Learn Top 100, 500, 1000+
Most Frequent Dutch Words

Research on language understanding shows that learning Dutch efficiently depends on learning the most frequent words first, rather than memorizing long vocabulary lists. In our large-scale study measuring how understanding grows with vocabulary size, we analyzed how much real Dutch learners can comprehend at each stage of learning.

According to the research, learning the top 100 Dutch words gives you about 57% language understanding, the top 500 words around 75%, and the top 1000 words about 81% of real-world Dutch. This page focuses on the first step: the Top 100 most frequent Dutch words, which form the foundation of everyday comprehension.

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Top 100 Most Frequent Dutch Words

Below is a representative list of the Top 100 most frequent Dutch words, ordered by real-world usage frequency.

#	Word	#	Word	#	Word	#	Word
1	de	26	worden	51	kan	76	maken
2	het	27	was	52	ook	77	meer
3	ik	28	aan	53	haar	78	mij
4	je	29	me	54	bij	79	tot
5	een	30	heb	55	jij	80	bende
6	eens	31	mijn	56	komen	81	vinden
7	dat	32	gaan	57	zo	82	ons
8	van	33	weten	58	wel	83	daar
9	en	34	om	59	ja	84	aangaan
10	in	35	doen	60	wil	85	iets
11	niet	36	van de	61	zien	86	houden
12	hebben	37	moeten	62	ik heb	87	kom
13	zijn	38	dit	63	over	88	jullie
14	op	39	naar	64	goed	89	waarom
15	hij	40	been	65	of	90	geven
16	te	41	uit	66	waar	91	willen
17	wat	42	dan	67	nu	92	laat
18	we	43	hem	68	denken	93	dus
19	ze	44	zeggen	69	nee	94	zitten
20	voor	45	kunnen	70	hoe	95	wie
21	met	46	u	71	zullen	96	alles
22	die	47	nog	72	deze	97	alleen
23	maar	48	hier	73	zou	98	jaar
24	er	49	geen	74	ik ben	99	laten
25	als	50	door	75	al	100	jou

What to Do Next

The top 100 words establish the core of Dutch understanding. The largest gains come as learners move to the top 300 and 500 words, where comprehension grows rapidly, and then to 1000+ words, where Dutch becomes comfortable to read and understand in real contexts.

WRD is built on the same research and tracks language understanding precisely as each word is learned, guiding learners from the top 100 Dutch words to higher levels in the most efficient way possible.

With the WRD app, learners progress from the top 100 words to 1000+ words using comprehension-based tracking.

→ Download WRD and start learning today

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