ENGLISH WORD FREQUENCY

"It is difficult to produce a useful report on the frequency of English words, because often there are two different words that have identical appearances (e.g. 'lead' the verb and 'lead' the noun; sometimes 'to' is a preposition and sometimes it's an infinitive verb marker). One of the more useful surveys of a large body of English material is the file ftp://ftp.itri.bton.ac.uk/pub/bnc/all.num.o5.gz which is a survey of the British National Corpus, prepared and made available by the Information Technology Research Institute at the University of Brighton. The material that was surveyed includes millions of words of transcribed conversation, printed text, and lectures and oratory.
"If we look at the 1996 version of this survey and add together items that are closely related - for example, if we consider ' this ' and ' these ' as a single item - we find that the following items are the most frequent, starting with ' the ' which makes up 6.18 percent of English usage:

6.18%

4.23%

2.94%

2.68%

2.46%

1.80%

1.62%

1.37%

1.27%

1.25%

1.17%

0.91%

0.86%

0.86%

0.83%

0.83%

0.70%

0.65%

0.64%

0.62%

0.58%

0.57%

0.55%

0.51%

0.50%

0.47%

0.45%

0.44%

0.41%

0.40%

0.37%

0.37%

0.31%

0.28%

0.25%

0.25%

0.23%

0.23%

0.23%

0.22%

0.22%

0.21%

0.20%

0.20%

0.19%

0.19%

0.18%

0.18%

0.18%

0.17%

the

is, was, be, are, 's (is), were, been, being, 're, 'm, am

of

and

a, an

in, inside (preposition)

to (infinitive verb marker) *

have, has, have, 've, 's (has), had, having, 'd (had)

he, him, his

it, its

I, me, my

to (preposition) *

they, them, their

not, n't, no (interjection)

for

you, your

she, her

with

on

that (conjunction) *

this, these

that (demonstrative),*  those

do, did, does, done, doing

we, us, our

by

at

but (conjunction)

's (possessive)

from

as (many parts of speech)

which

or

will, 'll

said, say, says, saying

would

what

there (existential, in "there is ..." phrases) *

if

can -  be able to ; may

all

who, whose

so (adverb / conjunction)

go, went, gone, goes

more

other, another

one (numeral)

see, saw, seen, seeing

know, knew, known, knows, knowing -  have knowledge of

up

some

 6.18%

10.41

13.35

16.03

18.49

20.29

21.91

23.28

24.55

25.80

26.97

27.88

28.74

29.60

30.43

31.26

31.96

32.61

33.25

33.87

34.45

35.02

35.57

36.08

36.58

37.05

37.50

37.94

38.35

38.75

39.12

39.49

39.80

40.08

40.33

40.58

40.81

41.04

41.27

41.49

41.71

41.92

42.12

42.32

42.51

42.70

42.88

43.06

43.24

43.41

The items listed above make up over 43% of the body of English. Note that all but two words are included in Basic English. This gives why Basic is so clear and able to say things in a way common to those who make use of English everyday.

Note : "to", "that" and other words are separated by senses. If combined as one word, they would rank higher.

A useful list of the 1,000 most common words in the English Language can be found HERE.

Finally, Michael P. West provides in his book "A General Service List of English Words" (Longman, London, 1953) a list of 2,284 useful words. The Longman Defining Vocabulary for intermediate students is based on this list, which makes Longman's books useful for advanced Basic English learners.

application examples Simplish

Separate molecule is smallest electric engine ever

http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nnano.2011.142.html, 2011-09-29 12:00:00 by Nature Nanotechnology ISSN: 1748-3387 EISSN: 1748-3395 Banner image © Ward Lopes, Heinrich Jaeger About NPG Contact NPG RSS web feeds Help Privacy policy Legal notice Accessibility statement Terms Na.

Separate molecule is smallest electric engine ever

For the first time, an electric engine has been made from a single molecule¹. At 1X10e-09 meter long, that makes the organic²compound³the smallest electric engine ever. Its agents putting into existence the idea to put forward their design to Guinness World records, but the small engine could also have good uses, such as pushing liquid (or gas) through narrow pipes in "lab-on-a-chip" apparatus.

Molecules¹ have previously converted energy from light and chemical reactions into directed motion like rolling or moving up and down. Electrics has also set an oxygen molecule¹turning as by chance. But controlled,

application examples Simplish

Red wine's heart condition chemical unlocked at last

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028185.300-red-wines-heart-health-chemical-unlocked-at-last.html, 2011-06-22 17:18:22 by New Scientist.

Red wine's heart condition chemical unlocked at last

Like receiving the heart safe-keeping powers of red wine without having to drink a glass every day? Soon you may be able to, thanks to the putting together of chemicals formed from resveratrol¹, the smallest unit believed to give wine its safe-keeping powers. The chemicals have the possible & unused quality to fight many diseases, including cancer².

Plants make a very great range of chemicals, called polyphenols³,from resveratrol¹to keep safe (out of danger) themselves against ones making attack, particularly Fungi⁴. But they only make very small amounts of each chemical, making it greatly not simple for men of science to put or keep away and make use of them. The changing nature resveratrol¹has also slowed down attempts at

application examples Simplish

No one really uses reason

http://hassers.blogspot.com/2008/08/no-one-really-uses-reason-by-chris.html, 2011-03-23 17:18:22 by New Scientist.

No one really uses reason

Though many may see it as troubling, it is now clear that few of the action-bound processes taking place in our brains ever touch on our being conscious. In other words, we do most of our "thinking" without ever being conscious of it. The simple act of seeing something depends upon what the German expert in physics, medical man and wise man Hermann von Helmholtz called "unconscious things discovered by reasoning". It is these that make able our brain to work out which thing is causing the unworked signs coming from our senses. The same general rule put to use in acting. When we act a simple act, getting up a glass, for example, we are not conscious of the complex decisions our brain has to make about the best way to move our arm and form our fingers.

It is a good

application examples Simplish

Young persons with low self-control

New Scientist, 2011-01-01 17:18:22 by New Scientist.

Young persons with low self-control are less good adults

Children who exist without self-control are more likely to become adults with poor condition of body and control of money.

So say Avshalom Caspi at Duke University in North Carolina, Terrie Moffitt at King's College London and persons having like-position, who followed the forward development of 1000 children born between 1972 and 1973in New Zealand. The group measured self-control by asking the boys and girls, as well as their parents and teachers, about their behavior every two years between the ages of 3and 15,and then at 18, 21, 26 and 32.

Children with higher levels of self-control were more likely to have a higher society & money position and a higher IQ ¹. After adjusting for both points, the group found that adults who had low self-control as children were more likely to be overweight, have substance wrongly use questions, base of teeth disease and through sex let through disease. They

application examples Simplish

First sperm cells grown from nothing

New Scientist, 2011-03-23 10:38:30 by New Scientist.

First sperm cells able to keep living grown from nothing

FOR the first time small rat-like animal sperm¹ able to keep living have been grown outside thetestes². If the way can be done over again and again with mankind sperm¹, it could lead to new ways of giving attention to not-fertile men.

Takuya Sato at Yokohama City University in Japan and persons having like-position in the same organization got from seeds cells from the testes² of fresh after birth small rat-like animals that had not yet begun producing sperm¹. They placed the cells in agarose³soft paste made wet for giving food to chemicals and hormones⁴such as eggs undergoing growth in cow-like serum⁵ and testosterone⁶. The group had first engineered the small rat-like animal so

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3

1 2 3