The fact that the language's dictionary contains approximately 300 thousand words is only of theoretical interest for a beginner learning this language. Almost main principle for the reasonable organization of your studies, especially at the initial stage, this is an economy of words. You need to learn to memorize as few words as possible, but do it as best as possible.
Let us emphasize that our approach is directly opposite to the guiding principle of “suggestopedia”, with its emphasis on the abundance of words presented to the student. As you know, in accordance with its canons, a beginner needs to be literally “showered with words.” It is best to give him or her 200 new words every day.
Is there any doubt that any normal person will forget all those numerous words with which he was “showered” using this, so to speak, method - and most likely very soon, in just a few days.
Don't chase too much
It will be much better if at the end of a certain stage of study you know 500 or 1000 words very well than 3000 - but poorly. Don’t let yourself be led into a dead end by teachers who will assure you that you need to first learn a certain number of words in order to “get into the swing of things.” Only you yourself can and must decide whether the vocabulary you have mastered is sufficient for your goals and interests.
Language learning experience shows that about 400 well-chosen words can cover up to 90 percent of the vocabulary you need for everyday communication purposes. In order to read, you will need more words, but many of them are only passive. Therefore, with knowledge of 1500 words, you can already understand fairly meaningful texts.
It is better to master the words that are most necessary and important to you than to constantly rush to learn new ones. “He who pursues too much risks missing everything,” says a Swedish proverb. “If you chase two hares, you won’t catch either,” the Russian proverb answers.
Vocabulary in oral speech
Very roughly speaking, about 40 well-chosen, high-frequency words will cover about 50% of word usage in everyday speech in any language;
- 200 words will cover about 80%;
- 300 words - approximately 85%;
- 400 words will cover about 90%;
- Well, 800-1000 words are about 95% of what would need to be said or heard in the most ordinary situation.
Thus, the right vocabulary helps you understand quite a lot with very little effort spent on cramming.
Example: if a total of 1000 words are spoken in an everyday conversation, then 500 of them, that is, 50%, will be covered by the 40 most common high-frequency words.
We emphasize that these percentages, of course, are not the result of exact calculations. They just give the most general concept about how many words approximately will be needed to feel confident when entering into a simple dialogue with a native speaker. In any case, there is no doubt that by correctly choosing from 400 to 800 words and remembering them well, you can feel confident in a simple conversation, since they will cover almost 100% of those words that you cannot do without. Of course, under other, less favorable conditions, 400 words will cover only 80% of what you need to know - instead of 90 or 100%.
Reading vocabulary
When reading, having correctly chosen and well remembered about 80 of the most common, most frequent words, you will understand about 50% of a simple text;
- 200 words will cover approximately 60%;
- 300 words - 65%;
- 400 words - 70%;
- 800 words - approximately 80%;
- 1500 - 2000 words - about 90%;
- 3000 - 4000 - 95%;
- and 8,000 words will cover almost 99 percent of the written text.
Example: if you have a text in front of you with a volume of approximately 10 thousand words (this is approximately 40 printed pages), then, having learned the most necessary 400 words in advance, you will understand about 7000 words that are used in this text.
Let us note again that the figures we give are only indicative. Depending on various additional conditions, 50 words will cover up to 50 percent of the written text, but in other cases you will need to learn at least 150 words to get the same result.
Vocabulary: from 400 to 100,000 words
- 400 - 500 words - active vocabulary for language proficiency at a basic (threshold) level.
- 800 - 1000 words - active vocabulary in order to explain yourself; or passive reading vocabulary at a basic level.
- 1500 - 2000 words - active vocabulary, which is quite enough to provide everyday communication during the whole day; or passive vocabulary sufficient for confident reading.
- 3000 - 4000 words - in general, enough for almost fluent reading of newspapers or literature in the specialty.
- About 8,000 words - provide complete communication for the average European. There is practically no need to know more words in order to communicate freely both orally and in writing, as well as read literature of any kind.
