Estimating the number of learned and memorized words of a foreign language is primarily interesting for understanding how far a person has advanced in “passive” perception of information: texts, speech, films, etc. I propose to familiarize yourself with several methods that I used, found on the net and "home-made". Below - a couple of tests for assessing vocabulary, a technique for searching important words, which have not yet caught on in the brain, a few arguments and a few links.

Online tests

Of the many tests for evaluating the number of words, I liked two. A couple of years ago I came across a rather simple Test Your Vocabulary . As you go through three screens of words, you tick off the ones you think you know, and then you get a score. total learned words. Many of my friends complained about his inadequacy - they received an amount less than "the one about whom I know for sure that he knows worse." But when passing, there may be a mistake of a different kind - it seems that you know the word, but in fact you have already forgotten it. 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 rating.

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 on www.wordfrequency.info, you can download the exelnik frequency dictionary American English. There is also a text version.

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
7to-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 English texts. I recently saw a friend of mine looking up words he didn't know while checking his vocabulary. Looking through the first 500, I did not find any unknowns. 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 when you go through the list, you come across sequences of words that successfully add up to phrases or even short sentences. The logic is very simple - if the word is very common according to statistics, and you don't know it, then it's better to learn it and see examples of use.

After reading the list of words unknown to him (already with 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 tries to be commercial, they sell lists over 5000 long, but this is not so interesting anymore.

So far, this friend of mine is writing a program with a convenient interface to look up unknown words - for learning purposes. I suggested to him that for a global assessment, not use this list, but a thinned one: every seventh word from general list for 60,000 words. In fact, even watching the first couple of thousand is disheartening, not everyone will get to 5000. Although I can’t say for all 100, but the thinned dictionary will certainly show at least one word from the “family”, and the time will be spent, respectively, 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 "corpuses" 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 just by checking the frequency dictionary, as well as comparing the list of selected unknown words - their number and entry into different "families".

There is general laws remembering and forgetting. One of the main things: if a person has learned something and does not repeat, does not use it, the information is forgotten exponentially from time to time. On the other hand, a few repetitions lengthen, stretch the falling exponent to an acceptable level. I was very surprised when a friend who worked as a tutor for schoolchildren told me 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 planted firmly in the brain . That is, the statistically maximum level of the excitation signal is provided in the brain when it encounters 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 tough, I tried to read fiction. First big book it was old Soviet edition Conan Doyle "The Lost World". I don’t know how it was adapted, but there were plenty of Victorian words and expressions in the text, and this greatly delayed the progress towards the end ... Of course, it was possible to look into Lingvo from a computer, but I didn’t like to read at the computer, but to run back and forth for each new word quickly tired. Tablets were not common then, pocket electronic translator- an expensive rarity, so I worked out a paper system for myself. In a thick 96-sheet notebook, the spread was divided into 6 columns. Now I tried to find a notebook - I got lost. Will have to describe 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, by eye, I estimated the statistical percentage of words that begin with these letters and divided the columns in the spread into rectangles. For example, the group a..d gave 2/3 of the first column, and so on. The group x..z was given the last remaining smallest piece in the 6th column. Then everything is simple. met unknown word- enter with the translation in the desired rectangle. Nothing inside the block is not in alphabetical order - it will not take long to find. To get the translation while lying on the bed, you need to get into the book dictionary. That is, the value of receiving a translation is quite large, more than now look at Lingua or an online translator like

The fact that the dictionary of a language contains approximately 300,000 words is only theoretical interest for beginners to learn this language. Almost main principle for the reasonable organization of their studies, especially on initial stage is the economy of words. You need to learn how to remember less words but do it the best you can.

We emphasize that our approach is directly opposite to the leading 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 ask 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" by such, 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 the lesson, you know 500 or 1000 words very well than 3000 - but poorly. Don't be fooled by educators who will tell you that you must first learn a certain number of words in order to "get on with it." Only you yourself can and should decide whether the vocabulary you have mastered is sufficient for your goals and interests.

The experience of learning languages ​​shows that about 400 correctly chosen words can cover up to 90 percent of the vocabulary that you need for the purposes of everyday communication. To read, you need more words, but many of them are only passive. Therefore, with the knowledge of 1500 words, you can already understand quite meaningful texts.

It is better to master the most necessary and important words for you than to constantly rush to learn new ones. "He who chases too much runs the risk of missing everything," says a Swedish proverb. “If you chase two hares, you won’t catch one,” a Russian proverb answers her.

