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Size of my vocabulary in English? | ||
Tags: Vocabulary learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5840 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes  Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 1 of 24 22 May 2009 at 2:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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Is there any way to know the size of ones vocabulary?
In English and Swedish I practically never encounter words that I don't know, unless I am reading some very specialised material. But there are 200 thousand words in English! There is no way I know that many words, since I am not even a native speaker from childhood. So how many words do I know? How can I find out? If I wanted to learn another language to the same level that I know English (probably not realistic..) then what am I up against in terms of vocabulary? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Toufik18 Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Algeria Joined 5746 days ago 188 posts - 202 votes Speaks: Arabic (Written)*, Arabic (classical)*, French, English | Message 2 of 24 22 May 2009 at 2:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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Iverson suggested a method but it's requires patience. Grab a good dictionary of 50000 or more ,and simply start counting the words that you DON'T know ,and then deduct that number from the overal amount of words in the dictionary .and if you find your self aware of 95 % of the words ,try a bigger one.
Hope I helped. Toufik/Algeria 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ExtraLean Triglot Senior Member France languagelearners.myf Joined 5996 days ago 897 posts - 880 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: German | Message 3 of 24 22 May 2009 at 3:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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There are plenty of online 'vocabulary estimators' just have a bit of a search through google and you'll find one.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6705 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 24 22 May 2009 at 4:25pm | IP Logged | ||
Warning: this is only the best method if you already know almost all the words in that dictionary. Otherwise you write down all the words you know on for instance 10 pages and count them. If you know for instance 300 words on those 10 pages and the dictionary has 700 pages, then your estimate would be 300/10*700 words = 21.000 words. However the size of the dictionary more or less dictates the number of words you get, so you should also take notice of the number of the percentage. Here it would be 21000/50000 * 100 = 42%, which would be a good score. But please notice that many dictionaries don't tell you the number of words they contain, but "words and expressions". The actual number of words would then be much lower and the percentages of true words correspondingly higher. And a final reminder: all things equal it is allways a good thing to know a lot of words, but words alone can't make you a proficient speaker of English. Edited by Iversen on 22 May 2009 at 4:26pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5840 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 5 of 24 22 May 2009 at 4:38pm | IP Logged | ||
I followed the advice from extralean and found a advanced test:
This was the highest level available - Test C / 5000-10,000 level. (Huh, what happened to the other 200k words??? ) --------- I am going crazy over the words that I didn't know! I am pretty sure I'd understand the words if I saw them, but I cannot work them out from the test! But perhaps that shows my limitations :-)) Does anyone know what the answers are? The hurricane whi_____ along the coast. (whisks, whines, whirled...?? all incorrect! ) Watch out for his wil_____ tricks. (no clue!) --------- Some more tests here, I aced the other advanced one. But I can't get over missing the two words above. Take me out of my misery! Edited by cordelia0507 on 22 May 2009 at 4:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Russianbear Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6777 days ago 358 posts - 422 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, Ukrainian Studies: Spanish | Message 6 of 24 22 May 2009 at 4:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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Maybe it "whirred"? Edited by Russianbear on 22 May 2009 at 4:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5840 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 7 of 24 22 May 2009 at 4:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah, you are right! I can't say I know it, but I've come across it...
Hey, why don't you take the test and see if you can max it? Edited by cordelia0507 on 22 May 2009 at 4:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fredmf Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6465 days ago 43 posts - 51 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish | Message 8 of 24 22 May 2009 at 4:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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In those two examples I'd say:
The hurricane whipped along the coast. (EDIT: While I was posting this someone posted that the correct answer, per the test, is "whirred," which makes sense but I have never once heard a hurricane described this way! An inexact science, this.) Watch out for his wily tricks. (EDIT: This one I'm pretty sure of.) Edited by fredmf on 22 May 2009 at 4:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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