Improve your Russian vocabulary. No words: how to expand your active vocabulary
Expert consultant on speech technique and rhetoric, radio host
When there are no differences in the quality and brand of the suit, when the behavior and reactions are typical and adequate, when the product and marketing are the same, how to stand out among other professionals and experts? Voice is the perfect solution. He delights, inspires, makes you take off. It can break, disarm, frighten. They say that a person uses 10% of his brain capacity. Even less goes to voice capabilities.
The editors of the site rabota.ua continue the special project “The Power of Voice,” which will open up the unique capabilities of your voice, help you develop the power of persuasion, teach you how to breathe correctly and have fun during long speeches and the speaking process itself.
Our expert - , expert consultant on speech technique and rhetoric, author and presenter of talk projects for radio “Kiev 98 FM”, will talk about how to deal with the main problems of the voice, breathing and speech, how to increase your vocabulary, how to produce all sounds, a sore throat, working with a microphone and preparing for public speaking.
Previous issues of the special project:
Sometimes we are faced with the fact that we do not have enough words to carry on a conversation, conduct a discussion, negotiate, or simply to explain our position. It seems to us that we are not able to independently define or come up with associations. But in fact, we can do everything, provided that we use our vocabulary in full.
Lexicon sources
Some neurolinguists are confident that if all the information contained in the brain of one person were run as a movie, it would be enough to watch continuously for 200 years. We unconsciously remember all the words that we have ever heard on the street, in the family, on TV or radio, or read in books and magazines. We do not use many of the words we hear or read in our speech. But sometimes the brain opens the door slightly, and strange phrases or phrases that came from out of nowhere pop out. This is how passive vocabulary manifests itself in certain situations that are inextricably linked with a specific word, because we remember words through images.
In those moments when we need to look more educated, smarter, more intelligent, we ask ourselves: “How can I bring what is in my passive vocabulary to the forefront, i.e. active vocabulary? Simple exercises come to the rescue. Some of which we have been familiar with since childhood: we either played word games with friends, not realizing how useful they are, or we were unobtrusively involved in educational games by good teachers and parents.
Exercises to develop vocabulary
1. Alphabet
Quickly name in alphabetical order noun words in the nominative case, in the singular (except for those that are used only in the plural - trousers, scissors). Names and city names cannot be used. The pause between words should be no more than 5 seconds. After a few attempts, you will begin to remember words that you didn’t even suspect existed in your head: “A - watermelon, B - drum, C - mitten, D - nail, D - ....”
Do the same, first naming only adjectives and then only verbs. The exercise can be complicated if you immediately name three unrelated words starting with the same letter: “Agitate peanut watermelon”, “Bomb mad ram”...
2. Ten
Ten short sentences is the approximate amount of commentary for radio or press, lasting 30-40 seconds. Take any topic. Write 10 sentences on this topic. Each sentence should contain no more than 7 words.
The first sentence begins with a topic statement. Each next sentence begins with the word that ended the previous phrase. When choosing phrases, stick to the chosen topic as much as possible. If the topic is “Autumn,” then the sentences can be structured like this: “Autumn is the most colorful time of the year. A year that starts in January. The first of January is the beginning of winter, when the bright leaves fall. They fall because...”
3. Associations
The exercise activates your vocabulary, activates your imagination, and stimulates you to think more broadly.
Each person has his own association for each thing. So, for one, a telephone is a tool for making calls, for another it is pleasant entertainment, for a third it is a work bustle. Choose any concept, object, phenomenon, and without hesitation, name the first 10 associations that come to your mind: “A light bulb is light, evening, blinking, electric meter, energy efficiency, paying utility bills, Lenin, Tesla’s experiments, an anecdote about “ How many humanitarians does it take to unscrew a light bulb?", a reminder of repairs."
