is not a magic number of high frequency words to work on at a time. Instead, it’s important to choose a number that doesn’t overwhelm the student. For very beginning readers, you might choose to focus on 2-3 words at a time. As students learn how to learn words, you can increase the number a bit. As with most learning, success breeds success. Choosing a small enough number of words so the child feels successful will lead to accelerated learning down the road.

What are some meaningful ways to practice high frequency words?

Provide meaningful practice when teaching high frequency words. This is best accomplished by practicing the words in continuous text, rather than in isolation. Continuous text can include shared reading, texts created through interactive or shared writing, or books or readers’ theater scripts used for independent or guided reading.

Image of two pages from a Readers' Theater script of the Little Red Hen. The pig, cat, and dog all say "Not I," which helps with teaching high frequency words.

Select readers’ theater scripts that contain a number of basic high frequency words.

It is particularly powerful if students can encounter the same word in multiple texts throughout a day:

If a group of students is learning the word “can,” you might include the word in your morning message.
Select a morning Question of the Day that includes the word “can.”
Later, select a few poems for shared reading that include the word “can.”
Your guided reading book for that group could also include the word “can” on several pages.

Photo of a question in a pocket chart with a heading that says "Question of the Day." The question is "Do you like red?" with room for students to respond under cards that say "yes" and "no." The questions include several high frequency words.

The Question of the Day routine can be a meaningful and engaging way to practice high frequency words in continuous text.

Allowing for repeated, intentional practice helps the word become known in multiple settings – moving from partially known to well known.

How can students practice words in continuous text?

When students practice words in continuous text, it provides meaningful and authentic reading opportunities (how often do YOU read words from a flashcard?) As students are reading, you can support their learning of high frequency words in the following ways:

Invite the class to locate the word in the morning message (with their eyes). Then have one student point to the word in the message. Have the class read the sentence with that word chorally.
As you read a shared reading poem, express amazement that the word has appeared again in this text. Point it out or invite a student (who partially knows the word) to find the word.
Before beginning the guided reading book (or after finishing it), have students turn to a page that contains the word and frame it with their fingers (see photo.)

Photo of a book. Student is "framing" the high frequency word "was" by placing one finger in front of the word, and one finger after the word.

Children can “frame” a high frequency word with their fingers before or after reading the book.

Don’t overdue this work. Simply reading the word within the text helps the child learn the word. Focusing on 2-4 words in a text is enough to allow practice without taking away from the meaning of the text.

Finally, as students are learning new words, remember to help them connect reading and writing as they learn the word.:

As you use the word in interactive writing, invite a student to write that word on the chart for you.
Following guided reading, engage the group in a brief interactive writing experience that includes the word. Alternately, you could dictate a sentence from the book (containing the focus word) for them to write.
During writers’ workshop, nudge students to spell the word correctly, consulting a familiar text to see that they spelled it correctly.

Example of an interactive writing text that says "I can see a lion at the zoo." students wrote the following high frequency words: I, can, see, at, the.

Students can write high frequency words they are learning during an interactive writing session.

These intentional teacher moves will help your students to know the word across multiple contexts.

Are there other ways to practice high frequency words?

High frequency words can also be practiced in isolation – this means by working on the word alone, not within the context of the sentence. You want to use this approach sparingly, because reading is not made up of words in isolation. You run the risk of students knowing a word on a flashcard, but not recognizing it when they see it within a text.

However, it is appropriate to practice words in isolation for a few minutes a day. This can help students focus on the “fine details” of a word – the specific order of the letters in the word, the difference between two similar words, etc. Practicing words in isolation also allows for more intense practice of individual words – you can make sure the child sees the word frequently when words are practiced in isolation. Just remember to pull that word back into continuous text for additional practice.

Photo of a trail game with high frequency words printed in the spaces. The game includes a fall scene in the background.

Part 2 of this blog offers several suggestions for quick and easy ways to practice high frequency words in isolation.

Pin this blog post to refer to these tips later!

Red words on white text say "High Frequency Words: tips for teaching words in meaningful ways." Includes a photo of interactive writing where students wrote the high frequency words from the sentence.

Источник

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100 most common words

Parts of speech

See also

Word lists

References

External links

Online Spell check, Grammar, and Thesaurus checking

Most-used articles

Most-used verbs

To be or not to be?

Helper (auxiliary) verbs

Action verbs

Most-used adverbs

Most-used nouns

The thing about “thing”…

Most-used pronouns

Most-used adjectives

Is “good” really good enough?

Most-used conjunctions

Most-used prepositions

Frequently Asked Questions Index

Word Frequencies

Top Twenty Most Used Words in Written English

Top Twenty Most Used Words in Spoken English

Two Letter Word Frequency

Three Letter Word Frequency

Four Letter Word Frequency

Word Frequency for the Most Common Words

100 Most Frequently Used Words

50 Most Frequently Used UK Operators

50 Most Frequently Used UK General Things

50 Most Frequently Used UK Picturable Things

50 Most Frequently Used UK Qualities

50 Most Frequently Used UK Opposites

American Heritage Word Frequency Book

Poetic Annex to Basic English Words

What’s the difference between high frequency words and sight words?

Do kids just have to memorize high frequency words?

Why teach high frequency words?

What words should I start with?

How many words should I focus on at a time?

What are some meaningful ways to practice high frequency words?

How can students practice words in continuous text?

Are there other ways to practice high frequency words?