German 1000 most common word vocabulary: 1000 words
The 1000 most common everyday words, ranked by real-world usage — core vocabulary for real conversations (English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese). This page lists 40 of them with their German translations, then lets you practise the full set in either direction with spaced repetition.
English to German: the first 40 words
| English | German | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| like | mögen | To find something pleasurable or agreeable, not to compare. |
| time | Zeit | |
| new | neu | |
| people | Leute | |
| good | gut | |
| first | erste | |
| know | wissen | To be aware of a fact or have information, not to be acquainted with a person. |
| see | sehen | |
| make | machen | |
| think | denken | |
| want | wollen | |
| way | Art | |
| right | richtig | Correct or accurate, not the direction or a legal entitlement. |
| work | Arbeit | |
| year | Jahr | |
| day | Tag | |
| take | nehmen | |
| many | viele | |
| life | Leben | |
| say | sagen | |
| world | Welt | |
| great | groß | |
| last | letzte | Final in sequence or duration, not to endure. |
| best | beste | |
| love | lieben | |
| man | Mann | |
| home | Zuhause | |
| long | lang | |
| look | schauen | To direct your eyes deliberately, not to appear. |
| use | benutzen | |
| come | kommen | |
| part | Teil | |
| state | Zustand | A condition or circumstance, not to say something. |
| three | drei | |
| better | besser | |
| find | finden | |
| help | helfen | |
| high | hoch | |
| little | klein | |
| old | alt |
960 more words in the full “1000 Most Common Words” library, each aligned across seven languages and scheduled for you by spaced repetition. Add it to your account and start drilling English to German in one click.
What to watch out for in German
- 199 of these 1000 words are near-identical in English and German (20%) —
Team,Name,System. Those are free; the value of drilling is in the rest. - Accents count. Answers are graded accent-sensitively, so you need
äöüßÄÖÜ— LinguaSwap shows a one-tap keypad for them while you type. - Capitalisation counts. German nouns are capitalised, and answers in German are graded that way —
hausis notHaus. - 228 words carry a usage note in the full library, for the cases where a direct translation would mislead you.
Practise German 1000 most common word vocabulary
Words come back just before you would forget them, and every language direction is tracked separately.