One more exercise. It “pulls” words from the passive stock and teaches you to look at objects and phenomena more broadly. Take any object that is in front of your eyes and name 10 of its definitions: “Pen: ballpoint, white, plastic, lightweight, writing, eco-friendly, inconvenient, memorable, gift, funny.”
4. Game “I know 5 names”
This is one of the popular children's ball games. It trains memory, expands vocabulary, synchronizes gestures and speaking. While kicking the ball, we named 5 names of girls, boys, cities, trees, vegetables, countries. As an adult, you can exclude the ball from the game and make it more difficult by naming 5 European capitals, the names of American presidents, scientific terms, etc.
5. Remember everything
The exercise perfectly “pulls out” words from distant corners of memory. Choose any letter and name 25 words that start with it. You cannot use the same root words, for example, “beat” and “battle”. Try to remember words that are as unrelated as possible. For the first time, chaotic work occurs in the brain to search for words, and it seems that so many words do not exist. But already from the third letter (the third approach to the game) you will understand that your vocabulary of words per letter is very, very large. Practice at least three letters in one workout.
6. Three-liter jar
The exercise activates your vocabulary well and trains your memory regarding words denoting material objects. Choose any letter and name all the words starting with it (nouns, singular, not abstract concepts, not names or names of cities) that can be placed in a three-liter jar. To add spice to the game, the named objects can be bent or crushed, if this helps to place the thing in the jar. So, a tangerine or a toy car will fit through the neck of a jar, but a machine operator will not.
7. Lists
Exercise-game to activate memory. Choose a letter, write down as many words as possible that start with that letter and correspond to one category. You can write car brands, city names, animal names or other categories of objects or phenomena with a given letter. You can choose categories and time limits yourself, depending on what exactly you need to upgrade.
Every language, dialect, dialect, slang on our planet is unique and interesting in itself. And each of the listed options has its own specific set of words with which students’ dictionaries and heads are filled. But before we start talking directly about the English language, I would like to start with our native – native to me and to you reading this article – and the great Russian language.
Answer this question for yourself: how many words of your native language do you know and use absolutely freely in your speech? How will you count them? The first way is to take the largest dictionary and start putting checkmarks in front of those words that are familiar to us. 3 weeks pass when we reach the words “jasper”, “box”, “foot and mouth disease” (who knows), open the first page again and start counting. After another 3 weeks, everyone will reach a certain huge number of words and think about why he did all these manipulations. For what, I will tell you a little later. The second way is that we don’t take a dictionary, don’t count anything, because we personally don’t need it and we have compelling arguments. I will also tell you why this is still necessary in this article. And finally, the third way is to find a definition test on the Internet, pass it and know exactly within what limits the number of words available to our consciousness varies. But even here a problem arises: how to choose the right test, because there are dozens of them, what are passive and active vocabulary, etc. So, let’s turn to theory and figure out what vocabulary is and why I decided to talk about this today.
In simple non-scientific language, vocabulary is that specific set of words that a certain person knows. He actually owns it, and not just “I heard a ringing, I don’t know where it is.” Those. understands the meaning of a particular word, knows how to apply it in oral and written speech, and perceives it in live communication. The entire vocabulary of a particular person can be divided into active and passive. Active vocabulary is the set of words he uses in spoken and written speech when he is the source of that speech. Passive vocabulary is a set of those words that a person recognizes by reading this or that literature, or hearing them in oral speech, but is not the source of these words, i.e. does not use in his own speech. This distinction is applicable both for your native language and for the language you are studying as a foreign language, since in both cases there are those words that you and I personally use, and those whose meanings we recognize in our memory.
If we talk about the composition of the language as a whole, then the Russian language is almost impossible to count, since it is too rich and diverse, and according to various sources, it contains from 2.5 to 4.5 million words and vocabulary units. In English, everything is much simpler; the last time an official count was carried out was in 1999, and according to its data, there are just over one million words and vocabulary units in this language. Therefore, we can safely be glad that we are studying English, because a million is not so much. But seriously speaking, out of this “a little more than a million” in ordinary everyday speech, even the most educated person uses no more than 20-30 thousand words and vocabulary units (and no more than 50 thousand are stored on the hard drives of his memory) - and at the same time, that English is his native language. If we are talking about English as a foreign language that we study, then the highest indicators for active vocabulary are 8-10 thousand words, and for passive vocabulary up to 15 thousand. Those. you see that the indicators are not as large and scary as they might seem at first glance.
