Vocabulary of the English language. The best English textbooks for vocabulary building

Estimating the number of learned and memorized words of a foreign language is primarily interesting for understanding how far a person has advanced in “passive” perception of information: texts, speech, films, etc. I propose to familiarize yourself with several methods that I used, found on the net and "home-made". Below - a couple of tests for assessing vocabulary, a technique for finding important words that have not yet caught on in the brain, some reasoning and some links.

Online tests

Of the many tests for evaluating the number of words, I liked two. A couple of years ago I came across a rather simple Test Your Vocabulary . As you go through three screens of words, you tick off the ones you (you think) know, and then get an estimate of the total number of words learned. Many of my friends complained about his inadequacy - they received an amount less than "the one about whom I know for sure that he knows worse." But when passing, there may be a mistake of a different kind - it seems that you know the word, but in fact you have already forgotten it. They say that the hand itself reaches out to put a tick next to a word that seems vaguely familiar, so you can subconsciously overestimate your overall rating.

You know at least 10,500 English word families!

What do my results mean?

In general, there is no minimum vocabulary size. Language ability is related to vocabulary size, so the more words you know, the more you will be able to understand. However, if you want to set a learning goal, Paul Nation's (2006) research suggests that the following sizes might be useful:

How large a vocabulary is needed for reading and listening?
Skill Size estimate Notes
Reading 8,000 - 9,000 Word Families Nation (2006)
listening 6,000 - 7,000 Word Families Nation (2006)
native speaker 20,000 word families Goulden, Nation, & Read (1990)
Zechmeister, Chronis, Cull, D'Anna, & Healy (1995)

What is a word family?

There are many different forms of a word, so this test measures your knowledge of the most basic form of a word and assumes that you can recognize the other forms. For example, nation, a noun, can also be an adjective (national), a verb (nationalize), or an adverb (nationally). There are also forms which can be made with an affix such as de- or -ing which also modify the way that the word is used or adds to the basic meaning. For a test of receptive vocabulary knowledge such as this one, word families are considered to be the most accurate way of counting words.

Frequency Dictionaries

After registering at www.wordfrequency.info, you can download the American English Frequency Dictionary excel. There is also a text version.

Like this:

Rank Word Part of speech Frequency Dispersion

1 the - a 22038615 0.98
2 be - v 12545825 0.97
3 and - c 10741073 0.99
4 of - i 10343885 0.97
5 a - a 10144200 0.98
6 in - i 6996437 0.98
7to-t 6332195 0.98
8 have-v 4303955 0.97
…
…
4996 immigrant - j 0.97
4997 kid - v 5094 0.92
4998 middle-class-j 5025 0.93
4999 apology - n 4972 0.94
5000 till - i 5079 0.92

The file contains 5000 English words, sorted by frequency of occurrence. The frequency was calculated on a huge heterogeneous array of English texts. I recently saw a friend of mine look up words he didn't know by checking his vocabulary. Looking through the first 500, I did not find any unknowns. He showed an extract on his smartphone - about a dozen words from the second thousand (that is, from 1000 to 2000) and about 20 from the third. It's funny that when you go through the list, you come across sequences of words that successfully add up to phrases or even short sentences. The logic is very simple - if the word is very common according to statistics, and you don't know it, then it's better to learn it and see examples of use.

After reading the list of words unknown to him (already with translation), I saw the following thing. I knew about 50-60% of these words unknown to him, but some of the meanings of the translations recorded there were unknown to me, there were several words completely unknown to me.
In general, the site tries to be commercial, they sell lists over 5000 long, but this is not so interesting anymore.

So far, this friend of mine is writing a program with a convenient interface to look up unknown words - for learning purposes. I suggested to him that for a global assessment, not this list, but thinned one: every seventh word from the total list of 60,000 words is given. In fact, even watching the first couple of thousand is disheartening, not everyone will get to 5000. Although I can’t say for all 100, but the thinned dictionary will certainly show at least one word from the “family”, and the time will be spent, respectively, 7 or 10 times less (depending on the frequency of thinning).
By the way, such frequency dictionaries of the Russian language contain about 160 thousand words, including abbreviations and abbreviations. There are several different similar "corpuses" of English words from different organizations.

