Check your English vocabulary. How to test your English vocabulary

The well-known Ellochka from the novel “12 Chairs” easily got by with thirty words of Russian, but, apparently, she never achieved much success in life. How many words do we need to know in English to communicate on everyday and professional topics? According to researchers, about 40 words are the minimum required for 50% of understanding and speaking in everyday speech situations, 400 words should be enough for 90% of cases, and 1000 words will provide you with 95% of successful communication. Native speakers use on average from 3,000 to 20,000 words, this depends on the level of education of each individual and the typical situations in which he has to communicate. Practice shows that for English learners it is enough to master 1500-2000 words to feel confident in a conversation. As for professional terms, they usually do not cause difficulties, because in most cases they are international vocabulary. But the most important thing is to understand that words should not just be written out on beautiful cards and hung throughout the house, they should become your working tools. Let's see what steps will help you firmly grasp the necessary vocabulary, that is, the vocabulary.

1. Read carefully and draw conclusions

Whatever you read—fiction, stock market news, or a gardening blog—pay attention to how words are used and what combinations they make. Highlight, write down, copy what seems useful to you. For example, here is an excerpt from the article “How to Become an Early Riser” (by Steve Pavlina):

It seems there are two main schools of thought about sleep patterns. One is that you should go to bed and get up at the same times every day. It’s like having an alarm clock on both ends - you try to sleep the same hours each night. This seems practical for living in modern society. We need predictability in our schedules. And we need to ensure adequate rest.

How can we analyze what we read?

“It seems” - it seems, apparently. We just use it as an introductory word.
“This seems practical” - it seems practical. We understand that after “seems” an adjective is used, and now we can speak by analogy: “This seems interesting”, “This seems stupid”, “Your ideas seem nice”.
"Predictability" - predictability. If we know that “predict” means to predict and “ability” means ability, then we can calculate the meaning of this word.

2. Watch the video with and without subtitles

The same work can be done when watching your favorite movies, TV series and TV shows. If you use subtitles, it will be more convenient for you to write down the phrase you like; if not, then train your auditory perception, pause and repeat after the speaker. We can recommend an excellent resource that provides the opportunity to watch TV series in the original with super-useful subtitles: when you hover over a word, a Russian translation appears. Saves a lot of time and improves memorization.

3. Sing your favorite songs

We have already discussed how songs can help us learn English. Expanding your vocabulary is one of the tasks where songs can be used especially successfully. It is always much easier to remember what you like and what is associated with positive emotions. On the Internet you can find a lot of sites with song lyrics, for example:

Listening to your favorite songs and singing along with the performers, you learn entire phrases easily and with pleasure.

4. Take cues from celebrities

Type in the search something like “Brad Pitt interview” or “chat show with celebrities” and you will get a lot of material for independent work. As you read or listen to excerpts from the interviews, you will likely notice that certain words are used more often. For example, “amazing” is a very popular adjective to express delight:

“You look amazing!”
“The film was amazing!”
"It was an amazing experience."

5. Mastering typical phrases for standard situations

If you like to travel, you will probably need a set of certain phrases and expressions that you may need at the airport, at customs, at a hotel, in a store, etc. As you know, such conversations are not particularly varied, so for greater confidence, you can learn several mini-dialogues on the necessary topics. Various Internet resources will help you with this, where audio recordings and texts are collected, as well as assignments for them. For example, you can start from this site

6. We study words by topic

It is much easier to remember new words that are related in meaning. If, for example, you are studying the topic "Food", you just need to learn the names of different products, ready-made dishes, adjectives to describe them, etc. By discussing assignments with your teacher, you will be able to activate these words, i.e. transfer from a passive stock to a set of “working tools”. Studying will be more effective if you use different types of memory: look at pictures, listen to pronunciation and repeat yourself. Use, for example, this resource, which will help you do all of the above and learn new words with ease.

7. Use dictionaries

In our age of information technology, paper dictionaries are no longer popular, and even schoolchildren readily use their online versions. Starting from the Pre-Intermediate level, it is recommended to use the so-called “English-English dictionaries”, that is, not to translate unfamiliar words, but to look for their definitions in English. In addition, dictionaries can provide you with a supply of synonyms, antonyms and idioms that include a given word. According to Wikipedia, the following dictionaries are the most useful and reliable sources of information:

8. Play word games

Crosswords, gallows, Scrabble and other games can also help you enrich your speech because they help you remember the spelling of words you know in a fun way. In addition, many word games can be played in a fun company, combining business with pleasure: learning English with friendly communication. Tip for the curious: try playing Scrabble with an open dictionary.

