Indonesian words 1–300: the “First words” band
The 300 most frequent words in Indonesian are the skeleton of the language. Words like yang (which/that), dan (and), di (at/in), ini (this), and tidak (not) appear so relentlessly that you will meet them on almost every line of any text you ever read. Beeblio ranks these words using the wordfreq corpus, so the order reflects real-world Indonesian — news articles, blogs, subtitles — not a textbook writer's guess.
Knowing this band of 300 words does not yet make reading comfortable, but it removes the words that would otherwise interrupt you every few seconds. When Beeblio colour-codes a text to the "First words" band, everything in this top-300 group is shown as known, and you can see immediately how much of a given article or story still needs attention.
Use this page to browse the full list, check a word's rank, and find example sentences. Once these 300 words feel automatic, the next band — up to 800 words — opens up noticeably more text with a much smaller learning effort.
300 Indonesian words ranked 1–300 by frequency — the “First words” band. A learner who knows them can read texts pinned to this band with about 95% of the words already familiar.
- yang
- dan
- di
- ini
- dari
- untuk
- dengan
- itu
- bisa
- aku
- ada
- tidak
- akan
- adalah
- dalam
- pada
- kita
- orang
- ke
- juga
- anda
- dia
- saya
- ya
- kamu
- lebih
- apa
- sudah
- mereka
- tapi
- karena
- atau
- menjadi
- tak
- baik
- jadi
- harus
- satu
- lagi
- seperti
- oleh
- banyak
- jika
- hanya
- kami
- saat
- tahun
- jangan
- sebagai
- hari
- telah
- semua
- dapat
- hal
- anak
- bahwa
- bukan
- indonesia
- saja
- sangat
- masih
- memiliki
- pernah
- mau
- lain
- sekarang
- baru
- sama
- seorang
- tersebut
- kalau
- beberapa
- besar
- salah
- sendiri
- ingin
- sebuah
- ia
- setelah
- waktu
- 1
- 2
- sampai
- tempat
- membuat
- punya
- mungkin
- hidup
- melakukan
- siapa
- belum
- kali
- kau
- tentang
- atas
- dua
- dunia
- secara
- 3
- ketika
- bahasa
- cara
- para
- rumah
- selalu
- lalu
- benar
- kota
- diri
- bagian
- kembali
- pasti
- selama
- pertama
- bersama
- nama
- setiap
- tanpa
- terjadi
- kepada
- mulai
- paling
- tetap
- masa
- tahu
- lama
- perlu
- berada
- cukup
- kan
- kasih
- kata
- kemudian
- luar
- mana
- masalah
- bulan
- malam
- masuk
- melihat
- namun
- wanita
- memang
- sedang
- sekali
- tetapi
- hati
- hingga
- makan
- merupakan
- nya
- pun
- air
- kalian
- seseorang
- suka
- teman
- jalan
- kecil
- kenapa
- terus
- tuhan
- yg
- 5
- jam
- sebelum
- terlalu
- cepat
- jakarta
- negara
- pemain
- bagi
- inggris
- selamat
- sering
- yaitu
- agar
- d
- lainnya
- manusia
- menggunakan
- tanggal
- tinggi
- 4
- bahkan
- begitu
- dulu
- terbaik
- biasa
- mendapatkan
- bagaimana
- datang
- ibu
- merasa
- rasa
- uang
- depan
- ku
- maka
- suatu
- biasanya
- pria
- sekitar
- sekolah
- terima
- akhirnya
- antara
- kedua
- sakit
- serta
- bawah
- jauh
- mata
- the
- tiga
- tim
- a
- apakah
- buat
- kerja
- lihat
- sayang
- seluruh
- sesuatu
- tidur
- allah
- dimana
- disini
- keluarga
- mencari
- mudah
- sejak
- siap
- bagus
- lakukan
- melalui
- penting
- pergi
- perusahaan
- percaya
- bekerja
- bola
- langsung
- mobil
- tentu
- tinggal
- kepala
- mengatakan
- sebelumnya
- sehingga
- digunakan
- terhadap
- berhasil
- laki
- masyarakat
- memberikan
- menurut
- pemerintah
- selain
- si
- sistem
- buku
- cinta
- apapun
- berbagai
- bermain
- dekat
- dilakukan
- i
- maaf
- sedikit
- bilang
- hasil
- pagi
- situs
- takut
- tangan
- tengah
- belajar
- berarti
- daerah
- ikut
- membantu
- nanti
- sebenarnya
- segera
- sini
- tepat
- terlihat
- akhir
- awal
- butuh
- kuat
- lagu
- pesawat
- 6
- 7
- cuma
- kelas
- menemukan
Other bands
Getting by (800) · Everyday (1,500) · Confident (3,000) · Fluent reader (5,000) · Advanced (8,000) · Near-native (12,000)
Read at this level
Graded Indonesian readings for the First words band — every text stays inside these words plus a few new ones.
Questions
How much of an Indonesian text will I understand if I only know these 300 words?
Coverage depends on the text, but the most frequent words of any language punch well above their weight — the top 300 alone typically account for a large share of the running words in everyday writing. That said, you will still hit many unknowns; the real comfort zone begins closer to the 1,500-word mark, which covers roughly 80% of everyday text.
Are these the same 300 words I'd find in an Indonesian phrasebook or beginner course?
Mostly, but not perfectly. Phrasebooks are curated for tourism or social situations, so they include words like 'hotel' or 'menu' that are not especially frequent in general Indonesian text. Beeblio's list is ranked purely by corpus frequency, so you'll also find grammatical glue words — particles, conjunctions, and pronouns — that courses sometimes underemphasise but that appear constantly in real reading.
How do I use Beeblio to practise words in this band?
Paste or open any Indonesian text in Beeblio and set your known-words level to the 300-word band. Words inside this band are highlighted as familiar, while everything above rank 300 is colour-coded by its own frequency band, showing you exactly what to focus on next. Reading short news snippets or simple blog posts with this view is one of the fastest ways to make the First words feel truly automatic.