I'm interested in another question: how accurate are the tests that estimate the number of words you know? It is possible that this could be determined just by checking the frequency dictionary, as well as comparing the list of selected unknown words - their number and entry into different "families".

There are general laws of remembering and forgetting. One of the main things: if a person has learned something and does not repeat, does not use it, the information is forgotten exponentially from time to time. On the other hand, a few repetitions lengthen, stretch the falling exponent to an acceptable level. I was very surprised when a friend who worked as a tutor for schoolchildren told me that there is a sequence of time intervals for deep memorization: say, after 20 minutes, then after 8 hours, another day, etc., after which the information is planted firmly in the brain . That is, the statistically maximum level of the excitation signal is provided in the brain when it encounters this information.

Ebbinghaus curve, from Wikipedia.

How I learned words at the institute.

Without taking into account the standard course, where the requirements for the first three years were quite tough, I tried to read fiction. The first big book was the old Soviet edition of Conan Doyle's The Lost World. I don’t know how it was adapted, but there were plenty of Victorian words and expressions in the text, and this greatly delayed the progress towards the end ... Of course, it was possible to look into Lingvo from a computer, but I didn’t like to read at the computer, but to run back and forth for each new word quickly tired. Tablets were not common then, a pocket electronic translator is an expensive rarity, so I developed a paper system for myself. In a thick 96-sheet notebook, the spread was divided into 6 columns. Now I tried to find a notebook - I got lost. Will have to describe in words. Divided the alphabet into groups of letters, for example - a..d, e..f, g..j, k..n, o..q, r..t, u..w, x..z. Approximately, by eye, I estimated the statistical percentage of words that begin with these letters and divided the columns in the spread into rectangles. For example, the group a..d gave 2/3 of the first column, and so on. The group x..z was assigned the last remaining smallest piece in the 6th column. Then everything is simple. I met an unknown word - enter with the translation in the desired rectangle. Nothing inside the block is not in alphabetical order - it will not take long to find. To get the translation while lying on the bed, you need to get into the book dictionary. That is, the value of receiving a translation is quite large, more than now look at Lingua or an online translator like

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

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

How many words are in English?

It is rather difficult to answer this question. The history of Great Britain is confusing in this regard - the Iberians (the most ancient population of the British Isles), the Celts (came from modern Belgium and France), the Picts (lat. piches- painted), the 400-year domination of the Romans, the invasion of the 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 the words in the English language became very lot. 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 person for whom the language is native is an order of magnitude smaller than all the words in the language. For example, an educated native English speaker averages between 12,000 and 18,000 words. For comparison, I’ll say that V. I. Dal’s “Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language” has about 200,000 words, 30,000 of which are the most used, and a person with a higher education knows about 10,000 Russian words. (Wikipedia).

English vocabulary for different levels

And how can one or another English vocabulary be used?

• In order to be able to speak fluently or read at a basic level (Elementary / Pre-Intermediate), you need to have about 1000 words in stock.
• If you have about 2500 words in your asset, you can already communicate quite tolerably on everyday topics, read at an average level.
• With 4000-5000 words, you can freely communicate on various topics, read newspapers and special literature, watch and listen to TV / radio programs (understanding the basic 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 movies, have conversations on a variety of topics.

Now you understand what English vocabulary You need 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 use the language actively, do not practice English in everyday life, you can easily lose your skills acquired by such painstaking work. Your active English vocabulary will shift towards passive. How to make sure that this does not 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 if this is not possible? In my article, I described in detail the various approaches to learning English and effective ways to maintain motivation. To test your English vocabulary, you can use the good Test your vocab service.

You can also check out other articles on vocabulary learning.

