The 100 Most Commonly Used Words in English

Listed here, according to the 100-million-word British National Corpus, are the 100 most commonly used words in English. Many of these words are function words: they glue pieces of sentences together into longer syntactic units. Where needed, the part of speech is identified to distinguish different grammatical uses of the same word. 

1. the
2. be
3. of
4. and
5. a
6. in (preposition: "in the old days")
7. to (infinitive marker: "to sing")
8. have
9. it
10. to (preposition: "to the country")
11. for (preposition: "for you")
12. I
13. that (relative pronoun: "the book that I read")
14. you
15. he
16. on (preposition: "on the beach")
17. with (preposition: "with pleasure")
18. do (verb: "I do")
19. at (preposition: "at school")
20. by (preposition: "by midnight")
21. not
22. this (determiner: "this page")
23. but
24. from (preposition: "from home")
25. they
26. his (determiner: "his job")
27. that (determiner: "that song")
28. she
29. or
30. which (determiner: "which book")
31. as (conjunction: "as we agreed")
32. we
33. an
34. say (verb: "say a prayer")
35. will (auxiliary verb: "I will try")
36. would
37. can (auxiliary verb: "I can go")
38. if
39. their
40. go (verb: "go now")
41. what (determiner: "what time")
42. there
43. all (determiner: "all people")
44. get (verb: "get busy")
45. her (determiner: "her job")
46. make (verb: "make money")
47. who
48. as (preposition: "as a child")
49. out (adverb: "go out")
50. up (adverb: "go up")
51. see (verb: "see the sky")
52. know (verb: "know a place")
53. time (time: "a time to laugh")
54. take (verb: "take a break")
55. them
56. some (determiner: "some money")