9. We arm ourselves with devices and gadgets

It takes a long time to write words on cards, there is no time to make sentences, but we always have smartphones, iPhones and other devices at hand. When you have a free minute, you can start learning new words, and you don’t need to carry any pieces of paper, printouts, or textbooks with you. If you don’t know which application to choose, use advice from British Council experts.

10. Use it or lose it!

The most important thing in mastering vocabulary is to use it in your speech. Passive vocabulary is good for reading and listening, that is, for recognizing words. To speak and write, we need to learn to retrieve words from memory very quickly, and this can only be achieved with practice. According to researchers, for a word to become active in speech, it must be used in various contexts about 17 times. Therefore, before class, set yourself the task of speaking more than the teacher and be sure to use new words.

Big and friendly EnglishDom family

What should it be? vocabulary) to solve certain problems (reading English literature, communicating on everyday topics, conducting business correspondence, watching TV shows, etc.)? Many students learning English ask themselves this question.

Today we will talk specifically about English vocabulary for various levels and you will find out what opportunities each of these levels opens up for you. First, let's find out what vocabulary is. Vocabulary is the set of words that a person knows. It is divided into active (words that a person uses himself in written and spoken speech) and passive (words that a person recognizes when reading or in oral speech, but does not use them himself). It is obvious that the passive stock significantly exceeds the active one. It is worth noting that vocabulary should be understood not only as knowledge of words, but also as their correct pronunciation, writing and recognition in speech.

How many words are there in English?

It is quite difficult to answer this question. The history of Great Britain is complicated in this regard - the Iberians (the most ancient population of the British Isles), the Celts (came from modern Belgium and France), the Picts (lat. pices- colourized), the 400-year domination of the Romans, the invasion of West Germanic tribes (Angles, Saxons, Nomes, Frisians), the raids of the Scandinavians and, finally, the Normans (Northern France, King William the Conqueror), led to the fact that words in the English language became very a lot of. The famous Oxford English Dictionary, which contains only English words and expressions, has about 600,000 English words. But according to the linguistic portal Global Language Monitor, which also includes hybrid words from dialects (Chinese English, Spanish English, computer jargon and others), there are already more than a million words in English. In practice, the vocabulary of a native speaker is an order of magnitude smaller than all the words in the language. For example, the average vocabulary of an educated English speaker is 12,000 – 18,000 words. For comparison, I will say that V. I. Dal’s “Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language” contains about 200,000 words, 30,000 of which are the most commonly used, and a person with a higher education knows about 10,000 Russian words. (Wikipedia).

English vocabulary for different levels

How can you use this or that English vocabulary?

In order to be able to express yourself fluently or read at a basic level (Elementary/Pre-Intermediate), you need to have about 1000 words in stock.
If you have about 2,500 words under your belt, you can already communicate fairly well on everyday topics and read at an intermediate level.
With 4000-5000 words, you can communicate freely on various topics, read newspapers and specialized literature, watch and listen to television/radio programs (understanding the main meaning).
With a vocabulary of 8,000 words or more, you can already communicate at the level of an average native speaker. This reserve is enough to feel confident among the carriers in almost any situation. You can read any English literature, watch films, have conversations on a variety of topics.

Now you understand what English vocabulary You need it to achieve your goals in your life. Having reached a certain level of English proficiency, you need to constantly maintain it. It should be remembered that if you do not actively use the language and do not practice English in everyday life, you can easily lose the skills acquired through such painstaking work. Your active English vocabulary will shift towards passive. How can we make sure this doesn’t happen? The ideal solution would be to stay in an English-speaking country. In this case, you will have constant practice and your level of language proficiency will naturally improve and increase. But what to do if this is not possible? In my article, I described in detail various approaches to learning English and effective ways to maintain motivation. To test your English vocabulary, you can use a good service called Test your vocab.

You can also check out other articles on learning vocabulary.

I use Puzzle-English as an additional learning source. I really love the “songs” section, I hope it will be updated! Even today I thought that it would be very interesting to take part in filling the service.
I also love the exercise section; unfortunately, I rarely get to watch the training videos themselves, but I enjoy going through the tasks! Thank you very much for your work!