Now it’s worth talking about how to calculate that very cherished figure that you reach with your amount of knowledge. There are many different methods, tests, calculations. I suggest you pay attention to two of them, and I will argue why I chose these options. The first of these counting options can be found on the website, which is dedicated to a joint American-Brazilian research project aimed specifically at counting the words of your passive vocabulary. It is built very simply - you just need to mark those words whose meaning (at least one) you know for sure. The only problem is whether you can be honest with yourself and truly choose the words you learn truthfully. At the end, the system itself calculates your result and gives an approximate value of +/- 500 words. The second option for counting words allows you to do this by level and specifically see where your omissions are. You can find this calculation option on the website. This test will allow you to go through the levels and determine exactly where we stop and continue training. Each version of the test consists of 6 levels, and you must pass them starting from the very first, even if you are sure that you know much more. The result will give you the opportunity to understand what your vocabulary is and what you should pay attention to.
But why count? This is the question that many of you are wondering right now. After all, numbers are not important to anyone, you think. But that's not true. Firstly, such a calculation allows you to objectively assess your level of knowledge, and secondly, when passing certain tests in British and American schools, I will ask you to indicate the results of vocabulary calculation. And I do not advise any of you to do this offhand, since after testing, an embarrassment may occur due to the discrepancy between the data you specified and the test results. Therefore, knowing your vocabulary (especially active) is not only useful, but in some cases necessary.
- a vocabulary of 350-700 words is the active vocabulary required for the initial (basic) level of proficiency in a foreign language.
- a vocabulary of 700-1300 words – sufficient to explain yourself (if it is active for you); and for reading at a basic level (if this is your passive vocabulary).
- vocabulary of 1300-2800 words - active vocabulary, sufficient for everyday everyday communication; if it is passive, it is sufficient for fluent reading.
- a vocabulary of 2800-5500 words is quite suitable for free reading of the press or scientific literature.
- a vocabulary of up to 8,000 words is enough for normal, full-fledged communication of a person learning English as a foreign language, which will allow him to understand almost any literature, TV programs and the press.
- A vocabulary of up to 13,000 is the active vocabulary of a person with a high level of education who is learning English as a foreign language.
But even if you pass this test successfully, you should remember that only words recorded in your memory will not give you the opportunity to communicate fluently in English, since this skill has many other aspects. However, having mastered 2000 correctly selected frequently used words, with a certain grammatical base and practice, you can easily communicate in the magnificent language of Foggy Albion.
If you find an error, please highlight a piece of text and click Ctrl+Enter.
Active Vocabulary includes words that are used in speaking and writing.
Passive Vocabulary includes words that a person recognizes by reading and hearing, but does not use them himself in speech and writing. Passive vocabulary is several times larger than active vocabulary.
Vocabulary of the average person
Russian language
“Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language” by V. I. Dal has about 200 thousand words. The most common words, according to the “Frequency Dictionary of the Russian Language” edited by L. N. Zasorina, are about 40 thousand words, and the highest frequency is just over 9 thousand words, covering more than 90% of the texts processed in compiling the dictionary. Current estimates put a high school student's vocabulary at about 5,000 words. A highly educated person knows about 8,000 words. It is interesting that the “Dictionary of Pushkin’s Language,” containing the words used by the classic, contains an unsurpassed figure so far - approximately 24 thousand words. The unpublished “Dictionary of the Language of V. I. Lenin”, according to some sources, should have contained about 30 thousand words.
