Hi there, Vladimir here with another video about how to learn English
How many words are there in the English language?
But more importantly
How many words do we really need to know?
How many words in the English language?
This is a very difficult question to answer for a couple of reasons:
first we need to define what we mean by an English word
English is originally a Germanic language
as a result of the Norman Conquest,
thousands of French words entered the English language
Then during the industrial revolution
English borrowed heavily from Greek and Latin
for all those chemicals and other scientific entities
And more recently as a result of globalization,
more words from all over the world enter the English language
What counts as English?
It is hard to say
Another problem is that
it is hard to decide what counts as a word
B-O-W
pronounced /bau/
Bow means Bend
Bow out = leave a job
Bow pronounced /bou/
Bow means Knot
Bow = Weapon
Is that 4 words?
Do we count the plural: Bows as a separate word?
Is that different from the third person Bows
How about the gerund: Bowing
According to Google there are over 1 million words in the English language
Webster's Third New International Dictionary,
includes some 470,000 entries.
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English 6th Edition includes
230,000 words, phrases and meanings
The Second Edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary contains
full entries for over 170,000 words
Cambridge Dictionary has over 140,000 words, phrases, and meanings.
How many words in the English language?
Lots of words
A better question might be:
How many words does your average native speaker know?
well it depends but according to the Economist
it ranges from 20,000 to 35,000 words
Still quite a lot
A better question still is
How many words do native speakers actually use?
According to Oxford dictionary:
7,000 words account for 90% of the language
Most native speakers know on average about 27,000 words, but 90% of the time
native speakers of English use just 7,000 words in speech and writing
27,000 vs 7,000 is a considerable difference.
It's Passive vs Active vocabulary
But those numbers are for native speakers
how about non-native speakers?
How many words do we really need to know?
there are 3 answers to that question,
there are 3 numbers:
The first number
is about being able to speak and express our every thought
The second number is about
being able to understand other people in a face-to-face conversation.
The third number is about
watching movies, TV, passing a language test and everything else.
It's basically the size of your Active vs Passive vocabulary.
Let us look at each of these 3 numbers.
How many words do we need in order to speak fluently?
The answer to that question is in the most important piece of advice
I give every language learner:
use monolingual learner's dictionaries
Listen carefully:
monolingual learner's dictionaries use a limited list of common words
for writing simple definitions of every word in the dictionary.
The list is called "defining vocabulary"
according to Wikipedia,
in 1978 Longman was one of the first modern dictionaries to use defining vocabulary,
How many words are on the defining vocabulary list?
Longman uses defining vocabulary of just 2,000 words in its definitions
Macmillan writes the definitions using a special defining vocabulary of 2,500 words
Oxford uses around 3,000 words
here is your answer to the question of speaking:
You need between 2,000 and 3,000 words in order to speak well.
With about 2,500 words you can express
ANY idea
and make a sentence on ANY topic
from literature to business,
from philosophy to mathematics,
from sports to movies,
every conceivable topic
Granted, not in the most eloquent of ways
but still,
you will be able to get your message across.
Between 2,000 and 3,000 words,
Let's meet in the middle: 2,500 words for speaking
How about listening comprehension?
How many words do we need in order to understand what others are telling us
in a typical face-to-face conversation
it depends, but in most cases
2,000 to 3,000 words should do,
same number,
for two reasons:
Firstly, in a face-to-face conversation
native speakers are kind enough to adjust their level,
cutting down on the slang and focusing on more common words and phrases
The second reason you could get by with even 2,000 words
in a face-to-face conversation is that
you can Confirm and Clarify when you don't understand.
In a face-to-face conversation you could ask:
These are the few questions every language learner must learn first.
There is nothing wrong with not being able to hear or understand what other people say,
but there is plenty wrong not being able to ask, confirm and clarify
How about language tests?
the answer to that question is once again in my favorite English learner's dictionaries
According to Macmillan dictionary
90% of the time, speakers of English use just 7,500 words in speech and writing
Oxford dictionary gives a similar number:
7,000 words account for 90% of the language
2,000 vs 7,000 is a considerable difference.
It's Active vs Passive vocabulary:
Active is vocabulary we use with great ease on a daily basis.
Passive is vocabulary we understand when we hear or read but don't use daily.
Let's recap:
2,000 to 3,000 words for speaking
That's active vocabulary
2,000 to 3,000 words for listening in a typical face-to-face conversation
That's active and passive vocabulary
7,000 words for language tests as well as movies, newspapers and news on TV
passive and active vocabulary
And the good news is that
most language learners already know 2,000 words.
The bad news is that
most language learners don't know how to use them quickly
and in grammatically correct sentences.
Most people can't remember the words they know
Remember quickly and use accurately
Because most language learners don't know how to learn vocabulary
that's what Virtually Native is all about How to learn
It is truly shocking how much time people waste because they don't know how to learn English
Don't waste your time and read my book Virtually Native
which is available on Amazon and virtuallynative.com
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