The 40 most common Dutch verbs

Verbs change shape more than any other words, so a list of infinitives only gets you halfway. Here each of the most frequent Dutch verbs comes with the form you hear in “he does” and a past form, for example doen → deed; moeten → moet, moest; zien → ziet, zag.

#	Word	He/she, present	Past	Translation	Level
1	doen		deed	do	A1
2	moeten	moet	moest	must	A1
3	zien	ziet	zag	see	A1
4	laten		liet	let	A1
5	weten		wist	know	A1
6	komen		kwam	come	A1
7	zeggen		zei	say	A1
8	maken	maakt	maakte	make	A1
9	willen	wil	wilde	want	A1
10	vinden	vindt	vond	find	A1
11	zitten		zat	sit	A1
12	zullen	zal	zou	shall	A1
13	helpen	helpt	hielp	help	A1
14	krijgen	krijgt	kreeg	get	A1
15	houden		hield	hold	A1
16	vertellen		vertelde	relate	A1
17	geven		gaf	give	A1
18	blijven	blijft	bleef	stay	A1
19	kijken	kijkt	keek	look	A1
20	vragen		vroeg	ask	A1
21	nemen	neemt	nam	take	A1
22	eten		at	eat	A1
23	staan		stond	stand	A1
24	denken	denkt	dacht	think	A1
25	halen	haalt	haalde	fetch	A1
26	werken		werkte	work	A1
27	horen	hoort	hoorde	hear	A1
28	wachten		wachtte	wait	A1
29	zoeken	zoekt	zocht	search	A1
30	brengen	brengt	bracht	bring	A1
31	geloven		geloofde	believe	A1
32	spreken	spreekt	sprak	speak	A1
33	gebruiken		gebruikte	use	A1
34	proberen		probeerde	try	A1
35	beginnen	begint	begon	begin	A1
36	doden	doodt	doodde	kill	A1
37	stoppen		stopte	darn	A1
38	spelen		speelde	play	A1
39	vergeten		vergat	forget	A1
40	gebeuren		gebeurde	happen	A1

Forms come from the UniMorph tables and Universal Dependencies treebanks, which linguists compiled. When a table has no form, the cell stays empty instead of guessing. Depending on the language, the past form shown is the simple past or the imperfect.

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Sources: translations and pronunciation from Wiktionary (wikdict, CC BY-SA 3.0) and ipa-dict (MIT), frequency from OpenSubtitles (FrequencyWords).