Vocabulary in oral speech

Speaking very approximately, about 40 correctly chosen, high frequency words will cover approximately 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 - about 95% of what you need to say or hear in the most common situation.

Thus, a well-chosen vocabulary helps to understand quite a lot with very modest effort spent on cramming.

Example: if a total of 1000 words are spoken in everyday conversation, then 500 of them, that is, 50%, will be covered by 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 you need approximately to feel confident when entering into the simplest dialogue with a native speaker. In any case, there is no doubt that by choosing correctly from 400 to 800 words and remembering them well, you can feel confident in a simple conversation, since they will cover almost all 100% of those words that you can’t do without. Of course, with others, less favorable conditions 400 words will cover only 80% of what you need to know - instead of 90 or 100%.

Vocabulary while reading

When reading, by correctly choosing and remembering well 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 of about 10 thousand words in front of you (this is about 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.

Note again that the figures we give are indicative only. 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: 400 to 100,000 words

• 400 - 500 words - active vocabulary for language proficiency at a basic (threshold) level.
• 800 - 1000 words - active vocabulary for explaining yourself; or passive vocabulary for reading at a basic level.
• 1500 - 2000 words - an active vocabulary, which is quite enough to provide everyday communication during the whole day; or a passive vocabulary sufficient for confident reading.
• 3000 - 4000 words - in general, it is enough for practically free reading of newspapers or literature in the specialty.
• About 8000 words - provide full communication for the average European. It is practically not necessary to know more words in order to communicate freely both orally and in writing, as well as to read literature of any kind.
• 10,000-20,000 words - the active vocabulary of an educated European (on mother tongue).
• 50,000-100,000 words - the passive vocabulary of an educated European (in their native language).

It should be noted that the vocabulary itself does not provide free communication. At the same time, having mastered 1500 correctly chosen words, subject to some extra workout you will be able to communicate almost freely.

Concerning professional terms, then usually they do not present any particular difficulties, since in most cases this is an international vocabulary that is easy enough to master.

When you already know about 1500 words, you can start reading at a fairly decent level. FROM passive knowledge from 3000 to 4000 words you will be able to freely read literature in your specialty, at least in areas where you are confidently oriented. In conclusion, we note that, according to calculations carried out by linguists on the material of a number of languages, the average educated European actively uses about 20,000 words (and half of them - quite rarely). At the same time, the passive vocabulary is at least 50,000 words. But all this concerns the native language.

Basic vocabulary

AT pedagogical literature can be found terminological combination"basic vocabulary". From my point of view, at the maximum level, the vocabulary is about 8000 words. I think that learning large quantity words, except perhaps for some special purpose, are hardly necessary. Eight thousand words will be enough for full communication in any conditions.

When starting to learn a language, it would be wise to make do with shorter lists. Here are three levels that I have found in practice to give a good guide to the beginner:

• level A("basic vocabulary"):

400-500 words. They are enough to cover approximately 90% of all word usage in everyday life. oral communication or about 70% percent of uncomplicated written text;

• level B("minimum vocabulary", "mini-level"):

800-1000 words. They are enough to cover about 95% of all word usage in everyday oral communication, or about 80-85% of written text;

• level B("medium 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 the main vocabulary can be considered a dictionary published by E. Klett in Stuttgart, 1971, called "Grundwortschatz Deutsch" ("Basic Vocabulary Fund German language"). It gives 2000 of the most necessary words in each of six selected languages: German, English, French, Spanish, Italian and Russian.

Eric W. Gunnemark, Swedish polyglot

Vocabulary of English language is all active and passive vocabulary, which is used in communication foreign language. However, if we use active vocabulary every day, then it is not so simple with passive vocabulary - we understand words in texts, but do not use them in daily communication.

5. Listen to songs and parse texts;

In every foreign language there are basic words that are most often used. If you choose the most common verbs, nouns, adjectives and prepositions (about 500 units in total), you can cover about 90% of the vocabulary with them, which is necessary for daily communication. However, do not think that the dictionary is everything. Words must be skillfully used, deftly weaving them into phrases and sentences, so do not chase the number of words, it is better to take care of the quality of their memorization and make sure that they move from passive vocabulary to active.

How to replenish your vocabulary of English words: a few simple tips

1. Learn the words correctly. Don't try to memorize 50 words every day if you can only remember 15 as a result. Learn less, but better. Do not forget to repeat words periodically so that they are deposited in long-term memory as a result.
2. Use for English-English translation dictionary. The use of such a dictionary is that you not only get acquainted with the meaning of words, but also learn synonyms, antonyms, and also memorize set expressions.
3. Review words you have recently learned.
4. Learn the words that are around you.

