How do you know how many words you know
How do you know how many words you know
How Many Words Do You Know? Test Your Vocabulary Now!
How many words do we know? What would it take to identify and count all words known to a person? A hard nut to crack, isn’t it? No doubt, one can dig into a thick hardback dictionary to flip page by page and count all familiar words. But do you want to do that, and how long would it take? It would be like trying to count all sand-grains in a handful of sand.
Is there a better way? Yes, there is. Let’s first reckon, say 20 grains, weigh them and then, according to their weight, figure out the number of the rest by using a math algorithm. In our case, weight means the frequency of a word only vice versa, thus, the more frequent (or simple) is the word, the less its weight. We’ve built a counter and “weighing scales” for you, so you don’t have to bother with all this weight-math stuff.
Take the Test and Find Out the Number of Words You Know!
If you really want an accurate result, be honest. Do not tick the words that you might have seen or heard once upon a time, and they seem to be familiar (but you have doubts about their meaning). Don’t look up words in a dictionary. And don’t worry about your time, the test will take only a few minutes to complete. If your vocabulary is big enough, you will have to go through at most 152 words. Take the test and compare your score with other people from around the world.
Check the box for each word whose definition (at least one) you know for sure.
Hint for Windows users: you can navigate through the checkboxes using the Tab key and select with the Space bar. To skip a word hit Tab once again.
English Vocabulary Test
How many words do you know?
Test your English vocabulary size
This test takes only 3 minutes on average
Why should you check your vocabulary?
Language learning consists of the following parts: grammar, vocabulary learning and speaking. Of these; grammar is the one that can be completed in the shortest time. Speaking is only possible if you know words. There are tens of thousands of words in a language. The vocabulary learning process is quite long. You can test your vocabulary to know how many words you know and plan your learning process accordingly.
An example vocabulary size test video
How many words should you know at which level?
| Level | Active Words Range | Passive Words Range |
|---|---|---|
| A1 | 0-300 | 0-600 |
| A2 | 301-750 | 601-1500 |
| B1 | 751-1500 | 1501-3000 |
| B2 | 1501-3000 | 3001-6000 |
| C1 | 3001-5500 | 6001-11000 |
| C2 | 5501-11000 | 11001-20000+ |
Language Proficiency Levels
| BEGINNER | |
| A1 | Can understand and use familiar everyday expressions and very basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete type. Can introduce him/herself and others and can ask and answer questions about personal details such as where he/she lives, people he/she knows and things he/she has. Can interact in a simple way provided the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help. |
| A2 | Can understand sentences and frequently used expressions related to areas of most immediate relevance (e.g. very basic personal and family information, shopping, local geography, employment). Can communicate in simple and routine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar and routine matters. Can describe in simple terms aspects of his/her background, immediate environment and matters in areas of immediate need. |
| INDEPENDENT | |
| B1 | Can understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc. Can deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is spoken. Can produce simple connected text on topics which are familiar or of personal interest. Can describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes & ambitions and briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans. |
| B2 | Can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/her field of specialisation. Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party. Can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options. |
| PROFICIENT | |
| C1 | Can understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts, and recognise implicit meaning. Can express him/herself fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions. Can use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes. Can produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, showing controlled use of organisational patterns, connectors and cohesive devices. |
| C2 | Can understand with ease virtually everything heard or read. Can summarise information from different spoken and written sources, reconstructing arguments and accounts in a coherent presentation. Can express him/herself spontaneously, very fluently and precisely, differentiating finer shades of meaning even in more complex situations. |
Table: Cefr language levels (CEFR: European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment)
What is vocabulary?
Vocabulary is «words we must know to communicate effectively; words in speaking (expressive vocabulary) and words in listening (receptive vocabulary)» (Neuman&Dwyer, 2009, p. 385).
Receptive Vocabulary (Passive words)
Receptive vocabulary is words that learners recognize and understand when they are used in context, but which they cannot produce. It is vocabulary that learners recognize when they see or meet in reading text but do not use it in speaking and writing (Stuart Webb, 2009).
Productive Vocabulary (Active words)
Productive vocabulary is words that the language learners understand and can pronounce correctly and use constructively in speaking and writing. It involves what is needed for receptive vocabulary plus the ability to speak or write at the appropriate time. Therefore, productive vocabulary can be addressed as an active process, because the learners can produce the words to express their thoughts to others (Stuart Webb, 2005).
The numbers of active words are less than passives. Because peoeple understand thousands of words on different subjects by listening, reading and seeing, but they can use only the words in line with their interests and the words used commonly (especially when speaking). The words people use to understand are passive, and the words that are used to express and build new structures are called active words.