Every serious lover of anything in the world sooner or later sets on fire with the desire to measure his collection: in money, in volume, in quantity ... The philatelist carefully blows dust off the hundredth stamp in the album, Henry Ford polishes the new 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. Hours dedicated to study? Words that make up an active vocabulary!

Stocks vary.

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

Statistics, backed up by practice, says that in order to freely express your thoughts in English, you need only 2000 words. Statistics, backed up by optimism, call the figure 1000-1500 words, and the creators of Basic English are magicians and our best friends - only 850 words. Realists and optimists, wait a little with skepticism! Basic English is divided into thematic groups of words (objects and phenomena, actions and movements, expression of qualities) - a kind of selection of the most hit instances from each category. In fact, frequently used mostly monosyllabic words (514 out of 850), which are easy to remember and pronounce, were selected.

We want to ask everyone who relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief after the announced figures: what do you personally mean by the concept of “speaking freely”? Of course, in order to ask for a window seat at the check-in desk at the airport or order a veal chop in a restaurant, 2000 words are enough. Diving begins where, when answering a question, you will not catch the meaning of unfamiliar words spoken or you will not be able to talk about specific gastronomic preferences in the company of gourmets. And then we multiply 2000 by two and get 4000 words, which will surely allow you not to lose face and keep a conversation in English well done.

Another nuance: so far we have been talking about active vocabulary, i.e. layer of those words that you regularly use in conversation. What you once wrote out in a dictionary and on occasion it is possible (!) Remember the meaning is called passive reserve - words that you seem to know, but most of them lie on the shelves of memory under a layer of dust. Yes, they get into the overall standings, but they do not bring special dividends.

Perfectionists who want more! Outside the language environment, it is quite difficult to learn the 8,000 words that make up the active vocabulary of an English-speaking citizen. It is possible, of course, but with great energy consumption, diligence and methodicalness. With a baggage 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 cherished 8-10 thousand units.

Vocabulary gradations

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

400-500 words of active vocabulary - a pass to the world of English and a certificate of language proficiency at a basic level
. 800-1000 "assets" of 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 be rewarded with the opportunity to communicate freely during the day, or the same number of "passives" - with 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 writing thoughts.
. up to 13,000 words characterize a highly educated person learning English as a foreign language.

How to determine and check the vocabulary of the English language?

Find out on the accounts? Marking familiar words in the dictionary? Let's not reinvent the wheel and borrow the answer from the creators of the test, which can weigh your vocabulary with an error of up to 10% in 2-3 minutes. The link to the test will be in a minute, but for now, a brief instruction on its use and the answer to the question "how it works."

The developers took a dictionary of 70,000 words as a basis, discarded obsolete, compound words, scientific terms and derivatives from each other, getting 45,000 as a result. Then they sorted by frequency of use, sincerely admitting that the last 10,000 of 45,000 are extremely rare, so even a respectable Briton may not feel remorse, having never used them in his life. From the test for English vocabulary, words were excluded, the meaning of which can be obtained by friendship with logic.

The whole 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 the word, then confidently put a tick next to it. The task is the same on two pages, only on the second page the program selects words from those unfamiliar from the first page, as if wanting to make sure that you really do not know them. No sleight of hand, no cheating: the only condition is to be honest with yourself and not overdo it with the number of ticks.

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

We measure the results

And now you are left alone with your test result. How did others do? Statistics collected after passing this test says that among non-native speakers, the majority of respondents received in the end from 3 to 7 thousand words. There are noticeably fewer owners of 7-10 thousand words, and even fewer from 11 to 30 thousand (oddly enough, even 30-thousanders honored this test with their attention).

Among those for whom English is native, the situation looks different: a cosmic vocabulary of 30,000 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 just at this age the world is actively explored and the entire surrounding family with 30,000 deposits around is not actively silent.

