50 Common Bangla Words Every Beginner Should Know

Bangla (Bengali) is spoken by around 230 million people, making it one of the most widely spoken languages in the world — the primary language of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, with a literary tradition that produced Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Building a working vocabulary starts with small, high-frequency word groups rather than long memorised lists.

Greetings and courtesy

Nomoshkar (a respectful hello/goodbye), dhonnobad (thank you), aapni kemon achen? (how are you, formal), bhalo achi (I'm well) — the everyday courtesy phrases that open most conversations.

Family and people

Ma (mother), baba (father), bhai (brother), bon (sister), bondhu (friend) — Bangla family vocabulary, like many South Asian languages, distinguishes relationships more specifically than English does in some cases.

Numbers

Ek (one), dui (two), tin (three) through dosh (ten) — Bangla numerals in Bengali script look visually distinct from Devanagari numerals used in Hindi, despite both languages sharing historical roots.

Everyday life

Jol (water), khabar (food), bari (house), rasta (road/street), dokan (shop) — practical daily vocabulary.

Time

Aaj (today), kal (tomorrow or yesterday, context-dependent), shomoy (time), shokal (morning), raat (night).

Why script matters here

Bengali script is a distinct writing system with its own set of characters, not simply a variant of Devanagari (used for Hindi and Marathi) despite some shared historical origin — looking up words in proper Bengali script, rather than Roman transliteration alone, helps you build accurate reading recognition from the start.

A simple way to build from this list

1. Pick five to eight words a day rather than the whole list at once.
2. Look each one up in Bengali script and read it aloud.
3. Use each new word in a short sentence of your own.
4. Review yesterday's words before adding today's.

Look up any Bangla word instantly, in proper script, offline, with English Bangla Dictionary →