Word Sets
Numbers, days, seasons, months, countries, languages, feelings, adjectives, prepositions, pronouns, modal verbs etc..
How many words do you need to know to speak a language well?
300, 2,000, 11,000, all the words in the dictionary? How many words do you need to know to speak a language? This is a legitimate question and one that many learners ask themselves. Some linguists believe that 800 words are enough to hold a basic conversation. However, your vocabulary should be over 8,000 words if you want to speak a language as well as a native speaker. So what is behind these figures? Are they applicable in all situations? Let’s find out…
Learn all the words in the dictionary: not necessary!
The good news is that you don’t need to know all the words in a language to be fluent! This is a point on which linguists are unanimous.
If we take the example of French, there are nearly 60,000 words in the Larousse dictionary. However, how many of us claim to know them all? Not many, I think. It is estimated that an adult French speaker uses an average of 5,000 words, i.e. a little over 8% of the words listed.
Why is this? Simply because we don’t need to know the rest. If you work in the restaurant business, for example, it is unlikely that the technical vocabulary related to aeronautics will be useful in your everyday life, and vice versa.
The number of words needed to speak a language: what the experts say
Several researchers have looked into this complex issue. A BBC article summarises the findings of one such researcher, Stuart Webb, professor of applied linguistics at the University of Western Ontario. Among other things, Webb tried specifically to answer the question: “How many words do you need to know to speak English well?”
The current English language is estimated to have about 171,000 words. This figure does not take into account some 47,000 words that are considered obsolete. It is estimated that native English speakers know about 15,000 lemmas. In linguistics, lemmas are canonical words from which other words are formed, such as dream, dreams, dreamed, or blue, blueish, bluer, etc.
According to Webb’s findings, it is impossible for an ESL learner to master as many lemmas as a native speaker. Learners find it difficult to go over the 3,000 word mark, even after years of studying the language. In their book ‘Vocabulary in Language Teaching’, Norbert and Diane Schmitt state, for example, that the average French high school student knows 1,000 English words after 400 hours of teaching.
You think that’s not enough? It depends. Professor Webb explains that 800 to 1,000 lemmas are enough to understand 75% of everyday English.
The number of words you need to know depends on your level
A few hundred words: that’s all you need to get to a “survival” level in a language. You won’t be able to hold deep conversations, but you will be able to get by in most simple situations (introducing yourself, ordering in a restaurant, asking for directions, etc.).
With 1,500 words or more, you can qualify for a pre-intermediate level. You will be able to express yourself easily and have everyday conversations with your peers and colleagues. This corresponds approximately to a level of A2/B1 on the CEFR scale.
To attain a so-called fluent level, a vocabulary of more or less 3,000 words is required. This wealth of vocabulary will enable you, for example, to watch a film in its original version without the subtitles.
What does fluency mean? Not all specialists have the same definition of the term “fluent”. It would seem that it is more a question of the perception of the level of the language than of its actual mastery. To find out more, read our article – When can you say that you speak a language fluently?
Finally, if you want to be able to express yourself as well as a native speaker or nearly so, to read novels in your target language and to aim for a C2 level, you will need to learn 8,000 to 9,000 words. If this sounds unattainable, just imagine that at 10 new words a day, you can learn 8,000 words in just over two years.
The key to success: learn the words that are useful for you!
Mastering a large vocabulary is one thing, learning words that you can use is another. If you want your vocabulary to help you to speak a language well, you need to learn words that are really useful to you.
Do you need English to talk to your new food supplier? Why learn words like paper clip or stapler? These are probably common items that you use often in the office, but they don’t necessarily serve your purpose.
This means that you will have to leave out the ready-made vocabulary lists. Terms that are relevant to one person may not be relevant to another. You must therefore opt for personalised learning adapted to your objectives. There is no need to count the words you know to measure your progress.
In short, the right question to ask yourself is “what words do I need to know to speak this language well?” and not “how many words do I need to learn to speak a language?” One thousand relevant words will always be more useful in learning a language than 3,000 words that you will never use.
With 1to1PROGRESS language training, you benefit from a tailor-made programme designed to meet your objectives. You can count on our trainers to teach you the words that really count!
How many words do you need to know at the C1 level?
How many words do you need to know at the Advanced level?
Advanced is a level that will increase your vocabulary to 4000-6000 words and expressions.
How many words do you need to know to speak?
