How many words do we use? What is the lexicon of modern man.

It is believed that at the dawn of human existence, speech was not much richer than that of some animals. If, for example, in chickens the “language” has 10 simplest signals, the “language” of a baboon has 18, then primitive man, like chimpanzees, the "vocabulary" barely exceeded 30 signals - calls.

As society developed, human speech was constantly enriched with new words. Published in 1956-1965 by the Academy of Sciences, the "Dictionary of the Modern Russian Language" in 17 volumes contains 120,480 words.

How quickly do children learn language? If a child at the age of one year knows only three words, then after six months his vocabulary increases to 26-28 words. At four years old, he already knows about 1,000 words, and at six and a half years old he pronounces an average of 2 thousand words and understands the meaning of another 6 thousand.

Scientists have conducted research and calculated that 6084 different words are found in the works of the ancient Roman poet Horace; the English poet Milton has about 8,000 words; in Homeric poems - about 9 thousand words; in the works of Shakespeare - 15 thousand words (according to other sources - up to 24 thousand words), in the works of Pushkin - 21 thousand words.

It is curious to compare with the dictionaries of great writers the number of words that ordinary people use. According to psychologists, a 14-year-old teenager uses 9,000 words, an average adult uses 11,700 words, and an educated person uses up to 13,500 words.

I wonder how many words a person says every day? It depends on temperament, profession and other conditions. Scientists nevertheless established an average figure: 30 thousand words. At the same time, a person speaks on average at a speed of 125-160 words per minute, and thinks with the same words twice as fast.

The recognized "talkers", according to research, are the French. Their average speech rate is 350 syllables per minute. They were followed by the Japanese - 310 syllables and the Germans are not far behind - 250 syllables. Polynesia and Melanesia - an average of 50 syllables per minute.

Finns are the most silent nation in the world. The Canadians follow. The most talkative and loud are Italians, Brazilians and Mexicans.

Is it good to talk? Useful - so says the American professor Williams. People who are not talkative are subject to various kinds of stress, as they do not give an outlet for the energy accumulated in them. As a result, they age prematurely.

And one more interesting data. Experts have calculated that each person on average speaks one hour a day. Over a lifetime, this is approximately 2.5 years. If everything uttered by a person during his life is fixed on paper, you get a thousand volumes of 400 pages each.

For a long time, many people think that women talk more than men. But recently, scientists have tested and refuted this opinion, establishing that, in general, both men and women pronounce the same number of words, which means they are equally talkative.

The Russian language is rich in vocabulary. Dahl's dictionary contains about two hundred thousand lexical units. IN Everyday life much fewer words are used.

Age norms for the number of words used

The number of words used changes throughout life. According to medical standards, the number of words a child uses preschool age should be between two and three thousand. Over the years schooling active dictionary up to five thousand.

For people who have received higher education, the norm is a vocabulary within ten thousand words.

A group of scientists from America and Brazil conducted a study age-related changes vocabulary. Two hundred thousand people participated in the experiment, so the data obtained during it can be considered quite accurate.

The survey showed that the maximum rate of mastering new words falls on the age from three to sixteen years. During this period, a person learns an average of 4 new words every day.

After the age of sixteen, the speed decreases markedly and, up to fifty years, there is about one new word for every day of life. People over the age of fifty retain the previously acquired baggage of words, but practically no new ones are added.

How many words do you need for everyday communication?

It is necessary to distinguish between the concepts of active and passive vocabulary. For example, reading fiction requires the reader to know tens of thousands of words and phrases. But you don't have to use them all every day.

An adult in ordinary life a thousand words can be enough for a day if it professional activity unrelated to communication. But this is an extreme option; for full communication, at least two thousand are required. Professionals in different fields add one and a half to two thousand more special terms.

“William Shakespeare's dictionary is estimated by researchers to be 12,000 words. The dictionary of a negro from the cannibalistic tribe "Mumbo-Yumbo" is 300 words. Ellochka Schukina easily and freely managed thirty, ”this quote from Ilf and Petrov’s“ Twelve Chairs ”is familiar to everyone. The satirists, and with them the readers, laughed a lot at the narrow-minded and undeveloped, but overly self-confident and arrogant Ellochka, all of whose interests, thoughts and emotions easily fit into thirty words. Meanwhile, starting to write texts, many, without noticing it, turn into the cannibal Ellochka. Whatever they want to write about, the same “Ho-ho!” comes out from under the pen. and “Hamite, boy!”. In this lesson, we will talk about how to get rid of the problem of the cannibal Ellochka, expand your vocabulary. And in the next lesson we will learn how to learn how to use it correctly.