- 10,000-20,000 words - the active vocabulary of an educated European (in their native language).
- 50,000-100,000 words - the passive vocabulary of an educated European (in their native language).
It should be noted that vocabulary alone does not ensure free communication. At the same time, having mastered 1,500 correctly chosen words, with some additional training, you will be able to communicate almost freely.
As for professional terms, they usually do not present any particular difficulties, since in most cases this is an international vocabulary that is quite easy to master.
When you already know about 1500 words, you can start reading at a fairly decent level. With passive knowledge of 3,000 to 4,000 words, you will be fluent in reading literature in your specialty, at least in those areas where you are confident. In conclusion, we note that, according to calculations carried out by linguists based on a number of languages, the average educated European actively uses about 20,000 words (and half of them are quite rare). In this case, the passive vocabulary is at least 50,000 words. But all this concerns the native language.
Basic vocabulary
In the pedagogical literature you can find the terminological combination “basic vocabulary”. From my point of view, at the maximum level the vocabulary is about 8000 words. It seems to me that it is hardly necessary to learn more words, except perhaps for some special purposes. Eight thousand words will be enough for full communication in any conditions.
When starting to learn a language, it would be wise to spend more short lists. Here are three levels that I have found in practice to provide a good guide for a beginner:
- level A("basic vocabulary"):
400-500 words. They are enough to cover approximately 90% of all word usage in everyday oral communication or about 70% of simple written text;
- level B(“minimum vocabulary”, “mini-level”):
800-1000 words. They are enough to cover approximately 95% of all word usage in everyday oral communication or about 80-85% of written text;
- level B("average vocabulary", "medium level"):
1500-2000 words. They are enough to cover approximately 95-100% of all word usage in everyday oral communication or about 90% of written text.
An example of a good dictionary of basic vocabulary can be considered the dictionary published by E. Klett in Stuttgart, 1971, under the title "Grundwortschatz Deutsch" ("Basic vocabulary German language"). It contains 2000 of the most necessary words in each of the selected six languages: German, English, French, Spanish, Italian and Russian.
Eric W. Gunnemark, Swedish polyglot
There are many tests that determine vocabulary, I will tell you about one of the most adequate ones, which does not overestimate or underestimate indicators. It's the best way to test your vocabulary in English. In general, a native English speaker knows from 17 to 35 thousand words, depending on the level of education and age. For English learners, 8 thousand words is an excellent indicator indicating an advanced level. As a native speaker, you are unlikely to ever speak unless you have studied the language since birth, that is, unless you are bilingual. But you can be content with less.
There is a good American-Brazilian research project Test your vocab, which studies vocabulary statistics of English speakers and language learners. The test is quite simple - there are two pages of words, from which you need to mark those that you know for sure. Mark a word if you know at least one of its meanings, but you know it for sure. If you are not sure of the translation or have just heard the word, but do not remember the exact translation, then do not mark it. The test is 10% accurate and it really works.
On the third page you can enter your data for statistics, but you can skip this step.
The most important words are on the first page; if you accidentally mark too many, the result will be inflated. Nobody checks honesty, determine the margin for yourself.
How many words do you need to know
There is active (words used) and passive (words understood) vocabulary. You don't need many words to speak. But what's the point of talking if you don't understand your interlocutor? So passive vocabulary is more important.
- Knowledge 2000 the most common words gives understanding 90% speech. But in reality 90% – this is not enough to understand. Imagine that every 10th word is unfamiliar - you will feel like a sheep. Even every 20th unknown word will not give you complete freedom of communication.
- Knowledge 6000 a thousand words will make it clear 98% speech.
- To understand films and TV series, you need to know 7-8 thousand words – this level is above average, with approximately AT 2.
How to find out your level by vocabulary
- 1.3 thousand words (level A1) – entry level, you can introduce yourself.
- 2,5 thousands words (level A2) – exchange of simple phrases in everyday situations.
- 4 thousand words (level B1) - average level. You can communicate in most situations when traveling in an English-speaking country.
