French Frequency Dictionary - Essential Vocabulary: 2500 Most Common French Words (French-English)

This is an excellent resource for creating Anki flash cards, while focusing on the most commonly used words in French.

This is what I've been looking for! I like the layout.

I memorized the first 1000 words and learned some verbs before travelling to Paris and did pretty well conversing with the locals. Only one Parisien gave me the "stupid american" attitude. Now I'm learning the rest.However, word #2367 teaches you the N-word. Come on guys, update your books!

how didn't "juridique" make the list?

Changing my review from 2 stars to one star. I loved the Spanish series and used it to improve my DLPT score, so bought the French series expecting the same level of quality. Well I was wrong. Almost ALL of the sentences are very poor examples of how to use the word, and sometimes don’t even CONTAIN the word. The English translations of the example sentences often don't even make sense in English. Bad translations, bad contexts. Some of them are directly copied and pasted from various websites online. How can one be sure this is even an accurate list?

I would not recommend this reference book for school age children because some of the sentences are vulgarly explicit.

This wouldn't work a your only dictionary but useful for review.Update:After spending more time with this dictionary I've found it extremely helpful. I have French-English dictionaries but find that this is the easiest to use. I don't have to spend time sifting though too much information about a word in tiny writing.The book is divided into 10 sections: 1 for frequency of words used, 8 for words from different parts of speech (Adjectives, Adverbs, Conjunctions, Prepositions, Pronouns, Nouns, Numerals, and Verbs). Finally, the last section lists the words in alphabetical order. So it's easy to dive in and look for the word by type first, or alphabetically, which limits the number of words to sift through.The font is large enough and easy to read. Pronunciation is given with each word using IPA phonetics.I can go to a regular French-English dictionary for more detailed information, but often don't need more than this book.

THANKS

Guys, what went wrong? I love your series. This book seems hastily put together as if you just ran it through software to grab example sentences without checking them. The translations are off. Some of them were just taken from glosbe or other sources on the Internet. In line number 8, you make reference to a Nelson but the French sentence doesn't include that name. Do better! I've worked with your Dutch and Greek books and I'm happy with them. You've let me down with French book 1. Two stars simply because the concept is great and I like your series. Don't sacrifice quality to make a quick buck!

Excellent book for listing frequently used french words. However, unless you are in government or some other bureaucracy the sample sentences are mostly ridiculous. One example of that is the word 'pitié = pity.' The sample sentence is 'Nous implorons pitié pour les civils irakiens, les militaires et leurs families - We pray for compassion towards the Iraqi people and soldiers and their families'What? or Quoi ?

The authors maintain that the list is compiled from researching subtitles, by which I gather they mean those used in film and television. Having worked my way through the alphabetical listing at the back of the book, I realised why the French often complain of the Anglicisation of their language. Of the 2,500 words, approximately 1,400 are identical or almost so to their English equivalents. In effect, then, you will only be introduced to 1,100 entirely variant French words. This in itself is not a problem if it means that accessing the language is made easier. However, when it comes to the example sentences used to demonstrate the usage of words, the compilers have chosen extremely elaborate and sometimes nonsensical sentences. One, for example, which demonstrates the use of 'etre' reads in their English translation as: 'The person addressed needs not be determined as such for the inciting person.' Another uses the translation '...you're too typhlotic to see it.' I had to look it up: 'typhlotic' means blind! What does this tell me? They haven't bothered to have their work reviewed by a native English speaking editor before publication. Also, what about this for an archaically constructed sentence: 'I will betake myself to a mountain that will protect me from the waters.' How useful would that be in learning everyday French? Knowing that this book will be used by relatively novice students, I think the compilers should have developed some more accessible and contemporary example sentences, and to have used as many of the actual words in the 2,500 in their construction. I think they need to work on improving the next editions by bearing in mind these criticisms. Otherwise, the basic concept is a good one.

The book lists the "most common" 2500 words in French. However, they clearly took these from the political pages of newspapers, as there are a lot of words to do with war, military ranks, etc. I can live with that, but the sentences they use to contextualize the word are completely useless. I found myself having to go to a proper dictionary to understand the word. Firstly, they use bizarre sentences, instead of using sentences that use other words from the top 2500. For instance, for "conduire" (to leave/to drive) they use it as "Le SPT passe doc au crible tous les éléments susceptibles de conduire à la torture ou d'autres peines ou traitmeents cruels, inhumains ou dégradants"... now if you're using this to learn French you'll have a huge WTF moment, even AFTER reading the English translation "(The SPT subjects to scrutiny any and all such factors which may conduce to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment")So instead of getting a sense of how common words are used IN COMMON LANGUAGE, they're used in obscure, obfuscated ways in sentences!The other issue I have with this is the English is in US English, not even International English.Really disappointed. Someone grep French Twitter and get the most common words, used in the most common ways, please!