Lexicon

Lexicon (dictionary, lexicon) is a set of words that a person understands and uses in his speech.

Vocabulary is usually divided into two types: active and passive.

Active vocabulary are the words that a person regularly uses in oral speech and letter.

Passive vocabulary - this set of words that a person knows and understands by ear or when reading, but does not use them himself. You can check your passive vocabulary on this site.

Usually the volume of the passive vocabulary exceeds the volume of the active vocabulary several times. At the same time, the volumes of active and passive vocabulary are moving quantities: a person constantly learns new words and at the same time forgets or stops using words that he has already learned.

What should be the volume of active and passive vocabulary? Surprisingly, this question turned out to be quite difficult to answer. The volume of the dictionary V.I. Dahl has two hundred thousand words, the academic dictionary of modern Russian literary language- about one hundred and thirty thousand, the latest edition of Ozhegov's explanatory dictionary - seventy thousand words. Obviously, such meanings exceed the vocabulary of even the most erudite person. Unfortunately, there is no exact scientific data on the average active and passive vocabulary of an educated adult. Active vocabulary estimates range from five thousand to thirty-five thousand words. As for the passive vocabulary, the spread is from twenty thousand to one hundred thousand words. Most likely, the truth, as always, lies somewhere in the middle. It is reasonable to assume that the active vocabulary of an adult reaches about fifteen thousand words (as you know, the active vocabulary of such a master of words as Pushkin was about twenty thousand words), and the passive vocabulary - forty to fifty thousand words (it is difficult to imagine ordinary person who would know all the meanings of words from Ozhegov's dictionary).

There is a simple way to help you roughly estimate the amount of passive vocabulary. Take dictionary, for example, the same Ozhegov dictionary, open it on an arbitrary page, count how many of the defined words you know. Be honest with yourself: if a word seems familiar to you, but you don’t know exactly what it means, then you don’t need to count this word. Then multiply this figure by the number of pages. Of course, keep in mind that this result is approximate: you must assume that all pages contain the same number of articles from which you know the same number of words. For the purity of the experiment, you can repeat these steps several times. However, you still won't get the exact result.

If you are too lazy to mess with the dictionary and calculations on your own, you can use our test.

Ways to expand vocabulary

When writing texts, it is very important that the words used are as diverse as possible. This, firstly, allows you to express your thoughts most accurately, and secondly, it makes the perception of the text easier for the reader. There are several rules to help expand your vocabulary. They were developed primarily for people learning foreign languages, but can also be used effectively for their native language.

Passive vocabulary

Read as much as possible. Reading- this is one of the main sources of new information, and, accordingly, new words. At the same time, try to choose literature as much as possible. high level- It doesn't matter if it's fiction, historical literature or journalism. The higher the level of the authors, the greater the chance that they use a variety of vocabulary, and most importantly, they use words correctly. So you will memorize not only new words, but also right ways their use.

Don't be afraid to appear ignorant. Many people feel extremely uncomfortable when their interlocutor seems to be very educated, well-read and uses a lot of unfamiliar words. In such a situation, many are afraid of being branded as ignorant, and therefore embarrassed to ask about the meaning of a particular new word. Never act like this. It's always better to ask about a word you don't know than to remain in the dark for the rest of your life. Don't think you'll look up this word in the dictionary when you get home. You will simply forget it. If your interlocutor is really smart, your question will never seem funny to him.

Use a dictionary. It is useful to have a set of academic dictionaries and encyclopedias at home that you can refer to when needed. Naturally, good dictionaries are not cheap, they are often published in small print runs and take up a lot of shelf space. Fortunately, with the development of the Internet, the problem of access to dictionaries has been solved. Now you can find dictionaries and encyclopedias on almost any subject. Portals are quite easy to use: slovari.yandex.ru and www.gramota.ru.

Active vocabulary

The above tips help to expand, above all, the passive vocabulary. but main topic of our lessons is effective writing of texts. Therefore, the goal is not only to learn new words, but also to learn how to actively use them in writing. Here are some exercises aimed at translating a word from a passive vocabulary into an active one:

note method. You need to take cards, leaflets or colored stickers. On one side you write the word you want to remember, on the other - its meaning, synonyms, examples of use. Such cards can be sorted out at home, in transport, at work. Fast, convenient and efficient!