Summing up

The language is quite difficult. The complex and large history of Great Britain has led to a very large number of words. The Oxford English Dictionary, known in many circles, has approximately 600,000 words and expressions. And if you add dialect and slang to this list, then the number of words will exceed 1 million. But you should not be afraid of such a large number, because even native speakers do not know all the English words. On average, an educated person, a native speaker, knows 12,000-18,000 words. Well, the average resident of the UK knows 8000-10000 words.

How many words do you need to know?

If a person is not a native speaker and does not permanently live in an English-speaking country, then it will be almost impossible for him to bring his stock to the cherished 8000-10000 words. A good indicator is 4000-5000 words.

There is a standard and generally accepted gradation of the language. If the number of learned words is in the region of 400-500 words, then the level of proficiency is considered basic. If the active stock is in the range of 800-1000 words, then you can safely communicate on various everyday topics. If such a quantity refers rather to a passive vocabulary, then you can safely read simple texts. The range of 1500-2000 words will allow you to communicate freely all day long. If the vocabulary is 3000-4000 words, then you can safely read the English press or various thematic materials. A dictionary base of 8,000 languages ​​guarantees fluency in English. With such a number of learned words, you can freely read any literature or write texts in the language yourself. Those who have more than 8000 words in their luggage are considered highly educated people who learn English.

According to the standard vocabulary base is distributed as follows:
- beginner - 600 words;
- elementary - 1000 words;
- pre-Intermediate - 1500-2000 words;
- intermediate - 2000-3000 words;
- upper-Intermediate - 3000-4000 words;
- advanced - 4000-8000 words;
- proficiency - more than 8000 words.

Thanks to this data, you can determine your level of language proficiency, as well as set goals for yourself. But how many words have already been learned? No, you do not need to measure anything with a ruler for this. Everything is much easier. There is a test capable of determining the number of studied words with a margin of error of 10%.

To create this test, 7000 words were taken from the dictionary. Outdated and rarely used words were removed from there. Also removed the words, the meaning of which can be determined through the usual logic. As a result, 2 small pages with words remained.

How to pass the test?

The test must be taken with extreme honesty. The first page contains a list of words in columns. If at least one of the possible meanings of an English word is known, then a tick is placed next to it. The same columns with words appear on the second page. But there is already a selection of previously unknown words. This program checks whether these words are really unknown. To complete the test, there is another page that indicates age, gender, how many years English has been studied and other important questions. After specifying all the data, the end button is pressed and the number of words in the vocabulary of the tested person appears on the screen.

Puzzle English Vocabulary Test

A quick way to check vocabulary is Puzzle English test. In general, Puzzle English specializes in developing listening comprehension skills through audio exercises, videos, series. But for listening, of course, some minimum vocabulary is needed.

You will be given a list of 96 words and asked to tick which ones you know. I advise you to mark only those words that you recognize instantly and without hesitation. You don’t need to choose or write the correct answer - they take their word for it, but from time to time an honesty check appears - you need to choose the correct option from the four proposed to confirm that you are not deceiving the virtual teacher.

At the end, you will learn not only the vocabulary, but also the honesty index - the program evaluates how honest you were with it. If you retake the test, the words in the task will be different.

I took the fun test 3 times. The first and second results were about 11-12 thousand words each, and the third time I specifically answered all the questions correctly, peeping into the dictionary, and they gave me as many as 29,248 words and a 94% honesty index (apparently, the mustachioed uncle suspected something was wrong) . 29,000 is, of course, an unrealistic figure, it is believed that a native speaker on average knows about 20,000 words, but if you do not cheat and mark only those words that you recognize without hesitation, then the result is quite truthful. The next two tests confirmed this.

LinguaLeo word quiz

Of course, we must not forget that vocabulary is only one of the components of language proficiency. Even simple text will not be understandable if you have no understanding of the grammar.

P.S.: How to determine what level of English you have

If you are interested in what is your level of knowledge of English, then it is not enough to measure vocabulary and pass a grammar test, you need to comprehensively assess speech skills (reading, listening, writing and speaking). Read more about how to find out your level of English in.