English language
According to official data from the Oxford Dictionary, there are 250 thousand words and about 615 thousand word formations in the English language. But some researchers argue that when counting English words, it is necessary to take into account all neologisms, including words from Internet blogs and other informal resources, as well as words used only in varieties of English, for example, in China and Japan. Thus, the Global Language Monitor company counted 986 thousand words in English.
Japanese
The Japanese language contains about 50 thousand characters. The active vocabulary of the Japanese is formed by the Ministry of Education; it is they who recommend 1,850 hieroglyphs to their compatriots for everyday use, of which 881 are studied in primary and secondary schools. On average, a Japanese person uses 400 characters in everyday life, while newspapers and magazines use 3,000 characters.
see also
Wikimedia Foundation.
2010.:Synonyms
See what “Vocabulary” is in other dictionaries: Noun, number of synonyms: 5 active vocabulary (5) vocabulary (5) vocabulary (10) ...
Synonym dictionary LEXICON
Synonym dictionary- LEXICON. Same as a potential dictionary... - a set of words in natural language, the meaning of which a given person understands and can explain. It is divided into active words, used in everyday speech and writing, and passive words, understandable in reading and oral perception...
Professional education. Dictionary Lexicon
Synonym dictionary- – 1. all words whose meaning is understood and/or used by an individual in his linguistic practice; 2. any specially limited list of words (for example, a dictionary, glossary); 3. a complete list of words in any language. The number of such words, as well as the dynamics...
- 1. A complete compendium of words that an individual knows. 2. A complete list of words used in the language. 3. Any specially limited list of words. When this latter meaning is meant, a qualifying word is usually used to indicate... ... VOCABULARY ACTIVE - VOCABULARY ACTIVE. See active vocabulary...
New dictionary of methodological terms and concepts (theory and practice of language teaching) VOCABULARY PASSIVE - VOCABULARY ACTIVE. See active vocabulary...
- PASSIVE VOCABULARY. See passive vocabulary... VOCABULARY, PASSIVE - In general – vocabulary (1) used passively, that is, when reading and listening. An individual's passive vocabulary stock is significantly larger than his active vocabulary stock. Also called vocabulary recognition...
Sight reading vocabulary- for beginners to read - words that they can read quickly (“from sight”) without explicit phonetic decoding. Children who are taught to read using the whole-word method typically have larger sight-reading vocabularies than children who... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychology and Pedagogy
VOCABULARY, ACTIVE- In general, vocabulary (1) is used actively, that is, in conversation and writing. Wed. with passive vocabulary... - In general – vocabulary (1) used passively, that is, when reading and listening. An individual's passive vocabulary stock is significantly larger than his active vocabulary stock. Also called vocabulary recognition...
Books
- Vocabulary for elementary school, Zinovieva Larisa Aleksandrovna. This guide to English vocabulary is compiled in accordance with the current curriculum for primary schools. Presenting the material “from simple to complex” will help you gradually master everything...
Living in a society in which communication is an integral part, every day we are faced with the need to talk with other people. We like to talk with people whose vocabulary is rich and colorful - it encourages us to expand our own vocabulary. Beautiful and rich speech will help in any field of activity: in school - to get an excellent grade, and in work it contributes to career advancement. The Russian language has a considerable vocabulary that can enrich the everyday speech of any adult.
Lexicon or vocabulary is a set of words that a particular person knows. There are two types of vocabulary: active and passive.
An active vocabulary contains words that a person regularly uses in everyday speech and writing. Passive vocabulary includes words that a person learns by reading or listening, but does not use them himself. For most people, it is several times more active.
According to research, the Russian literary language has about 500 thousand roots and dozens of words derived from them. According to V.I. Dahl's explanatory dictionary - about 200 thousand words. The most common are about 30 thousand, and the highest frequency is just over 6 thousand words.
What to do first
Most resort to unnecessary words when thought does not keep up with speech.