Notebook of synonyms. You can take a simple notebook or create an electronic document where you will write down words and rows of synonyms for them. For example, take the word result. A number of synonyms for it: consequence, consequence, trace, fruit, sum, total, conclusion, conclusion. It must be remembered that not only synonymous words can be attached here, but also entire constructions: in this way, so, from this we can conclude that we have come to the conclusion that, etc. Also, in such a notebook, you can make notes about the nature of a particular word: obsolete, high, vernacular, pejorative. If you use an electronic document, then words on the same subject can be combined into separate blocks. In addition, such a notebook can also be supplemented with antonyms.

Thematic cards. They are convenient to use if you want to memorize and translate several words related to a common theme into your active dictionary at once. Write them down on one card and stick them in a prominent place. As a result, if you remember at least one word from the card, the rest will inevitably come to your mind.

association method. Try to accompany the memorization of words with associations: figurative, color, olfactory, tactile, gustatory, motor. The presence of such an association will help to remember the right word much faster. Moreover, you can rhyme an important word for you in some short rhyme or insert it into a stupid and meaningless, but memorable statement.

Presentations and compositions. We are used to the fact that presentations and essays are school exercises, and after finishing school, you can never return to them. Meanwhile, they help to significantly improve your writing skills and expand your active vocabulary. The presentations are suitable for a situation where you read a text in which you met a lot of unfamiliar, but useful words. Make a short written summary of this text using these keywords and they will remain in your memory. As for essays, there is no need to write long treatises, a short five-sentence story in which you insert new words is enough.

Memory calendar. This is a repetition graph of the words you want to translate into the active dictionary. It is based on research into how human memory works. Scientists have long found out that after a week a person forgets eighty percent of all new information received. However, this percentage can be significantly reduced by repeating the material at regular intervals. Then it goes into long-term active memory. For this, the so-called rational repetition mode was developed. For convenience, here is a table:

• First repetition. Immediately after reading
• Second repetition. After half an hour
• Third repetition. In one day
• Fourth repetition. After two days
• Fifth repetition. After three days
• Sixth repetition. A week later
• Seventh repetition. In two weeks
• Eighth repetition. A month later
• Ninth repetition. After two months

To achieve the maximum effect, it is advisable not to deviate from the schedule. It is also best not to try to remember a large array of words at the same time. It's better to break the words into small ones. thematic groups and for each group to create their own calendar of repetitions.

Crosswords, language games and puzzles. A great way to combine business with pleasure: practice the learned words and play! Here are some of the most common language games: scrabble (in the Russian version - erudite, balda), anagrams, antiphrases, burime, metagrams, hat, contact.

Test your knowledge

If you want to test your knowledge on the topic of this lesson, you can take a short test consisting of several questions. Only 1 option can be correct for each question. After you select one of the options, the system automatically moves on to the next question. The points you receive are affected by the correctness of your answers and the time spent on passing. Please note that the questions are different each time, and the options are shuffled.

How many words do you think the average person knows? Everyone remembers the well-known excerpt from the immortal work of E. Petrov and I. Ilf "The Twelve Chairs" about the comparison of the vocabulary of Shakespeare and Ellochka the Cannibal. The same quote can be cited as a confirmation of the hypothesis that the lexicon of a person depends on what this person is like. For example, an uneducated person or small child will amount to several hundred; literate - several thousand.

And such geniuses as Pushkin or Shakespeare will have up to fifteen thousand. By the way, clarifications should be made on the account of the latter. The four-volume Dictionary of Pushkin's Language has 21,191 words. Scientists have calculated exactly this number of words used in all letters and works of the famous Russian poet. The vocabulary of the great English playwright has a little less - about fifteen thousand words. But according to some sources, there are about eighteen thousand of them. With regard to ordinary people the picture looks somewhat different. But first, let's figure out what a lexicon is. We also define the concepts of passive and active vocabulary. So...

What is a lexicon?

From ancient Greek means "word", "turn of speech". The exact lexicon sounds like this: a combination of words of a particular language, parts of words or a language that a particular person or a certain group of people speaks. Vocabulary is the central part of the language that names, forms and conveys knowledge about any phenomena or objects. In other words, this is a language section that studies words, pronunciation, composition of speech, etc.

