About 2,000 words cover most everyday Italian: Tullio De Mauro's Nuovo vocabolario di base finds its 2,000 "fundamental" words make up 86% of the words in a large sample of texts and speech. Reading novels comfortably takes far more. Contos moves readers up a level at 500 known words (A2), 1,500 (B1) and 4,000 (B2).
- Fundamental Italian words (De Mauro)
- About 2,000, covering 86% of running words
- Next 3,000 high-use words
- A further 6%
- Contos level-ups
- A2 at 500, B1 at 1,500, B2 at 4,000 known words
- Free Italian chapters in Contos
- 96 chapters, 3,873 different word forms
- A1 forms, read at A2
- Cover about 78% of the running words
What counts as a word in Italian?
Every vocabulary figure depends on the unit being counted. There are three in common use:
- Word form: each spelling counts once, so parlo, parli and parla are three.
- Lemma: a dictionary headword with all its inflected forms, so every form of parlare counts as one.
- Word family: a lemma plus its relatives, so parlare, parlato and parlatore might count as one.
Italian makes the gap between them wide. A verb has dozens of forms, adjectives change for gender and number (nuovo, nuova, nuovi, nuove), and articles fuse with prepositions (della is di + la). In the free chapters of the Contos library, essere alone appears in 18 different forms.
Frequency research usually counts lemmas or families. Contos counts the forms you know, because that is what you meet on the page, so its 500-word step to A2 is a stricter target than 500 dictionary words would be.
What does research say about Italian vocabulary size?
The standard reference for Italian is Tullio De Mauro's Nuovo vocabolario di base (NVdB), published in 2016 with Isabella Chiari. It is built from 18,843,459 running words in six roughly equal kinds of text: newspapers and magazines, essays and textbooks, literature, film and theatre scripts, online chat, and recorded speech. Names and numbers were set aside and the words reduced to lemmas.
| Band in the NVdB | Size | Share of running words |
|---|---|---|
| Fundamental (fondamentale) | About 2,000 words | 86% |
| High use (alto uso) | About 3,000 words | A further 6% |
| High availability (alta disponibilità) | About 2,500 words | Not counted from text: words speakers feel are everyday, though rarely written or said |
| Everything else met in the sample | About 28,000 words | The remaining 8% |
Eighty-six per cent sounds like a lot, but it means roughly one word in seven is still outside the core. Paul Nation's research on English suggests readers need about 98% of the words to follow a text without help, and puts that at 8,000–9,000 word families for novels and 6,000–7,000 for speech. Those are English figures, so take them as an order of magnitude for Italian; the how many words to be fluent page explains where the 98% comes from.
How many words do you need for each Contos level?
Stories written for learners need far less than novels, and the Contos library lets us measure how vocabulary builds. For each level we took every word form used in the free chapters of the levels below and checked how much of that level's free chapters they cover.
| Level | Contos moves you up at | Different word forms in the free chapters | Covered by every form from the levels below |
|---|---|---|---|
| A1 | Start here | 834 | — |
| A2 | 500 known words | 1,268 | About 79% (the 834 A1 forms) |
| B1 | 1,500 known words | 1,890 | About 75% (1,592 A1–A2 forms) |
| B2 | 4,000 known words | 2,360 | About 84% (2,728 A1–B1 forms) |
So even a reader who had mastered every word in the levels below would still meet about one new word in five at A2 and B1. That is by design. Those words are where learning happens, which is why tapping for a meaning while you read matters more than finishing a word list first.
Which Italian words should you learn first?
The most frequent ones, because a few do most of the work. Across all 96 free chapters of the Contos Italian library, the 100 commonest word forms account for about 51% of the running words, the top 500 for about 76% and the top 1,000 for about 85%. Our list of your first 100 Italian words is counted from the beginner chapters.
Frequency also shows why volume matters. In the free A1 chapters, 384 of the 834 different word forms (46%) occur only once. A word met once rarely sticks, so the rarer words only settle if you read enough to meet them again, or review them on purpose.
- To 500: the core. Read A1 stories and save the words that keep stopping you; most will be common forms.
- 500 to 1,500: verbs multiply. At A2 the passato prossimo arrives and each verb brings new forms. Save the form you met, with its sentence.
- 1,500 to 4,000: the long tail. At B1 and B2 more of every chapter is rarer words. Finishing whole series gives you repeats; flashcards catch the rest.
- Count recognition, not definitions. Reading needs you to understand a word in its sentence, not to translate it on demand.
For the hours each stage usually takes, see how long it takes to learn Italian.
Open an A1 Italian story and see how many of the most common words you already know.
Read free in your browserFrequently asked questions
Is 1,000 words enough to speak Italian?
Enough for slow, simple exchanges about familiar things, roughly A2 territory. It falls short of De Mauro's 2,000 fundamental words, and far short of Nation's estimate of 6,000–7,000 word families for following English speech comfortably.
How many words do I need for B1 Italian?
No exam board publishes a word count. Contos moves readers to B1 at 1,500 known word forms and to B2 at 4,000; those thresholds are Contos's own, chosen so stories at each level stay readable with occasional taps.
Does Contos count parlo and parla as two words?
Yes. Contos counts each word form you know, because that is what appears on the page. That makes its thresholds stricter than counts based on dictionary headwords.
What is De Mauro's vocabolario di base?
A list of about 7,000 Italian words in three bands: about 2,000 fundamental, 3,000 high-use and 2,500 high-availability words. The 2016 edition, by Tullio De Mauro and Isabella Chiari, is published online by Internazionale.
How many words does it take to read an Italian novel?
Nation's research on English puts it at 8,000–9,000 word families to know 98% of the words in a novel. Expect a similar order of magnitude for Italian, which is why graded stories come first.