Margarita,
26 years old, Moscow

I really love learning English, and the Puzzle English website is truly the highest quality and thoughtful resource I have ever come across!!! I always feel a lot of gratitude to the creators and developers of the site for your work. What I like most is working with listening and videos, and in general, the fact that you can highlight any word and add it to your dictionary is, in my opinion, incredibly useful! Thank you very much!
Violet,
36 years old, Rostov-on-Don
I have been striving to master English for a long time. I need it for study and work. I took courses and tried using various computer programs, but the results were not encouraging. I learned about Puzzle-English on the Internet. I liked the project. I decided to try it. Having already completed 50 lessons (listening, videos, TV series), I noticed that I began to understand English by ear quite well. This inspired me, because... I could almost independently understand lectures in English. In this, I believe that Puzzle-English helped me a lot. I continue to study English on Puzzle-English and I am sure that the results will be even better. Working out is interesting and exciting. Well done authors! We took a creative approach to creating a website - from idea to practical implementation. I am glad that the guys do not stop there, but are constantly improving and developing services.
Igor Vayzyan,
53 years old, Volzhsk
I am a housewife, far from young, almost of pre-retirement age, and I SEEMS like I don’t need English anymore, and the meager school and institute base is enough for travel, BUT - having accidentally stumbled upon a puzzle-English website on the Internet, I plunged into it with something unexpected for myself pleasure. I don’t have a specific motive for learning the language, but almost every evening my hands type “Paz-In” on their own and I go to lessons and exercises. The idea of a sentence constructor is so exciting that my daughter (9 years old) herself sits down with Peppa Pig and, now, for Mazzy, and asks me not to give any hints. Many thanks to the creators of the site, we are looking forward to new lessons and cartoons for girls. Good luck!
Irina-yori,
Moscow
I mostly watch only TV series, first with Russian, then English subtitles on headphones. I check new words in the EN-Ru dictionary. I like grammar exercises and a variety of videos. The main thing is to do this every day. I’m trying to conduct a monologue in English to myself, using new words from Puzzle English. I want to learn English more and more.
Victor,
55 years old, Tolyatti
I have been learning English for quite a long time, both independently and with tutors. But this gave almost no visible results: either it was boring, or the approach to studying was not correct. But since I got acquainted with Puzzle-English everything has changed. Thanks to this resource, in less than six months I began to freely understand spoken English and translate texts of average complexity. Learning on this site is interesting, fun and always accessible. The “Serials” section was especially effective for me. I thank the site developers for such a wonderful resource and a great opportunity to finally learn English!
Sergey,
24 years old, Kharkov
In the evenings I like to sit in Puzzle English. I love the play space the site offers. I love singing songs, although they often change and sometimes I don’t even have time to remember or write them down. I love children's songs, especially since their author is a very talented musician. I like the series of programs about who lives in London and what. This greatly expands your horizons and gives you a lot of frequently used words in different versions. I liked the videos about Buddha and the Angkor Wat temple complex, I love the travel series. I liked the new Sherlock, the only thing I regretted was that there was no series about Poirot with David Suchet. The songs are the best. I began to understand English by ear, although if it is not native speakers who speak, but Asians, Latin Americans, Indians, I still have difficulty understanding. For me, this is gurgling in a cauldron... My vocabulary expanded and this was done playfully, without any tension. And I’m just happy to learn English on this site.
Hera,
Minsk
I fell in love with English a long time ago during my school years. Unfortunately, when I was studying, we developed reading skills, so after school I read at a fairly good level, I understand about 80% of what is written. And such important skills as listening comprehension and speaking speech was practically not taught at school, or was taught in limited quantities. I came across this site by chance about 2 years ago and I liked it for its gradation of educational material for users with different levels of training. The audio clips presented on Puzzle English helped to significantly improve the listening comprehension of English speech, especially in films, because if you take news clips, the announcers speak very clearly and my level of listening comprehension reached 60-70% when watching such clips. And When watching films, usually all my words merged into an almost continuous stream and you can only make out individual familiar words. By watching films on this site and analyzing them in detail by phrases. On the second, third viewing, you already hear these phrases and remember what they are mean. And if you watch the film at least 10 times, the phrases are already spinning in your head and not only that, one might even say they roll off your tongue. Thanks to Alexander Antonov and his team for such a huge and necessary work, and most importantly for a not very large annual fee
Vladislav,
42 years old, Kyiv
When I found out that in 5 years I would need a decent knowledge of English, I went on an Internet reconnaissance mission. This was in October 2012 and I had almost zero knowledge of English (basic reading rules, 3 simple tenses, 500 words of vocabulary as a result of all my previous attempts). After trying a bunch of sites, I ended up on Puzzle English... And I fell in love... Because that I found such a wonderful idea here, that I didn’t have to study in the classical sense, but could just play with words, trying to put them in the right order. And to help, the translation is right next to the word, and the voice acting is right there, and it’s cool and clear. It’s great that the words are all in context and therefore are remembered much faster. And besides, the videos... After watching a bunch of different ones, I forever got rid of the fear of whether I could speak correctly in English, since I saw that straight people often use fairly free construction of sentences. When the movie appeared, I already understood the series by 50%, and TED by almost 90%. In a word, my results exceeded all my expectations about them. I recently passed an interview-test with teachers from the USA, which identified me as a strong Advanced. But it’s not even 2 years since I ended up on puz-eng. And all thanks to such a wonderful invention - not to study, but to PLAY folding puzzles. Super! Now I am sure that by staying with you, in a couple of years I will become proficient in English. I wish you to grow and develop, and I wish you the same.
Irina,
37 years old, Lviv