- 7 thousand words (level B2) – speak quickly and freely, you can constantly communicate without difficulty for both parties.
- 11 thousand words (level C1) - advanced level. Speak freely at a fast pace. Use the language at work and study.
- 17 thousand words (level C2) – You understand almost any word or expression. The level of a native speaker begins at 17 thousand.
How to improve your vocabulary
It is known that words are best remembered in context, since just a bare word from the dictionary is quickly forgotten. Now there are dictionaries that allow you to memorize a word along with the passage in which it appears. For example, this allows you to remember words in context. That is, you will have a dictionary consisting of titles and video fragments of videos from Lingvaleo, phrases from Lingvaleo texts. Moreover, the dictionary is compiled not only on the basis of Lingvaleo training materials, but you can translate any texts on the Internet (a phrase from an Internet text will also be added to the dictionary). To do this, you need to install the Lingvaleo browser extension. The vocabulary for all materials is common. The only problem is that you can add 10 words per day for free. But I don't think it's possible to learn more with daily use. That is, a small number of words per day can be compensated by studying regularly.
The well-known Ellochka from the novel “12 Chairs” easily got by with thirty words of Russian, but, apparently, she never achieved much success in life. How many words do we need to know in English to communicate on everyday and professional topics? According to researchers, about 40 words are the minimum required for 50% of understanding and speaking in everyday speech situations, 400 words should be enough for 90% of cases, and 1000 words will provide you with successful communication by 95%. Native speakers use on average from 3,000 to 20,000 words, this depends on the level of education of each individual and the typical situations in which he has to communicate. Practice shows that for English learners it is enough to master 1500-2000 words to feel confident in a conversation. As for professional terms, they usually do not cause difficulties, because in most cases they are international vocabulary. But the most important thing is to understand that words should not just be written out on beautiful cards and hung throughout the house, they should become your working tools. Let's see what steps will help you firmly grasp the necessary vocabulary, that is, the vocabulary.
1. Read carefully and draw conclusions
Whatever you read—fiction, stock market news, or a gardening blog—pay attention to how words are used and what combinations they make. Highlight, write down, copy what seems useful to you. For example, here is an excerpt from the article “How to Become an Early Riser” (by Steve Pavlina):
It seems there are two main schools of thought about sleep patterns. One is that you should go to bed and get up at the same times every day. It’s like having an alarm clock on both ends - you try to sleep the same hours each night. This seems practical for living in modern society. We need predictability in our schedules. And we need to ensure adequate rest.
How can we analyze what we read?
- “It seems” - it seems, apparently. We just use it as an introductory word.
- “This seems practical” - it seems practical. We understand that after “seems” an adjective is used, and now we can speak by analogy: “This seems interesting”, “This seems stupid”, “Your ideas seem nice”.
- "Predictability" - predictability. If we know that “predict” means to predict and “ability” means ability, then we can calculate the meaning of this word.
2. Watch the video with and without subtitles
The same work can be done when watching your favorite movies, TV series and TV shows. If you use subtitles, it will be more convenient for you to write down the phrase you like; if not, then train your auditory perception, pause and repeat after the speaker. We can recommend an excellent resource that provides the opportunity to watch TV series in the original with super-useful subtitles: when you hover over a word, a Russian translation appears. Saves a lot of time and improves memorization.
3. Sing your favorite songs
We have already discussed how songs can help us learn English. Expanding your vocabulary is one of the tasks where songs can be used especially successfully. It is always much easier to remember what you like and what is associated with positive emotions. On the Internet you can find a lot of sites with song lyrics, for example:
Listening to your favorite songs and singing along with the performers, you learn entire phrases easily and with pleasure.
4. Let's take cues from celebrities
Type in the search something like “Brad Pitt interview” or “chat show with celebrities” and you will get a lot of material for independent work. As you read or listen to excerpts from the interviews, you will likely notice that certain words are used more often. For example, “amazing” is a very popular adjective to express delight:
- “You look amazing!”
