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English words 301–800: the “Getting by” band

The 300 most frequent English words are the skeleton of the language — articles, prepositions, basic verbs. The next 500 words, ranked 301–800 by frequency, are where sentences start to carry real meaning. This is Beeblio's Getting by band, and it covers the everyday vocabulary you need to follow a conversation, understand a news headline, or navigate an unfamiliar city: words like road, money, speak, enough, and happen.

Together, the first 800 words account for a substantial share of the words you will encounter in ordinary written and spoken English. Knowing them means that most short, practical texts — instructions, simple articles, everyday messages — stop feeling like guesswork.

On Beeblio, texts pinned to this band are colour-coded so that words beyond rank 800 are highlighted, keeping your attention on the gaps rather than what you already control. Work through enough of these texts and the Getting by band will feel like solid ground, ready for the 800–1,500 step above it.

500 English words ranked 301–800 by frequency — the “Getting by” band. A learner who knows them can read texts pinned to this band with about 95% of the words already familiar.

  1. yes
  2. actually
  3. american
  4. later
  5. less
  6. line
  7. order
  8. party
  9. run
  10. says
  11. service
  12. 8
  13. country
  14. open
  15. season
  16. shit
  17. thank
  18. children
  19. everyone
  20. general
  21. they're
  22. trying
  23. united
  24. using
  25. area
  26. black
  27. d
  28. following
  29. law
  30. makes
  31. together
  32. war
  33. whole
  34. car
  35. face
  36. five
  37. kind
  38. maybe
  39. per
  40. president
  41. story
  42. working
  43. course
  44. games
  45. health
  46. hope
  47. important
  48. least
  49. means
  50. news
  51. within
  52. able
  53. book
  54. early
  55. friends
  56. i'll
  57. information
  58. local
  59. oh
  60. post
  61. t
  62. thanks
  63. video
  64. young
  65. ago
  66. others
  67. social
  68. talk
  69. 9
  70. court
  71. fact
  72. given
  73. guys
  74. half
  75. hand
  76. isn't
  77. level
  78. mind
  79. often
  80. single
  81. become
  82. body
  83. coming
  84. control
  85. death
  86. food
  87. guy
  88. hours
  89. office
  90. pay
  91. problem
  92. south
  93. true
  94. we're
  95. almost
  96. fuck
  97. history
  98. known
  99. large
  100. lost
  101. m
  102. research
  103. room
  104. several
  105. started
  106. taking
  107. university
  108. win
  109. wrong
  110. along
  111. anyone
  112. else
  113. girl
  114. john
  115. matter
  116. pretty
  117. remember
  118. air
  119. bit
  120. friend
  121. hit
  122. needs
  123. nice
  124. playing
  125. probably
  126. saying
  127. understand
  128. yeah
  129. york
  130. class
  131. close
  132. comes
  133. i'd
  134. idea
  135. international
  136. looks
  137. past
  138. possible
  139. wanted
  140. b
  141. cause
  142. due
  143. happy
  144. human
  145. members
  146. months
  147. move
  148. question
  149. r
  150. series
  151. wait
  152. woman
  153. ask
  154. community
  155. data
  156. late
  157. leave
  158. north
  159. saw
  160. special
  161. watch
  162. won't
  163. c
  164. either
  165. fucking
  166. future
  167. light
  168. low
  169. million
  170. morning
  171. police
  172. short
  173. stay
  174. taken
  175. age
  176. buy
  177. deal
  178. rather
  179. reason
  180. red
  181. report
  182. soon
  183. third
  184. turn
  185. whether
  186. among
  187. check
  188. development
  189. form
  190. further
  191. heart
  192. minutes
  193. myself
  194. services
  195. u.s
  196. yourself
  197. act
  198. although
  199. asked
  200. child
  201. fire
  202. fun
  203. living
  204. major
  205. media
  206. phone
  207. players
  208. art
  209. behind
  210. building
  211. easy
  212. gonna
  213. market
  214. near
  215. non
  216. plan
  217. political
  218. quite
  219. six
  220. talking
  221. west
  222. works
  223. according
  224. available
  225. e
  226. education
  227. final
  228. former
  229. front
  230. kids
  231. list
  232. ready
  233. sometimes
  234. son
  235. street
  236. wasn't
  237. bring
  238. college
  239. current
  240. example
  241. experience
  242. heard
  243. london
  244. meet
  245. program
  246. type
  247. baby
  248. chance
  249. father
  250. march
  251. process
  252. she's
  253. song
  254. study
  255. word
  256. across
  257. action
  258. clear
  259. gave