Thus, we came to the conclusion that 3000 words is the necessary minimum for a conversation on general topics. It is possible to reach this level «from scratch» in about 1,5-2,5 years (depending on the intensity of the classes, the student’s efforts, etc.). To express yourself truly FREELY, you need to know about 5000-6000 words.
How many words do you need to know for each level?
Word count scale by level and skill
How many words do you need to know at the A1 level?
Breakthrough or Beginner English. Vocabulary less than 1500 words.
How many words do you need to know for A1?
| Proficiency level | New words | Total Words |
|---|---|---|
| A1 | 1750 | 1750 |
| A2 | 1850 | 3600 |
| B1 | 2750 | 6350 |
| B2 | 1900 | 8250 |
What do you need to know at the c1 level?
According to the official CEFR guidelines, a person who speaks English at the C1 level:
What do they study at the Advanced level?
How many words do you need to know at the Upper Intermediate level?
Vocabulary at Upper Intermediate is 3000-4000 words and expressions in active use.
How many words do you need to know to speak Korean?
How many words do you need to learn for spoken English?
To speak English fluently, you need 5000-6000 words, this level is achieved on average in 3-4 years of studying English from scratch (Advanced level). The period of studying the required number of lexemes is conditional, it all depends on how often and how hard you learn English.
How many words do you need to know to speak Spanish fluently?
For really fluent communication, you need to know about 5000-6000 words (this corresponds to the advanced level (Advanced) and requires 3-4 years of learning English «from scratch»). If you regularly study 10 words a day, you will be able to master 3000 words in a year of study.
How many words do you need to know pre intermediate?
The vocabulary of a Pre-Intermediate student is 1500-2000 words.
You can use context to understand what an unfamiliar word means and explain it.
The Numbers Game: How Many Words Do I Need to Know to Be Fluent in a Foreign Language?
Just like Tootsie Pops, languages are tasty treats that we rarely notice ourselves getting closer to the “center” of until we’re chewing on the chocolaty goodness of free-flowing conversation.
While the number of licks in a Tootsie Pop remains a mystery to this day, there are a few different ways of sussing out how many words you need to reach to be “conversational” or “fluent,” or to truly “speak” the language.
For instance, ranges of vocabulary correspond roughly to different levels of fluency and there are particular kinds of words you should learn before others to reach fluency faster.
But before we start counting, let’s talk about what we’re counting, as well as what counts.
Contents
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The Magic Number: How Many Words Do I Need to Know in My Target Language?
When someone mentions learning a foreign language, our minds often fill up with images of endless flashcard apps and apartments covered in foreign words written on sticky notes stuck to everyday objects.
After all, words are the stuff language is made of, right? The gotta-catch-’em-all approach seems bound to pay off at some point.
It’s true that you can’t learn a language without learning the words that make it up, but amassing a huge vocabulary shouldn’t be your main goal—the difference between 1,000 words and 5,000 is a small one if those extra 4,000 are just different versions of the first thousand, if they’re words you’ll rarely get to use, or if you don’t really know how to use them.
Before you can wrap your head around the difference between 1,000 words and 5,000, you’ll need to think about what a “word” is. The answer depends on who you ask.
What is a “word”?
A quick search for how many words are known by the average native English speaker can give you results that vary widely.
One source will claim that highly-educated native speakers have a vocabulary of around 10,000 words, while another says that an ordinary speaker who has finished high school knows 35,000 “easily.”
It’s not because these studies are fudging their numbers, but rather what they’re measuring is just different.
Some word counts count every form of a word. For example, from the verb “to run,” we get “run,” “runs,” “ran,” “running” and many more. By some counts, these would all count as individual words, all with slightly different meanings related to person, number and tense.
Other counts only look at headwords or word families, the forms by which most words are listed in the dictionary and the root word from which all other forms are derived. When counting this way, “house” and “houses” would be two forms of the same headword, “house.” The same would be true of “am,” “is,” “was” and “be,” all forms of the headword “to be.”
Taking the latter approach to counting up our vocabulary, you can think of a verb like “to run” as a “word” that you’ve learned, and your ability to conjugate it to “the dog runs” would count as grammatical knowledge, rather than an entirely new word.
This way of thinking closely mirrors organic language learning, in which we learn one form of a word and, as we learn more about the language and its structures, we’re able to generalize it and apply it to other situations. The grammatical understanding you acquire over time allows you to make the word plural, past tense, future tense or a direct object.
Perhaps you can already see the gulf of grey area between these two approaches.
For instance, if “run” and “ran” count as one word, what about the verb “to run” in the sense of “to manage” or the noun form, as in “a quick run to the store”? Where do we draw the line between one cluster of meanings and the next?