- “The film was amazing!”
- "It was an amazing experience."
5. Mastering typical phrases for standard situations
If you like to travel, you will probably need a set of certain phrases and expressions that you may need at the airport, at customs, at a hotel, in a store, etc. As you know, such conversations are not particularly diverse, so for greater confidence you can learn several mini-dialogues in necessary topics. Various Internet resources will help you with this, where audio recordings and texts are collected, as well as assignments for them. For example, you can start from this site
6. We study words by topic
It is much easier to remember new words that are related in meaning. If, for example, you are studying the topic "Food", you just need to learn the names of different products, ready meals, adjectives to describe them, etc. By discussing assignments with your teacher, you will be able to activate these words, i.e. transfer from a passive stock to a set of “working tools”. Studying will be more effective if you use different types of memory: look at pictures, listen to pronunciation and repeat yourself. Use, for example, this resource, which will help you do all of the above and learn new words with ease.
7. Use dictionaries
In our age information technologies paper dictionaries are no longer popular, and even schoolchildren readily use their online versions. Starting from the Pre-Intermediate level, it is recommended to use the so-called “English-English dictionaries”, that is, not to translate unfamiliar words, but to look for their definitions in English. In addition, dictionaries can provide you with a supply of synonyms, antonyms and idioms that include a given word. According to Wikipedia, the following dictionaries are the most useful and reliable sources of information:
8. Play word games
Crosswords, gallows, Scrabble and other games can also help you enrich your speech because they help you remember the spelling of words you know in a fun way. Additionally, many word games can be played in fun company, combining business with pleasure: learning English with friendly communication. Tip for the curious: try playing Scrabble with an open dictionary.
9. We arm ourselves with devices and gadgets
It takes a long time to write words on cards, there is no time to make sentences, but we always have smartphones, iPhones and other devices at hand. When you have a free minute, you can start learning new words, and you don’t need to carry any pieces of paper, printouts, or textbooks with you. If you don’t know which application to choose, use advice from British Council experts.
10. Use it or lose it!
The most important thing in mastering vocabulary is to use it in your speech. Passive vocabulary is good for reading and listening, that is, for recognizing words. To speak and write, we need to learn to retrieve words from memory very quickly, and this can only be achieved with practice. According to researchers, for a word to become active in speech, it must be used in various contexts about 17 times. Therefore, before class, set yourself the task of speaking more than the teacher and be sure to use new words.
Big and friendly EnglishDom family
Estimation of the number of words learned and remembered foreign language First of all, it is interesting for understanding how far a person has progressed in the “passive” perception of information: texts, speech, films, etc. I suggest you familiarize yourself with several methods that I used, found on the Internet and “homemade”. Below are a couple of tests for assessing vocabulary, a technique for finding important words that have not yet caught on in the brain, several arguments and some links.
Online tests
Of the many word count tests, I liked two. A couple of years ago I came across a fairly simple Test Your Vocabulary. As you go through three screens of words, you check off the ones you (think) you know, and then get an estimate of the total number of words you've learned. Many of my friends complained about its inadequacy - they received a quantity less than “the one about whom I know for sure that he knows worse.” But when passing, there may be a different kind of error - it seems that you know the word, but in fact you have already forgotten. They say that the hand itself reaches out to put a tick next to a word that seems vaguely familiar, so you can subconsciously overestimate your overall score.You know at least 10,500 English word families!
What do my results mean?
In general, there is no minimum vocabulary size. Language ability is related to vocabulary size, so the more words you know, the more you will be able to understand. However, if you want to set a learning goal, Paul Nation's (2006) research suggests that the following sizes might be useful:
How large a vocabulary is needed for reading and listening?
Skill Size estimate Notes
Reading 8,000 - 9,000
word families nation (2006)
Listening 6,000 - 7,000
word families nation (2006)
Native speaker 20,000
word families Goulden, Nation, & Read (1990)
Zechmeister, Chronis, Cull, D'Anna, & Healy (1995)
What is a word family?
