. For learners, mastering this list is the tipping point where you can often stop using a bilingual dictionary and start understanding definitions directly in English. Popular Sources for the List
| Source | Description | |--------|-------------| | | Based on the 520 million-word Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). Gold standard for American English. | | Oxford English Corpus | British English focus; often packaged with Oxford learner's dictionaries. | | Wiktionary: Frequency Lists | Community-maintained; based on TV and movie subtitles (excellent for spoken English). | | Ngsl (New General Service List) | A modernized, openly licensed 2800-word core list (a great subset to start with). | | Anki Shared Decks | Search for "5000 most frequent English words" – many pre-made, audio-included decks. | 5000 most common english words list
To illustrate the difference, let's look at a real headline from The Economist : Gold standard for American English