A little about how to learn words. It is best to memorize words and expressions by topic, for example, tourism, fashion, music, literature. Pick out the most hot topics, which are needed for Everyday life. Don't forget about active use words. You can make mini-stories with the vocabulary that you remember.

So, if you are still interested in the topic of increasing the vocabulary of the English language, here are a few examples:

1. Choose a topic, divide it into subtopics, for each of which write out separate words and expressions. For example, the topic is “travel”, subtopics are airport, boarding a plane, booking a hotel, checking into a hotel, etc.

2. Use of flash cards. On one side of the card there is a word in Russian, on the other - in English. We teach until we have to turn the card over and look at the translation.

3. Learn verbs, without them there is nowhere in English.

4. Study the language regularly, and not 2 months before the intended trip.

Remember that any way to increase your vocabulary is good, the main thing is to take the time and really get into learning the language in order to keep up with the billion people who have already started learning the language of Shakespeare.

Help build vocabulary can online service for learning English Lim English. To do this, as part of the lesson, there is a personal dictionary in which you can add new words. Already in the first month of training, you can learn several hundred words, and studying for a year - at least 3 thousand. and start learning right now!

If you are now looking at the Oxford Dictionary and thinking, “I will never learn that many words!” - distract from sad thoughts and read this article. How many words do you really need to know? You may be pleasantly surprised!

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Classmates

Word, show your passport!

English students often ask, "How many words do I have to learn to be able to hold a conversation on any topic?" Good question, but before answering it, let me ask another: what do you think? A question to which there is no intelligible answer. Why? It is impossible to count the number of words in a language for one simple reason - it is difficult to decide what to consider as a word.

It is claimed, for example, that for the word "set" the Oxford Dictionary gives 464 interpretations. Do you count polysemantic word one word or every interpretation - single word? And what about ( phrasal verbs): “set up”, “set about”, “set apart”, etc.? And what about the so-called open compounds - words like "hot dog", "ice cream", "real estate"? Add to this the forms of the singular and plural, verb conjugations, different endings, prefixes and suffixes - and you will understand why it is so problematic to answer how many words there are in English.

In fact, the question should be put like this: “Do you know how many words are in the big dictionary of English language?" If you roughly imagine the number of words in a language, it can be compared with the number of words used 90-95% of the time in everyday speech and in the news.

Talk less, work more

In 1960, the famous American children's writer Theodor Seuss Geisel (better known under the pseudonym Dr. Seuss, author of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, The Cat in the Hat, The Lorax, etc.) published the book Green Eggs and Ham. The book was written in just 50 words and was the result of a dispute between Seuss and his publisher, Bennett Cerf. The publisher believed that Seuss would not be able to create a finished work in such harsh conditions (before that, Seuss had already written "The Cat in the Hat", which featured 225 words).

If it's possible to write a book in just 50 words, does that mean we don't need 40,000 words to communicate with each other? Note, however, that according to Susie Dent, a lexicographer, the average active vocabulary of an adult English speaker is about 20,000 words, the passive one is about 40,000 words.

What is the difference between active and passive vocabulary? Speaking plain language, active vocabulary includes words that you can remember on your own and apply. As for the passive vocabulary, these are those words that you recognize, the meaning of which you know, but which you are not able to use yourself.

How many words do you know sir?

And here we come to the most interesting. On the one hand, an adult native English speaker has an active vocabulary of about 20,000 words. On the other hand, The Reading Teacher's Book of Lists states that the first 25 words are used in 33% of everyday written texts, the first 100 words - in 50%, and the first thousand words are found in 89% of such texts!

Thus, we can safely say that only 3000 words cover about 95% of the texts. general topics(news articles, blog entries, etc.). Liu Na and Nation proved that 3000 is the approximate number of words we need to know in order to understand the rest from the context when reading unsimplified texts.

Count yourself!

The Oxford English Dictionary contains 171,476 common words. 95% of general texts cover a vocabulary of only 3,000 words. That's 1.75% of all words!

That's right: knowing 1.75% English vocabulary, you will be able to understand 95% of what you read. This is only 7.5% of the average passive vocabulary of a native speaker (40,000 words). Isn't it great?

On Pareto's Law and the Importance of Linguistic Guessing

Mobile version for iPhone:

An alternative from the creators of Merriam-Webster's 3,000 Core Vocabulary Words:

How to assess your vocabulary

So, even though a native English speaker has an active vocabulary of 20,000 words and a passive one of 40,000, learning English will be successful if you learn only 3,000 words!