There are many different forms of a word, so this test measures your knowledge of the most basic form of a word and assumes that you can recognize the other forms. For example, nation, a noun, can also be an adjective (national), a verb (nationalize), or an adverb (nationally). There are also forms which can be made with an affix such as de- or -ing which also modify the way that the word is used or adds to the basic meaning. For a test of receptive vocabulary knowledge such as this one, word families are considered to be the most accurate way of counting words.
Frequency dictionaries
After registering at www.wordfrequency.info, you can download an Excel copy of the American English Frequency Dictionary. There is also a text option.Something like this:
Rank Word Part of speech Frequency Dispersion
1 the - a 22038615 0.98
2 be - v 12545825 0.97
3 and - c 10741073 0.99
4 of - i 10343885 0.97
5 a - a 10144200 0.98
6 in - i 6996437 0.98
7 to - t 6332195 0.98
8 have - v 4303955 0.97
…
…
4996 immigrant - j 0.97
4997 kid - v 5094 0.92
4998 middle-class - j 5025 0.93
4999 apology - n 4972 0.94
5000 till - i 5079 0.92
The file contains 5000 English words, sorted by frequency of occurrence. The frequency was calculated on a huge heterogeneous array of English texts. I recently saw a friend of mine looking up words he didn't know while testing his vocabulary. After looking through the first 500, I didn't find any unknown ones. He showed an extract on his smartphone - about a dozen words from the second thousand (that is, from 1000 to 2000) and about 20 from the third. It's funny that, as you go through the list, you come across sequences of words that successfully form phrases or even short sentences. The logic is very simple - if a word is very common according to statistics, and you don’t know it, then it’s better to learn it and look at examples of use.
After reading the list of words unknown to him (already with a translation), I saw the following thing. I knew about 50-60% of these words unknown to him, but some of the meanings of the translations recorded there were unknown to me, there were several words completely unknown to me.
In general, the site is trying to be commercial, they sell lists longer than 5000, but this is no longer so interesting.
So far, this friend of mine is writing a program with a convenient interface for searching for unknown words - for learning purposes. For a global assessment, I suggested that he use not this list, but a thinned one: every seventh word from a total list of 60,000 words is given. In fact, even viewing the first couple of thousand makes you despondent; not everyone will reach 5000. Although I can’t say 100 percent, a thinned dictionary will probably show at least one word from the “family”, and the time spent will be 7 or 10 times less (depending on the frequency of thinning).
By the way, such frequency dictionaries of the Russian language contain about 160 thousand words, including abbreviations and abbreviations. There are several different similar "corpora" of English words from different organizations.
I'm interested in another question: how accurate are the tests that estimate the number of words you know? It is possible that this could be determined precisely through a check of the frequency dictionary, as well as by comparing the list of selected unknown words - their number and occurrence in different “families”.
Eat general laws remembering and forgetting. One of the main things: if a person has learned something and does not repeat it, does not use it, the information is forgotten exponentially over time. On the other hand, several repetitions lengthen and stretch the falling exponent to an acceptable level. I was very surprised when an acquaintance who worked part-time as a tutor for schoolchildren said that there is a sequence of time intervals for deep memorization: say, after 20 minutes, then after 8 hours, another day, etc., after which the information is firmly implanted in the brain . That is, the brain provides a statistically maximum level of excitation signal when encountering this information.
Ebbinghaus curve, from Wikipedia.
How I learned words at the institute.
