Basic English words

Basic English words are the few hundred high-frequency words that carry most everyday conversation — common people, actions, places, times and simple describing words such as family, eat, house, today and good. They sit at CEFR levels A1–A2, and learning them first lets you understand and be understood in most simple situations.

Around 500–1,000 of the most common words cover the great majority of everyday speech, and the first few hundred do most of the work. You do not need thousands to start — a small, high-frequency core used accurately is far more useful than a long list you half-remember. Master this page, then build upward.

The most common words are short, everyday ones: function words like the, and, is and you, plus high-frequency content words like go, make, time, people and good. This list focuses on the common content words — the ones that carry meaning — each with an example so you can use it, not just recognise it.

Start with the words you will use every day: family and people, everyday verbs (eat, go, help, make), food and home words, times and places, and a handful of describing words (big, good, hot). Those five groups — exactly how this page is organised — let you build simple sentences immediately.

Learn them in context and in small sets. For each word, read the meaning, read the example, then say a sentence of your own aloud. Revise 5–10 words a day and come back to them over several days. Speaking and using the words — not just reading a list — is what fixes them in memory.

Basic everyday vocabulary sits at CEFR A1–A2 — the beginner and elementary levels. A1 covers the simplest words for immediate needs; A2 adds common words for routine, familiar topics. This page is graded to that A1–A2 range so it matches where a beginner actually is.

On Duolingo’s published DET–CEFR alignment, A1–A2 maps to roughly a DET 10–55. That is the starting band, below the level most universities ask for — but it is the base every higher score is built on. Bands follow Duolingo’s published DET–CEFR alignment (A1–A2 ≈ 10–55, B1 ≈ 60–95, B2 ≈ 100–125, C1 ≈ 130–150, C2 ≈ 155–160); the DET does not publish a word list, so these are level-graded, not an official list.

No — and no such list exists to copy. The DET is adaptive and draws from a large, private question bank, so it has no published word list. What it is is CEFR-aligned, so learning solid A1–A2 vocabulary is exactly the right preparation at this level. Treat this as level-graded vocabulary that feeds the test, not an official DET list.

Five to ten, learned properly, is plenty. Learn each with its meaning and an example, then revise the same set over the next few days before adding more. A steady seven words a day is about 200 a month — far more than you would keep from cramming a long list once.

At A1 you can use very simple phrases for immediate needs — greetings, names, basic questions. At A2 you can handle short, routine exchanges on familiar topics like family, shopping and daily routine. The jump is from single words and set phrases to simple, connected sentences.

The most useful beginner verbs are the everyday actions: eat, drink, go, come, make, take, give, help, read, write, want and learn. Learn these with their example sentences and you can already describe most of what you do in a day.

Start with opposites, which are easy to remember in pairs: big/small, good/bad, hot/cold, new/old, fast/slow, plus happy, easy, clean and tired. A few describing words let you say far more about people and things.

Vocabulary first, grammar close behind. With words but no grammar you can still communicate (“water, please”); with grammar but no words you cannot say anything. Learn a core of common words, then the basic grammar — the parts of speech — that puts them together into sentences.

Meet it more than once and use it. Read the meaning and the example, write your own sentence, and try to recall the word from its meaning a day later — the quiz on this page does exactly that. Words learned inside a sentence and then retrieved from memory stick; words read once in a list do not.

Move up to intermediate English words (CEFR B1–B2) once these feel automatic, and widen sideways with the themed vocabulary list. Then put the words to work in a full DET mock to see what you can already do.