Thank you very much for your site. Working with your website is very useful for developing listening skills. I have been learning English for many years, but understanding English has been my main problem. After studying on your site, I made a big leap in this area and began to understand English texts by ear much better. An important innovation of the site developers is interactive exercises - puzzles. They allow you not only to watch a video and read subtitles, but to actively act, making sentences from the words you listened to. The selection of videos and films is very impressive. Personally, I especially like popular science documentaries, a large number of which are available on the site. In the future, I would like to see on your website the series “Friends” (at least its first episodes) and classic English detective stories (such as, for example, “Inspector Morse” or “Inspector Lewis”), as well as films in which you can hear correct and competent English speech (“Royal English”). Also, in my opinion, it would be useful to create a general ranking table for site participants so that they have the opportunity to compete with each other by being active. I would like to wish the site developers further success and further development of this very useful endeavor.
Alexander,
54 years old, Moscow
A huge THANK YOU to the entire Puzzle English team for such a wonderful project!! I studied English like everyone else: school, college, even some courses at work, I tried many sites, but there was no such result, I just “mumbled” something there, and nothing more)). About 1.5 years ago I accidentally came across Puzzle English, then the site was still very young, but from the first visit it attracted attention, I won’t lie, firstly, the price, compared to other sites, is VERY affordable, and secondly, such a variety of materials I haven’t seen anything like Puzzle English anywhere - there are a large number of videos of different levels, grammar exercises, service series (a truly unique service). Thirdly, you can study at any time convenient for you. It is also worth noting that the site is aimed at Russian-speaking people learning English and all explanations of the material take place in the RUSSIAN LANGUAGE, which is important if your level of knowledge of the language is not so high... In this regard, I would like to note one more interesting thing “thing” as “Tips-secrets”, personally I learned a lot of useful things from them!! After 1.5 years spent with Puzzle English, I’m finally starting to speak English, and not “moo” as before, the fear of communicating with native speakers has passed, before that I was always afraid of seeming stupid and avoided communication, I have improved my ability to perceive the language by ear . In general, we can talk about this project for a very long time, but it’s better to try!! Once again I would like to express my gratitude to those who are working on the project. I am very pleased with the way the whole process is organized. Administrators work very efficiently and quickly, the site is constantly evolving. I would like to wish a long life to the project!!
Anton,
28 years old, Khabarovsk
I usually don’t write reviews, I don’t like it (and maybe I don’t know how). But for my favorite site Puzzle-English I will make an exception :-) In my opinion, Puzzle-English is the best site for self-learning English, and even in a playful way. There is never a dull moment on the site; you can always choose a video to your liking, regardless of your level of language proficiency. The site will be interesting for both beginners and experienced students: in front of you is a huge catalog of cute songs for children, cartoons, musical hits that are booming all over the world, performances by famous artists and politicians, fragments of TV shows, educational videos and other videos of varying levels of complexity. Your task is to listen to part of the video, try to hear the phrase clearly and assemble a mosaic of its words. I treat this service as a game, entertainment, when I want to take a break from my main work and relax for ten minutes, I just go to Puzzle-English and collect the video I like. There is an interesting effect with songs when you UNDERSTAND what the song is about.. Those who are interested in English grammar can go to the exercises section and practice the chosen topic, collecting specially selected sentences, of course, first listening to a short theoretical video explaining the intricacies of this Topics. All phrases in this section are voiced by a narrator. The Puzzle-English website has a unique “Serials” service. Before you are several dozen episodes of famous TV series and programs: “Two and a Half Men”, “Sherlock”, “Great Expectations”, “Life on Mars”, TED conference speeches, etc. You just watch your favorite series, and in difficult moments you press pause and there is an opportunity to read the script of the episode, listen to the phrase again, watch a video explanation of slang expressions and words. If you are a beginner, you can set subtitles to display in English and/or Russian. The site has a built-in player specially designed, and therefore convenient, for learning the language. All unfamiliar words can be placed in a “personal dictionary”. It is noteworthy that in addition to the word, the dictionary contains a corresponding phrase with a translation into Russian. And in the end, I want to recommend you the Puzzle-English channel on YouTube, the guys there share tips on learning languages on your own, and the entire collection of educational videos on the site is collected there. PS. In order to use the site, you do not have to be a user with a paid account. Many sections can be used for free, but an annoying sign with a payment offer will be displayed all the time. P.P.S. And yet, I urge you to pay for the site’s services, this money will help make the site even better, and its creators deserve to be paid for their work, in addition, a lot of additional opportunities will open up for you.
Inga,
hero city Sevastopol
When I started learning English in the eighteenth last century we had only boring and incomprehensible English manuals. At that time didn't exist the mp3 players, smartphones and laptops. I remembered even how People lived without the internet. And If I"d such stuff earlier, I"d was probably speaking English fluently now and could understand the English speech, movies and songs. Modernity has given us awesome facilities to study English. We can read the authentic books and newspapers, hear the English songs and audio books, watch the foreign movies and TV, communicate with native speakers. But we haven"t any time to practice this. Because I was glad when I found the site Puzzle English. On this website you can take a maximum of English stuff for yourself and spend a minimum of your time. Where are huge plenty of useful and interested English lessons, exercises, TV"s serials and so long. All of the ones were carefully prepared for education purpose. You can instantly find translation and pronunciation each English word or phrase and add one in your private vocabulary to try it later. All workouts are doing easy and fast. And I"m visiting on every day this site to improve my English language. Of course I use not only this website, but Puzzle English is my favorite one. And I hope with Puzzle English my awful English will have been reached the perfection.
Vladimir Shchepkov,
49 years old, Sergiev Posad

