{"id":1658,"date":"2019-05-13T14:41:42","date_gmt":"2019-05-13T14:41:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/?p=1658"},"modified":"2024-04-21T13:23:37","modified_gmt":"2024-04-21T13:23:37","slug":"fun-facts-7-1000-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/blog\/2019\/05\/13\/fun-facts-7-1000-words\/","title":{"rendered":"Fun Facts About English #7 &#8211; The Most Common Words"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"http:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" height=\"702\" width=\"702\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/007-1.jpg?resize=702%2C702&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Fun Facts About English 7 Kinney Brothers Publishing\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is some serious food for thought for all English language teachers around the world:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The top ten most-used words, <em>the, be, to, of, and, a, in, that, have, <\/em>and<em> I,<\/em> account for a staggering 25% of the entire corpus of the English language.<\/li><li>The top twenty-five words in the Oxford English Corpus (OEC) make up about <em>one-third<\/em> of all printed material in English.<\/li><li>The one hundred most commonly used words in English comprise about <em>half<\/em> of all written English.<\/li><li><em>90%<\/em> of English text is made up of just 1,000 words.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image is-style-default\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/blog\/2018\/03\/28\/teaching-sight-words-to-esl-students\/sentences5\/\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"702\" height=\"176\" data-attachment-id=\"5107\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/blog\/2018\/03\/28\/teaching-sight-words-to-esl-students\/sentences5\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/SENTENCES5.jpg?fit=900%2C225&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"900,225\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Sight Words: What, When, and How Kinney Brothers Publishing Blog\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/SENTENCES5.jpg?fit=702%2C176&amp;ssl=1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/SENTENCES5.jpg?resize=702%2C176&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Sight Words1\" class=\"wp-image-5107\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/SENTENCES5.jpg?w=900&amp;ssl=1 900w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/SENTENCES5.jpg?resize=300%2C75&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/SENTENCES5.jpg?resize=768%2C192&amp;ssl=1 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 702px) 100vw, 702px\" \/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to a study cited by&nbsp;<a aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Robert_McCrum\" target=\"_blank\">Robert McCrum<\/a>&nbsp;in&nbsp;<em><a aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Story_of_English\" target=\"_blank\">The Story of English<\/a>,<\/em>&nbsp;all of the first one hundred of the most common words in English are of&nbsp;<a aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Anglo-Saxon\" target=\"_blank\">Anglo-Saxon<\/a>&nbsp;origin,&nbsp;except for <em>people<\/em>, from the Latin <em>populus<\/em>, and <em>because<\/em>, in part from the Latin <em>causa<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When it comes to learning English as a foreign language, it goes without saying that memorizing the 1,000 most common words is not going to make you a fluent speaker.  It will, on the other hand, be just enough vocabulary to let you hit the ground running when you&#8217;re immersed in the language.  This also holds true whether you&#8217;re learning, French, German, or Chinese!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sight words make up many of the most commonly used words in the English language.  If you regularly teach sight words in class or you&#8217;re looking for tips for making sight words more engaging, you might be interested in my post, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/blog\/2018\/03\/28\/teaching-sight-words-to-esl-students\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Sight Words: What, When, &amp; How<\/a><\/em>.  To learn more about Old English and the history of the English language, <a href=\"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/blog\/2021\/02\/22\/fun-facts-98-english-history-1\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">click here to read more<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-pale-cyan-blue-background-color has-background wp-block-paragraph\">See the <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/blog\/2019\/05\/13\/fun-facts-about-english-kinney-brothers-publishing-5\/\" target=\"_blank\">previous<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/blog\/2019\/05\/13\/fun-facts-8-tattoo\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">next<\/a> <strong>Fun Facts About English<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.teacherspayteachers.com\/Store\/Donalds-English-Classroom\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/HEADER_GIF.gif?w=702&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Donald's English Classroom\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><strong>I Have Who Has<\/strong><\/em> activities are great for vocabulary review.  Check out all the available sets in <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.teacherspayteachers.com\/Store\/Donalds-English-Classroom\/Category\/-I-Have-Who-Has-Activities-287742\" target=\"_blank\">Donald&#8217;s English Classroom<\/a>.  Download the most popular <em><strong>I Have Who Has<\/strong><\/em> sets in one <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teacherspayteachers.com\/Product\/I-Have-Who-Has-Activity-Set-Bundle-4490509\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">bundle<\/a> for incredible savings!  <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"http:\/\/eepurl.com\/diYAuT\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up<\/a> for our monthly newsletter and download our most popular <strong><em>CVC I have Who Has<\/em><\/strong> activity for free!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>90% of English text consists of just 1,000 words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[94],"tags":[257,20,104,96,11,537,539,1548,806,1650,160,49,232],"class_list":["post-1658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fun-facts-about-english","tag-common-words","tag-donalds-english-classroom","tag-english-language","tag-fun-facts-about-english","tag-kinney-brothers-publishing","tag-language-acquisition","tag-language-evolution","tag-language-immersion","tag-language-learning","tag-language-teaching","tag-old-english","tag-sight-words","tag-vocabulary","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/007-1.jpg?fit=1252%2C1252&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8GlQB-qK","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1658"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11115,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1658\/revisions\/11115"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}