The 32 most common Korean verbs

These are the 32 verbs among the 500 most common Korean words, in the order a corpus of everyday writing says you will meet them.

Meanings are given in English on this page. In the app they appear in your own language, translated on your device.

#WordTypeMeaning
11하다Verbsto do
29되다Verbsto become
54알다Verbsto know
77걸다Verbsto hang, to suspend
80만들다Verbsto make
125지다Verbsto fall; to sink; to set; to go down
136서다Verbsto stand
175따르다Verbsto follow
186대하다Verbsto pertain or relate to a topic
187보이다Verbsto be seen
199보내다Verbsto send, to dispatch
207만나다Verbsto meet; to see (someone)
228통하다Verbsto pass through, from one end to the other
235들다Verbsto come in, go in, get in, enter
237늘다Verbsto increase
249위하다Verbsto help, to serve, to benefit; to honour, to esteem
252기다Verbsto crawl, to creep, to grovel
263까다Verbsto peel
267돼Verbsinfinitive of 되다 (doeda)
279나오다Verbsto come out, come forth
307시키다Verbsto cause to do or happen
324들어가다Verbsto go into; to enter
377일어나다Verbsto arise, get up; to wake up
391가지다Verbsto have, to possess
435준Verbsgiven: Past determiner form of 주다 (juda, “to give”)
438쓰다Verbsto wear, to put on
452알리다Verbsto inform, to announce, to make known
473관하다Verbsto be in relation to, with regard to
474베다Verbsto cut, to chop
475오다Verbsto come (to move towards the speaker)
476멀다Verbsto go blind
500바라다Verbsto wish, to want, to desire, to hope for, to long for

All 500 A1 words are on this page, free, with no sign-up.

The rest of the list

  • A2A2 Beginner: 500 more words-느 · 공격 · 그런데 · 급 · 모델
  • B1B1 Intermediate: 750 more words차례 · 처 · 출연 · 포기 · 경
  • B2B2 Upper intermediate: 750 more words서버 · 성우 · 신용 · 실력 · 웃음

A2 to B2 are part of Oqou Pro, in the app, where you can also send any word straight into spaced review and meet it again on the day you are about to forget it.

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Where this comes from

The order is measured: it comes from how often each word appears in a large corpus, counted across all the forms of a word rather than each form separately, so a verb is ranked where you really meet it. The band edges are a convention rather than a measurement. Nothing says word 501 is harder than word 500; the levels are cut where established graded reader series cut theirs.

wordfreq 3.1 (frequency order) + en.wiktionary via kaikki.org (part of speech, gender, gloss). Corpus read on 2026-09-16.

Questions

Where does the order come from?

From how often each word appears in a large corpus of everyday writing. Frequency is counted across all the forms of a word and attributed to the dictionary form, so a verb is ranked where a reader really meets it rather than being spread thinly over a dozen endings.

Why are these lists shorter than the ones with 5,000 or 10,000 words?

Because past about 2,500 a frequency rank stops meaning much. Rank 6,000 in a web corpus is not a harder word, it is a word that happens to be common in journalism. Established graded reader series top out near 2,500 headwords for the same reason.

Is every word in the list a real dictionary word?

Yes. Every headword is checked against the language's own Wiktionary entry, which is where the part of speech, the gender and the meaning come from. That check is what removes the proper nouns, single letters and corpus noise that raw frequency lists are full of.

Do I need the app?

Not for this page. The A1 list is free here and free in the app. A2 to B2 are part of Oqou Pro, and the app is also where a word can go from a list into a review queue, which is the part a page cannot do.

Has a native speaker checked these?

Not yet. The frequency order and the part of speech are mechanical, and the meanings come from a dictionary rather than being written by hand, but nothing here has been through native review. If you spot a meaning that is technically right and practically useless, we would like to hear about it.