How many words do you have to learn?

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How many words do you have to learn?

By Ray Vetne | Published 10/22/2006 | Learning tips | Rating:

How many words do you have to know?

A large vocabulary is important to be able to really enjoy a language. But how many words do you have to know?

'Crawl' level: 400-500 words, about 150
phrases. You can make yourself somewhat understood and understand slow speech.

Mini level: 800-1000 words and 300 phrases. Now you can speak relatively well and unstrained, and can read newspapers and books with the aid of a dictionary.

Midi level: 1500-2000 words and more than 300 phrases. What you need for day to day conversations. During the course of one day you need approximately this amount of vocabulary, and you can take part in serious discussions and understand what is being said at normal speed.

3000-4000 words: Sufficient for reading newspapers and magazines fluently.

8000 words: All you ever need. More words are not necessary in order to communicate freely and read all types of literature.

10.000-20.000: Active vocabulary in the mother tongue for cultivated Europeans.

50.000-100.000: Passive vocabulary (words you understand but don't use yourself) in the mother tongue for cultivated Europeans.

Source: A. Gethin og Ev Gunnemark,
"The art and science of learning languages", 1996.

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Comments

Comment #1 (Posted by FourBear)
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I think this article provides a decent benchmark for determining your proficiency. However, I think vocabulary should be split into "speaking" and "understanding" vocabularies. I find that I can understand many more words that are spoken to me than I can speak myself. I can't remember words when I need to speak them, but can easily identify them in conversation.
Comment #2 (Posted by tater03)
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I am looking to learn the midi level in Spanish. I have a lot of friends that speak this language and really just want to understand what they are saying. Thanks for the article I found it very informative on the amount of words that I need to learn.
Comment #3 (Posted by Starlily)
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I appreciated having the different proficiencies spelled out as well. I would have to agree with you, FourBear that I can understand alot more than I remember on the spot in speaking in terms of vocabulary...
Comment #4 (Posted by mtatum4496)
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I was wondering what the source references were for the breakdown of different categories. Also, I would enjoy of fuller explanation of what the author considers to be "fluent" or "relatively well" when it comes to use of a given language. Perhaps some examples would be helpful.
Comment #5 (Posted by FourBear)
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Perhaps this article could be expanded upon in the near future? I expect that with a few more specific examples, it can become a wonderful reference article. If it is, I would gladly read it!
Comment #6 (Posted by Louisa)
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I love this article ... I'm currently learning the italian language and a certain person keeps reminding me that if I know 300 words, I should be speaking the language, HELLO! Can't wait to show him this ;-)
Comment #7 (Posted by papia)
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if you learn 40 words today, you may forget 30 of these by tomorrow. The day after, you could forget another five... and so on.

Not knowing how to overcome this despairing situation, you search for various 'word power gurus' who claim to teach you the entire list of words in 10 days.
Comment #8 (Posted by mtatum4496)
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Yes, I think it is true that in addition to encountering new words, we have to actually implement them into our vocabulary if we expect them to stay with us for very long. So, one could learn thirty new words today, but only retain instant recognition of only a portion of them - although I do think that one would remember something of the other words when they were encountered a second time.
Comment #9 (Posted by FourBear)
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I just thought of this. Do you think that the number of words you need to know to express yourself in another language varies by language?
Comment #10 (Posted by mtatum4496)
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I would think the number of words to express oneself would vary from language to language. From what little I know of other languages, it seems that some have context comes into play with different words wheras with English one word may have multiple meanings.

I've always heard that English was the most convoluted language on the face of the earth. I wonder if that is true?
Comment #11 (Posted by emmy_b)
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I agree mtatum that it must vary from language to language. And how expressive a person is in their own language (for example I know many people who actually don't use a vast vocabulary - even in their mother tongue!)
Comment #12 (Posted by FourBear)
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I think many people consider English to be very convoluted because it has so many "rules" that then have just as many exceptions! We should ask a non-native speaker what they think.
Comment #13 (Posted by emmy_b)
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So true fourbear!! I used to teach English abroad and found that as soon as a student had learnt a rule it was time for them to understand all the instances where it didn't work!
Comment #14 (Posted by FourBear)
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The really ironic thing is that when a foreign speaker masters the rules (and exceptions) of English, they can often speak it better than native speakers! I imagine the same could be true for people learning other languages as well.
Comment #15 (Posted by tater03)
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I would imagine that it would vary from language to language. Maybe some of the harder languages you would need to learn more?
Comment #16 (Posted by riskey58)
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I have tried to learn a different language and I never got past the crawl level.
Comment #17 (Posted by James)
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I think the above are an underestimate I'm afraid... here's my experience:
I know around 10,000 words in spanish and although I can happily chat with spanish speakers I frequently have to ask for clarifications.
I know about 4,000 words in mandarin & although I understand most of what a native speaker says, I often have to ask for clarification and really struggle to read anything non-trivial
I know about 2,000 words in polish & can only talk to polish ppl if they help me by using only easy words. Listening to a conversation between native speakers I quickly get completely lost.
Also, if you pick up an english dictionary with 200,000 entries and scan through it you'll notice that you understand well over half the words :-)
I'd add 50-100% to the amounts listed above.
Comment #18 (Posted by unother)
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First it is important to clarify what you mean when referring to a 'word'. I would say with less than 2-3000 words (entries in a dictionary) you won't be able to say or understand much. 5000 sounds intermediate but far from fluent. I estimate I know about 13000 words in English and I still cannot say I am 100% fluent...however, I think you need at least 8-9000 and at most 14-15000 to be considered fluent.
Comment #19 (Posted by an unknown user)
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I was looking for this information for an hour, Thank you.

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