Without taking into account the standard course, where the requirements for the first three years were quite strict, I tried to read fiction. First big book there was an old Soviet edition of Conan Doyle " The Lost World". I don’t know how much it was adapted, but there was an abundance of Victorian words and expressions in the text, and this greatly delayed progress towards the end... Of course, you could look into Lingvo from your computer, but I didn’t like to read at the computer, but to run back and forth I quickly got tired of every new word. Tablets were not common then, a pocket electronic translator was an expensive rarity, so I developed a paper system for myself. In a thick 96-sheet notebook, the spread was divided into 6 columns. Now I tried to find the notebook - it was lost. You'll have to describe it in words. Divided the alphabet into groups of letters, for example - a..d, e..f, g..j, k..n, o..q, r..t, u..w, x..z. Approximately, I estimated by eye the statistical percentage of words that begin with these letters and divided the columns in the spread into rectangles. For example, group a..d gave 2/3 of the first column, and so on. Group x..z was assigned the last remaining smallest piece in the 6th column. Then everything is simple. Met unknown word- enter with translation into the required rectangle. Nothing inside the block is not in alphabetical order - it won't take long to find. To get a translation while lying on your bed, you need to look into a book dictionary. That is, the value of receiving a translation is quite large, more than now looking at Lingva or an online translator likeWhat should it be? vocabulary) to solve certain problems (reading English literature, communicating on everyday topics, conducting business correspondence, watching TV shows, etc.)? Many students learning English ask themselves this question.
Today we will talk specifically about English vocabulary for various levels and you will find out what opportunities each of these levels opens up for you. First, let's find out what vocabulary is. Lexicon is a set of words that a person owns. It is divided into active (words that a person uses himself in writing and oral speech) and passive (words that a person recognizes when reading or speaking, but does not use them himself). It is obvious that the passive stock significantly exceeds the active one. It is worth noting that vocabulary should be understood not only as knowledge of words, but also as their correct pronunciation, writing and recognition in speech.
How many words are there in English?
It is quite difficult to answer this question. The history of Great Britain is complicated in this regard - the Iberians (the most ancient population of the British Isles), the Celts (came from modern Belgium and France), the Picts (lat. pices- colourized), the 400-year domination of the Romans, the invasion of West Germanic tribes (Angles, Saxons, Nomes, Frisians), the raids of the Scandinavians and, finally, the Normans (Northern France, King William the Conqueror), led to the fact that words in the English language became very a lot of. The famous Oxford English Dictionary, which contains only English words and expressions, has about 600,000 English words. But according to the linguistic portal Global Language Monitor, which also includes hybrid words from dialects (Chinese English, Spanish English, computer jargon and others), there are already more than a million words in English. In practice, the vocabulary of a native speaker is an order of magnitude smaller than all the words in the language. For example, the average vocabulary of an educated English speaker is 12,000 – 18,000 words. For comparison, I will say that “ Dictionary living Great Russian language" by V. I. Dal has about 200,000 words, 30,000 of which are the most commonly used, and a person with higher education knows about 10,000 Russian words. (Wikipedia).
English vocabulary for different levels
How can you use this or that English vocabulary?
- In order to be able to express yourself fluently or read at a basic level (Elementary/Pre-Intermediate), you need to have about 1000 words in stock.
- If you have about 2,500 words under your belt, you can already communicate fairly well on everyday topics and read at an intermediate level.
- With 4000-5000 words, you can communicate fluently different topics, read newspapers and specialized literature, watch and listen to television/radio programs (understanding the main meaning).
- With a vocabulary of 8,000 words or more, you can already communicate at the level of an average native speaker. This reserve is enough to feel confident among the carriers in almost any situation. You can read any English literature, watch movies, have conversations on a variety of topics.
Now you understand what English vocabulary You need it to achieve your goals in your life. Having reached a certain level of English proficiency, you need to constantly maintain it. It should be remembered that if you are not actively using the language, you are not practicing English in Everyday life, you can easily lose your skills acquired through such painstaking work. Your active English vocabulary will shift towards passive. How can we make sure this doesn’t happen? The ideal solution would be to stay in an English-speaking country. In this case, you will have constant practice and your level of language proficiency will naturally improve and increase. But what to do if this is not possible? In my article, I described in detail various approaches to learning English and effective ways maintaining motivation. To test your English vocabulary, you can use a good service called Test your vocab.
You can also check out other articles on learning vocabulary.