When attempting to count words, it’s important to adopt a consistent standard (what you’re counting and how you’re distinguishing one word from another).
It’s also important to remember that, at the end of the day, it’s all a bit arbitrary.
How do you know what you know?
Another complication is defining words we “know.”
Do you “know” a word if you sort of mostly understand it when you hear it, but are unable to recall it and use it during conversation?
Active vocabulary is vocabulary that you can quickly remember and actively use when writing, speaking and thinking.
Passive vocabulary is vocabulary that you’re passively able to understand when you see it or hear it, but that you can’t use—or that you’re unsure of how to use—when writing, speaking and thinking.
Generally speaking, new words will first be gradually absorbed into your passive vocabulary as you encounter them several times and start to get a feel for their use.
Then, once you’ve gained enough context clues, and once you’ve heard and read enough of a word’s different meanings and usages to have a more exact idea of what it means and how it’s used, it’ll move over into your active vocabulary.
Native speakers and second language speakers alike generally have a passive vocabulary several times greater than their active vocabulary. For learners, upgrading our passive vocabulary to the active category is one of the best ways to expand our knowledge of the language we’re learning.
How many words do you know, and how many do you need to know?
For the sake of this post, let’s say that our vocabulary counts are using headwords and word families that are included in our active vocabulary.
So, we’re not counting all the various forms of a given word, and we’re not counting anything that’s only in our passive vocabulary.
When we narrow our perspective down like this, we can start making approximations.
In general, we can describe levels of fluency in a foreign language with these rough word counts:
Of course, you’ll need to keep in mind that different languages have different amounts of words, and thus vocabulary quantities at different skill levels can vary considerably.
Where Quality Meets Quantity: How to Learn the Right Words in Your Target Language
There’s definitely a way to learn the right words in the right order when learning a language.
Don’t set out to learn as many words as you can as quickly as possible, but instead set out to learn the words that offer you the most benefit.
Which words do I need to learn?
A good starting point in any language is a list of high frequency vocabulary, or a handy base vocabulary list for any language.
In English, for example, 3000 words make up about 95% of everyday conversation—you’ll want to be sure you can recognize words like “the,” “is” and “goes” before you concern yourself with learning the names of plants and animals or today’s slang.
In any language, there are a few categories of words that will come in handy before others. Some of your first linguistic building blocks will be personal pronouns (I, she, your) and basic verbs, which normally include words like “to be,” “to have,” “to go” and “to do.” Once you learn six personal pronouns and just these four verbs, you’ll already have a bunch of useful words in your linguistic arsenal!
With these basic tools in hand, you’ll move on to everyday concrete nouns like words about people (boy, family, hand) and household objects (table, window, refrigerator) to basic descriptors, conjunctions, demonstratives and so forth until your vocabulary numbers in the thousands of words.
Strengthening your passive vocabulary
As earlier mentioned, most words won’t be added directly to your active vocabulary the first time you’re exposed to them.
Instead, new words tend to gradually build a home in your passive vocabulary, the words that you completely or somewhat understand when encountered in context but can’t independently use on your own (yet).
To learn more words in a language, you’ll need to saturate your passive vocabulary with new information constantly. That means exposing yourself to linguistic input like TV, videos and reading material, as well as plenty of real-life conversation.
Beginning learners, don’t fret over not understanding all the new words you expose yourself to every day. Every new word starts as an unfamiliar word, and repeated exposure is the only way to truly learn (rather than memorize) unfamiliar vocabulary.
Tips for strengthening passive vocabulary:
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Strategies for building your active vocabulary
Promoting passive vocabulary to active vocabulary is a question of use-it-or-lose-it.
Once you’ve gotten acquainted with a new word and seen its different sides, it’s time to embark on the anxiety-inducing path of trying it out and using it yourself.
Here are some handy ways to go from passive understanding to active use:
How to Build Your House of Words
Whether you’re an absolute beginner or intermediate reaching for loftier linguistic goals, let the size of your vocabulary be a barometer for your progress rather than a goal in itself.
Vocabulary is just one of the building blocks that make up a language, and just like building a house, you won’t get very far with a bunch of odd-sized bricks or a faulty foundation.
As you build your house of words and lay your bricks, remember that the foundation is all you need to get started, that syntactical scaffolding will support it, grammar will mortar it together, and social meaning and pragmatics seal off the roof.
And to build up that critical vocabulary, take a cue from the owl in the Tootsie Pop commercial.
Just bite into your language and start chewing!
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