Passive and active vocabulary

When we are talking about a certain set of words that a person uses daily in his speech, which he uses to express his feelings and thoughts, then this implies an active vocabulary. The use and combinatorics of such words can be varied. But it is still a "tool" of thoughts, feelings, actions. In the case when a person does not use certain words, but knows their meaning (often very approximate), he recognizes in readable text, that means passive vocabulary. The passive lexicon includes words of special use: neologisms, archaisms, many dialectisms, and the like.

Number of words in the lexicon

It should be noted, returning to the question of what a lexicon is, that the active and passive dictionaries are individual for each person. It depends on the age, profession, general cultural level, personal qualities, tastes and even the place of residence of a person. According to statistics, the active vocabulary of an adult with higher education is seven to nine thousand words. Passive - twenty-twenty-four thousand. Although in everyday communication we get by with just one or two thousand words. It is said that the possibilities of human memory are almost limitless. Therefore, you can safely increase your vocabulary and learn foreign words, thereby enriching the Russian lexicon.

Every day we communicate with other people, say hundreds of words, work with documents, browse the Internet, correspond with friends and relatives, read magazines and newspapers, watch movies and TV shows. In the process of communication, transmission and perception of information, our consciousness processes a lot of words. How many words does a person need to know in order to fully communicate, to know the world and the surrounding reality?

According to various scientists, in English language about one million words, in Russian - from two hundred to five hundred thousand, Czech contains about fifty thousand words. But this does not mean at all that in order to master the language, you need to learn such a huge number of words. The fact is that our vocabulary is divided into two types - active and passive. Active vocabulary is words that a person knows and actively uses. Words, the meaning of which a person knows, but which he rarely uses, constitute a passive vocabulary. Of course passive stock several times more active. Researchers of William Shakespeare's work have calculated that in his works he used about twenty thousand words, in the literary heritage of Karel Capek there are almost thirty thousand words. However, this does not mean that in everyday life the great writers expressed themselves in a complex and ornate manner, using all their lexical baggage.

According to linguists, the vocabulary that a European, including the average Russian, manages in everyday communication is about a thousand words. The active vocabulary is approximately two to three thousand words. Thus, for language proficiency in entry level a few hundred frequently used words are sufficient. Here is an approximate gradation of vocabulary volume:

1. 400-800 words- lexical baggage necessary for a basic level of knowledge of the language;
2. up to 1500 words- a reserve that allows you to explain and read literature at an elementary level;
3. up to 3000 words- a reserve with which you can confidently communicate at the everyday level and fluently read non-specialized literature;
4. 5000 words in lexical baggage they will provide free reading of the press and specialized literature;
5. 8000 words enough for comprehensive communication, reading literature of any degree of complexity, viewing television programs and films.

Consideration that these figures are only a rough estimate of the number of words needed to communicate at a certain level, and, as a result, the number of words that need to be known by those wishing to learn foreign language. Note that the active vocabulary is dynamic, it changes depending on the environment in which a person lives, what he does, where he works, etc. For example, the specifics of a person's work determines the lexical baggage used by him in labor activity. Therefore, it is important not only to expand the active vocabulary, but also to ensure that words do not disappear from use and do not move from active to passive.

There are various ways enrichment of active vocabulary. Let's consider some of them:

1. The most common, effective and affordable method- method of live communication. When two interlocutors communicate, as a rule, their vocabulary is mutually enriched.
2. Reading aloud allows you to use not only visual, but also auditory memory, facilitating and speeding up the process of memorization.
3. Retelling what was read. When retelling what has been read, the brain actively processes the information received, while trying to use as much as possible those words from the text that met for the first time or caused difficulty.
4. Interesting and useful work with a dictionary of synonyms. Many words have a number of synonyms, and a small game, the purpose of which is to replace the words in the text with synonyms as much as possible with the help of a dictionary, will significantly expand the vocabulary.

The richer the human vocabulary, the more capaciously, colorfully and accurately he can express his feelings and thoughts, the brighter his picture of the world. It is necessary to strive to replenish the vocabulary of not only the studied, but also your native language. This seems all the more relevant for native speakers of the Russian language, about which the French writer Prosper Mérimée spoke so wonderfully: “The Russian language, as far as I can judge of it, is the richest of all European dialects and seems deliberately created the finest shades. Gifted with wonderful conciseness, combined with clarity, he is content with one word to convey thoughts when another language would require whole phrases for this.