95% of general texts will become available to you, and you will understand the remaining 5% intuitively. Good luck with your study!

We read further:

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Test control is one of the most popular forms of testing knowledge of the English language. The undeniable advantages of tests are the speed and ease of assessing knowledge, as well as the obligatory availability of keys (correct answers) to them.

English vocabulary tests can be:

a) to determine the number of vocabulary units in your passive and active vocabulary;

b) to determine the acquired vocabulary on any topic.

Let us give examples of some online tests.

Test http://testyourvocab.com/ allows you to determine your vocabulary. It consists of two mandatory parts: the first defines ownership common vocabulary English, in the second - special. On average, the result of those people for whom English is not native is from 2500 to 9000 words, while the result of native speakers is 20000-35000 words.

Why know your vocabulary? The answer is very simple: each level of language proficiency corresponds to the approximate number of words that need to be learned. Yes, for the levelbeginner- this is 500-600 words. In order for the language level to be close toElementary, the student needs to know about 1000 words.

Level	Number of words
beginner	500-600
Elementary	1000
Pre-Intermediate	1500-2000
intermediate	2000-3000
Upper Intermediate	3000-4000
Advanced	4000-8000
Proficiency	over 8000

Test http://www.efl.ru/tests/formal2informal-1/ will show how well you are colloquial vocabulary British English. What 'comfortable‘and how to dress if you are invited to ‘barbie', you'll find out by taking this fun quiz.

Next test http://www.efl.ru/tests/colours/ help you better understand English colors and shades. In the first part, knowledge of the colors of the main palette is checked, in the second part attention is paid to the shades of colors, in the third part knowledge is trained English idioms, containing the name of the color. Why is it bad to get 'pinkslip', and what color is a lie? You will find all the answers in this quiz.

Test How strong is your vocabulary? by Merriam-Webster consists of only 10 questions, the content of which is constantly changing. The test checks advanced synonyms, but thanks to it you can significantly enrich your vocabulary.

Test MyVocabularySize is distinguished, first of all, by its impressive size: it contains 140 questions. The test has an option to select a language: when choosing Russian, you will need to choose a translation of the word given in the context; when choosing English, you find a synonym phrase.

On the site Quizlet.com presented great amount vocabulary tests created by educators from all over the world. Some of them are based on vocabulary from English textbooks, which you yourself are probably studying. Other tests test knowledge special vocabulary, which can also be useful for those who want to deepen their knowledge.

A few tips for those who want to increase their vocabulary

1. Read in the original! Will it fiction, world News, cooking recipes or advertisements - not so important if you have acquired the habit of working with a dictionary while reading. Each new word is another step towards learning English.

2. Work with a monolingual dictionary! Not immediately, but gradually train yourself to give up habitual scheme"word-translation". Sometimes it is difficult to give an explanation of a concept, even in your native language. However, when working with a monolingual (written in one language) dictionary, you will have a chance to better understand the meaning of many words.

3. Learn words in context! When maintaining your personal dictionary, write down not individual lexical units and phrases and sentences. Thus, your language will play with new, lively phrases faster.

Where to practice vocabulary?

On the site LearnEnglishTeens There is an opportunity to practice words on a variety of topics. Each topic is presented in three language levels- from A 1 to B 1 - and is accompanied by five exercises.

On the site http://lengish.com/tests/vocabulary exercises for training are also presented thematic vocabulary needed in everyday life.

Resource Merriam-webster offers not only dictionaries and tests, but also a huge number of exercises and games to replenish vocabulary.

In conclusion, we invite you to take our vocabulary test, created on the basis of vocabulary from New Headway Elementary.

1. If you … somebody you take care of this person.

a) pay b) look after c) lose

2. My sister and I are very … and we phone each other every evening.

a) happy b) independent c) close

3. How many languages ​​do you … ?

a) speak b) say c) tell

4. This book is really… !

a) interesting b) interested c) bored

5. I'm … in reading books.

a) interesting b) interested c) bored

6. Hey! Let’s… a cake!

a) do b) make c) mix

7. New York is older … London.

a) then a) of c) than

8. If the weather is bad, we can ... .

a) have a picnic a) go for a walk c) watch a DVD

9. Let's go to the… and buy some stamps.

a) library b) post office c) police office

10. How about having lunch?

a) I'll have some pizza and a coke. b) That sounds great! c) I can help you.

Test Keys:

b	c	a	a	b	b	c	c	b	b

And finally, remember that objective can only be named integrated knowledge assessment.