  260. gets
  261. himself
  262. month
  263. outside
  264. self
  265. students
  266. words
  267. board
  268. cost
  269. cut
  270. dr
  271. field
  272. held
  273. instead
  274. main
  275. moment
  276. mother
  277. road
  278. seems
  279. thinking
  280. town
  281. wants
  282. de
  283. department
  284. energy
  285. fight
  286. fine
  287. force
  288. hear
  289. issue
  290. played
  291. points
  292. price
  293. re
  294. rest
  295. results
  296. running
  297. shows
  298. space
  299. summer
  300. term
  301. wife
  302. 0
  303. america
  304. beautiful
  305. date
  306. goes
  307. killed
  308. land
  309. miss
  310. project
  311. sex
  312. shot
  313. site
  314. strong
  315. you'll
  316. account
  317. co
  318. especially
  319. eyes
  320. include
  321. june
  322. parents
  323. period
  324. position
  325. record
  326. similar
  327. total
  328. w
  329. above
  330. club
  331. common
  332. died
  333. film
  334. happened
  335. knew
  336. lead
  337. likely
  338. military
  339. perfect
  340. personal
  341. security
  342. share
  343. st
  344. tv
  345. what's
  346. won
  347. x
  348. april
  349. center
  350. county
  351. couple
  352. dead
  353. english
  354. happen
  355. hold
  356. industry
  357. inside
  358. issues
  359. online
  360. player
  361. private
  362. problems
  363. return
  364. rights
  365. sense
  366. star
  367. test
  368. view
  369. weeks
  370. break
  371. british
  372. companies
  373. event
  374. higher
  375. hour
  376. l
  377. member
  378. middle
  379. needed
  380. present
  381. result
  382. sorry
  383. takes
  384. training
  385. wish
  386. wouldn't
  387. answer
  388. boy
  389. design
  390. finally
  391. girls
  392. gold
  393. gone
  394. guess
  395. interest
  396. july
  397. king
  398. learn
  399. policy
  400. society
  401. added
  402. al
  403. alone
  404. average
  405. bank
  406. brought
  407. certain
  408. church
  409. east
  410. hands
  411. hot
  412. let's
  413. longer
  414. medical
  415. movie
  416. original
  417. park
  418. performance
  419. press
  420. received
  421. role
  422. sent
  423. themselves
  424. tried
  425. worked
  426. worth
  427. areas
  428. became
  429. bill
  430. books
  431. cool
  432. director
  433. exactly
  434. giving
  435. ground
  436. meeting
  437. n
  438. provide
  439. questions
  440. relationship
  441. september
  442. sound
  443. source
  444. usually
  445. value
  446. evidence
  447. follow
  448. lives
  449. official
  450. ok
  451. production
  452. rate
  453. reading
  454. round
  455. save
  456. stand
  457. stuff
  458. tax
  459. whatever
  460. amount
  461. blue
  462. countries
  463. david
  464. drive
  465. eat
  466. fall
  467. fast
  468. federal
  469. feeling
  470. felt
  471. green
  472. league
  473. management
  474. match
  475. model
  476. p
  477. picture
  478. size
  479. step
  480. trust
  481. you've
  482. central
  483. changes
  484. england
  485. forward
  486. groups
  487. hey
  488. key
  489. mom
  490. o
  491. page
  492. paid
  493. range
  494. review
  495. science
  496. trade
  497. uk
  498. upon
  499. various
  500. attention

Other bands

First words (300) · Everyday (1,500) · Confident (3,000) · Fluent reader (5,000) · Advanced (8,000) · Near-native (12,000)

Read at this level

Graded English readings for the Getting by band — every text stays inside these words plus a few new ones.

Questions

What kinds of texts are pinned to the Getting by band?

Beeblio selects short, practical texts — think simple news items, travel tips, product descriptions, and everyday dialogues — where words ranked 301–800 do most of the work. The goal is that you can follow the main idea even when a few highlighted words are unfamiliar.

How are the word ranks calculated?

Ranks come from the wordfreq corpus, a large, balanced collection of real-world English text spanning books, websites, and subtitles. A word ranked 500, for example, appears more often across that corpus than a word ranked 700, giving you a reliable guide to what is worth learning first.

Should I fully master this band before moving to the next one?

You don't need 100% mastery before reading texts that include words from the 800–1,500 band — in fact, encountering slightly harder words in context is exactly how comprehensible input works. Use the colour coding to notice which words are just outside your current band and let repeated exposure do the teaching.

Read this at your level → start Beeblio free