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How many words do we actually need? | ||
Tags: Number of words | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4658 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 89 of 115 31 January 2013 at 5:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm not sure how one could even test the notion of "potentially" being able to use a word. Maybe flash a definition on a screen and see if the person can come up with the corresponding word? Or some kind of cloze test? But would that really be "active", since it wouldn't be part of speech produced as part of a conversation?
In any case, I think I'd be pretty darn happy if I could reach the level of sounding roughly like a French truck driver. :-D 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5423 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 90 of 115 31 January 2013 at 5:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
I wonder if there is a problem of how to use the word active vocabulary. For me it's the words we actually use. For others, it's words we can potentially use. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4615 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 91 of 115 31 January 2013 at 5:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Few people use the word locquacious in everyday speech. I know what it means but I would simply say "talkative" instead. I don't really consider this word to be part of my active vocabulary, although it's there if I ever felt the need to use it.
Then there are the words which we do actually use, but not on a regular basis. The part of a car that charges the battery is called an alternator, but I would only ever use this when talking about a specific car repair. But still, I do use it every so often. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Camundonguinho Triglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4742 days ago 273 posts - 500 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish Studies: Swedish | Message 92 of 115 31 January 2013 at 8:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
Is ''talkative'' a frequent word? Not really, according to the 20K word frequency-dictionary of US English (M. Davies) 18462 turquoise 18463 talkative 18464 peppercorn People would use ''chatty'' instead of ''talkative'' more often than not. Edited by Camundonguinho on 31 January 2013 at 8:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7198 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 93 of 115 31 January 2013 at 9:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
Although I read up on Mark Davies analysis for the Spanish and other languages, it brings up the question of idiolect, the words an individual would choose. In the case of "chatty", I would wonder if Chatty Cathy gave that particular word an unusual bump. The word would still be used, but would have an unusual cultural reference. I wonder all of this because I would say "talkative" before "chatty" (or locquacious). I know I'm unusual because I would also choose "garrulous" before "chatty". Edited by luke on 31 January 2013 at 9:22pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Betjeman Groupie Germany Joined 6136 days ago 85 posts - 204 votes Speaks: German* | Message 94 of 115 31 January 2013 at 10:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think the problem is that this is not what you said initially. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5423 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 95 of 115 01 February 2013 at 2:54am | IP Logged | |||||
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When it comes to talking about optimal vocabulary size many people make all sorts of outlandish claims based solely on their intuition and thin air. I prefer to look at the science. Fortunately there has been a lot of work done, especially on English. Here is an interesting study on the minimum English vocabulary for spoken communication Minimum vocab
The conclusion is that approximately 1500 - 2000 tokens in English constitute a core active vocabulary. This is exactly the figure we have been talking about. The article raises a host of methodological issues that I won't go into, but the key point is that a 2000 vocabulary covers the all the most frequently used words in the spoken English. This does not mean that with 2000 words you are condemned to talking in simplified English. Depending on the particular lists or authors, those 2000 words can give you coverage of up to 90% of all spoken samples. It goes without saying that nobody says you should limit yourself to 2000 words. But the key point is that you can understand and speak common English very well with 2000 words. To read and write it, to enter university and study in academic English is another story. While most people are interested in going up from this base figure, I like to look in the other direction. What is the absolute base number of word tokens that you need to be able to make complete sentences and talk coherently? I haven't really seen many studies as such but the estimates I have seen are based on the estimates of coverage of the most frequent word tokens. One article for example that the 200 most frequent words in English would give a coverage of around 50% of spoken English. That is exactly why I have said that there probably is a sweet spot of around 300 to 500 words for English and French where you can start really communicating in the language. But I don't want to reignite a debate of that 300 - 500 figure. For our purposes here, the other end is more interesting. It seems that with 2000 words you can do a hell of a lot. This is of course why I say that most people use approximately that number of words in their daily lives. Some people will undoubtedly start jumping up and down saying that you can only say the most basic things and speak Tarzan-like English with 2000 words. This is plainly not true. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Wulfgar Senior Member United States Joined 4664 days ago 404 posts - 791 votes Speaks: English* | Message 96 of 115 01 February 2013 at 3:28am | IP Logged | |||||
I think Tarzan called his chimp "cheetah" because you convinced him to learn only 300 words. s_allard: Chimpanzee ju-ju Tarzan, use other word. Tarzan: Uh...cheetah? s_allard: Good! Tarzan: Now give back boy! 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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