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

5.Listen to songs and analyze texts;

Every foreign language has basic words that are most often used. If you select the most common verbs, nouns, adjectives and prepositions (about 500 units in total), you can cover with them about 90% of the vocabulary that is necessary for daily communication. However, you should not think that the dictionary solves everything. Words need to be used skillfully, deftly weaving them into phrases and sentences, so you shouldn’t chase the number of words, it’s better to take care of the quality of their memorization and make sure that they move from a passive dictionary to an active one.

How to expand your English vocabulary: a few simple tips

Learn words correctly. You shouldn’t try to memorize 50 words every day if in the end you can only reproduce 15. Learn less, but with better quality. Remember to repeat the words periodically so that they are eventually stored in long-term memory.
Use English-English dictionary for translation. The benefit of such a dictionary is that you not only become familiar with the meaning of words, but also learn synonyms, antonyms, and also remember common expressions.
Repeat words you recently learned.
Learn the words that are around you.

A little about how to learn words. It is best to memorize words and expressions on topics, for example, tourism, fashion, music, literature. Highlight for yourself the most relevant topics that are needed for everyday life. Don't forget about the active use of words. You can compose mini-stories with the vocabulary that you remember.

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

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

2. Using flash cards. On one side of the card there is a word in Russian, on the other - in English. We study 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 improve your vocabulary is good, the main thing is to find the time and actually study the language in order to keep up with the billions of people who have already begun to study the language of Shakespeare.

Help improve your vocabulary online service for learning English Lim English will be able to. For this purpose, the lesson includes a personal dictionary into which you can add new words. Already in the first month of training you can learn several hundred words, and after studying for a year - at least 3 thousand. and start learning right now!

Every even remotely serious lover of anything in the world sooner or later has a desire to measure his collection: in money, in volume, in quantity... The philatelist carefully blows the dust off the hundredth stamp in the album, Henry Ford polishes the new one to a shine tire, Rockefeller looks at the number of zeros in the amount stored in the bank, etc. How to be an English lover? Love for English can also be measured. The hours devoted to studying? Words that make up an active vocabulary!

Supplies vary

No, not firewood for the winter or sweets under the pillow, as you already understood, but English words in the vocabulary. There is nothing shameful or boastful about measuring your vocabulary: after all, there is no limit to perfection, but there are intermediate stages along the way.

