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

Research on language understanding shows that learning Portuguese efficiently depends on learning the most frequent words first, not on memorizing large vocabulary lists. In our large-scale study measuring how understanding grows with vocabulary size, we analyzed how much real Portuguese learners can comprehend at each learning stage.

According to the research, learning the top 100 Portuguese words gives you nearly 59% language understanding, the top 500 words over 78%, and the top 1000 words about 85% of real-world Portuguese. This page focuses on the very first step: the Top 100 most frequent Portuguese words, which form the core of everyday comprehension.

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Top 100 Most Frequent Portuguese Words

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

#	Word	#	Word	#	Word	#	Word
1	o	26	mas	51	ficar	76	nós
2	de	27	fazer	52	só	77	bom
3	a	28	o que	53	minha	78	isto
4	que	29	dizer	54	agora	79	quero
5	não	30	bem	55	quando	80	sou
6	um	31	saber	56	então	81	quer
7	em	32	mais	57	achar	82	ano
8	e	33	sim	58	querer	83	este
9	eu	34	dar	59	já	84	dia
10	para	35	ela	60	era	85	deixar
11	ir	36	ver	61	ou	86	também
12	você	37	podar	62	tenho	87	precisar
13	se	38	aqui	63	não é	88	todos
14	esta	39	meu	64	dever	89	mim
15	com	40	poder	65	mesmo	90	até
16	estar	41	te	66	há	91	sobre
17	os	42	muito	67	são	92	pensar
18	por	43	tem	68	eles	93	coisa
19	me	44	seu	69	falar	94	tempo
20	ele	45	vamos	70	certo	95	esse
21	isso	46	vai	71	onde	96	sabe
22	as	47	estou	72	quem	97	conseguir
23	ser	48	sua	73	porque	98	não pode
24	ter	49	lá	74	nada	99	assim
25	como	50	tudo	75	senhor	100	vir

What to Do Next

The top 100 words give you a strong foundation in Portuguese. The largest gains come as learners move to the top 300 and 500 words, where understanding grows rapidly, and then to 1000+ words, where Portuguese 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 Portuguese words to higher levels in the most efficient way possible.

Built on frequency-based research, the WRD app focuses on learning the most useful words first.

→ Download WRD and start learning today

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