Learning vocabulary can be a challenge. How do you choose what to learn? If you need words for work or school, search for business or academic word lists. (I’ve covered them before.) But what if you want to learn general words, ones you can use in a variety of conversations?

This is a list of the 1000 most common words in English. By learning these words, you will be able to speak and write with many people about many topics.

Perhaps you’d like some definitions? Here’s a link to a similar list that includes meanings.

Here’s a cartoon where a spaceship and some of its technical parts are described using only the 1000 most common words. The cartoon can be seen in its original site here. The artist also drew a cartoon showing numbers, which I quite like.