Statistics, supported by practice, say that to freely express your thoughts in English you only need 2000 words. Statistics, also supported by optimism, give a figure of 1000-1500 words, but the creators of Basic English are wizards and our best friends - only 850 words. Realists and optimists, hold off on your skepticism! Basic English is divided into thematic groups of words (objects and phenomena, actions and movements, expression of qualities) - original selections of the most hit examples from each category. In fact, frequently used, mostly monosyllabic words (514 out of 850), easy to remember and pronounce, were selected.

We would like to ask everyone who relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief after the figures were announced: what do you personally mean by the concept of “expressing yourself freely”? Of course, asking for a window seat at an airport check-in counter or ordering a veal chop at a restaurant requires 2,000 words. Diving begins where, when answering a question, you do not understand the meaning of the unfamiliar words spoken or cannot talk about specific gastronomic preferences in the company of gourmets. And then we multiply 2000 by two and get 4000 words, which will certainly allow you not to lose face and keep up your conversation in English.

One more nuance: so far we have been talking about active vocabulary, i.e. layer of those words that you regularly use when speaking. What you once wrote down in a dictionary and, on occasion, perhaps (!) remember the meaning, is called passive stock - words that you seem to know, but most lie on the shelves of memory under a layer of dust. Yes, they fall into the general standings, but they don’t bring any special dividends.

Perfectionists hungry for more! Outside the language environment, learning the 8,000 words that make up the active vocabulary of an English-speaking citizen is quite difficult. It is possible, of course, but with great energy consumption, diligence and methodicality. With a luggage of 4-5 thousand words, you can safely pack your bags to Britain, the USA or Canada, where you are doomed to expand your vocabulary to the treasured 8-10 thousand units.

Gradations of vocabulary

Or how much is needed for complete happiness? You can start with the top 10 or top 100 words in the English language and be happy. A selection of the most commonly used English words around the world will set the desired vector for replenishing your vocabulary. And we again pick up a ruler and return to simple arithmetic, this time introducing you to gradations (types) of vocabulary.

400-500 words of active vocabulary - a passport to the world of English and a certificate of language proficiency at a basic level
. 800-1000 “active” words will give you the opportunity to explain yourself and talk about everyday topics, the same amount of “passives” will allow you to read simple texts
. 1500-2000 words of “assets” will reward you with the opportunity to freely communicate throughout the day or the same amount of “passives” - confident reading of more complex texts
. 3000-4000 words bring you closer to almost fluent reading of newspapers or books and magazines in your specialty
. 8000 words guarantee full communication for the average European. This is also enough for free reading and expressing thoughts in writing.
. up to 13,000 words characterize a highly educated person learning English as a foreign language.

How to determine and test English vocabulary?

Find out on the accounts? Marking familiar words in the dictionary? Let's not reinvent the wheel and borrow an answer from the creators of a test that can weigh your vocabulary in 2-3 minutes with an error of up to 10%. There will be a link to the test in a minute, but for now there will be brief instructions on how to use it and the answer to the question “how does it work.”

The developers took a dictionary of 70,000 words as a basis, discarded outdated, compound words, scientific terms and derivatives of each other, resulting in 45,000. Then they sorted them by frequency of use, sincerely admitting that the last 10,000 out of 45,000 are extremely rare, so even a respectable Briton may not feel remorse without ever using them in his life. From the English vocabulary test, words whose meaning could be obtained through logic were excluded.

The entire test consists of two pages: each contains English words in several columns without any logical sequence. If you know at least one of the possible meanings of a word, then confidently put a tick next to it. The task is the same on two pages, only on the second the program selects words from unfamiliar ones from the first page, as if wanting to make sure whether you really don’t know them. No sleight of hand, no cheating: the only condition is to be honest with yourself and not overdo the number of checkmarks.

We invite you to take the test for a couple of minutes, and then return to our article for a debriefing. We have already prepared a line :)

We measure ourselves by results

And now you are left alone with your test result. How did others cope? Statistics collected after passing this test say that among non-native speakers, the majority of respondents ended up with between 3 and 7 thousand words. There are noticeably fewer holders of 7-10 thousand words and even fewer from 11 to 30 thousand (strangely enough, even 30-thousand people paid attention to this test).

Among those for whom English is native, the situation looks different: a cosmic vocabulary of 30 thousand words for non-native speakers is the norm for 30-year-old English-speaking friends. The average result of the previous category of 3-7 thousand is typical for children 5-6 years old. Do not forget that it is precisely at this age that the world is actively being explored and the entire surrounding family with 30 thousand deposits around is actively not silent.