- pronouns are just like him;
- particles - yes, well, sort of, perhaps, like this;
- introductory words - in short, so to speak, listen, in fact, you understand, in general, let’s say, probably, in general, etc.
Learn to replace familiar words and phrases with a pause, short or long. Pausing while you speak will allow your interlocutors to absorb what you have already said.
You don’t have to completely get rid of unnecessary words; it’s enough to eliminate about 90% of your vocabulary. The rest will help you maintain an informal conversation with friends or colleagues.
How to properly replenish your vocabulary
There is no single correct way to increase your vocabulary - it is individual for each person. Some people like to read paper books, others like to watch educational videos or listen to audio versions of interesting publications. For intensive development, use several options simultaneously. Main - devote at least 10-15 minutes to studying every day.
Talk more to smart people
Communication skills help in many things, including expanding your personal vocabulary. However, not every conversation can enrich you. Try to talk with smart and educated people from different fields of activity.
We unconsciously copy the manners and speech of people who have been close to us for a long time. So be aware of your surroundings if you want to expand your vocabulary.
Use audio materials
If you don't have enough time to watch videos or read books, use their audio options. Nowadays it is easy to find resources containing audio collections of famous printed publications. Replace the usual listening to music on the way to work or home, while playing sports, with an interesting lecture or story. The basic rule for choosing audio material- it must be of high quality, the lecturer’s speech is clear and understandable, and the material itself is useful for development.
Watching your favorite TV series does not enrich you in any way; in most cases, on the contrary, slang and unnecessary words appear in your vocabulary. Try to watch science programs (Discovery, BBC), speeches by successful people and educational videos (TED). Avoid mediocre films, programs, TV shows or reduce their viewing to a minimum.
Use unfamiliar words
The words you learn need to be used. Read explanatory dictionaries and try to replace familiar phrases with something new. Gradually, your brain will get used to the update and will itself look for ways to replace unnecessary words.
Study foreign languages - it develops mental abilities and increases your vocabulary.
In addition, there are many words and expressions that are present only in a certain language. Using vocabulary that is unfamiliar to you stimulates your brain to further develop.
read books
Reading books is the oldest and most proven way to enrich speech. Read a variety of literature, avoiding books like pulp novels. In each genre, you can find several authors whose writing style is pleasant to you, and whose works contain clever words and phrases. Try to read every day. In this way, you can easily master a medium-thick publication in 1-2 weeks; in a year it will be about 20-40 books, plus an extensive stock of new words.
Read aloud
Try to read out loud, this way you will more carefully perceive the incoming information. Reading aloud allows you to catch inaccuracies in speech (“swallowing” endings), realize your speech mistakes, and tune your voice to clearly present the material. By reading aloud, we “kill two birds with one stone” - we enrich our speech with new expressions and correct errors in our own pronunciation.
Solve crosswords
Crossword puzzle is a great exercise for brain development. This could be a page from the morning newspaper, a collection of crossword puzzles, or a smartphone app. Through simple entertainment, we simultaneously learn new information, develop analytical skills and expand our vocabulary.
Learn poetry
Memorizing texts comprehensively develops the brain. Unlike the option of reading a book, poetry makes it easy to memorize not only individual words, but entire phrases and phrases. In the process of memorization, we train our memory and activate most of the processes of brain activity. Poems teach us to express ourselves competently, to clearly express our thoughts, using a variety of lexical expressions.
Take up writing
Try to write a story or a whole book, not necessarily for publication, just for yourself. If you are ready to share your creations, start a blog. You will learn something new as you write.
By studying speech transferred to paper, we can more easily see our own mistakes.
If all of the above is impossible for you, use simple notes. Even such a small thing can gradually correct your vocabulary.
Learn a new word or words every day
The basic rule of any training is daily practice. If you miss one or more days, this will not significantly reduce your results, but if you study occasionally, you can’t expect much progress. Even if you study only one word a day, in a year your vocabulary will be expanded by more than 300 words, which will significantly change your everyday speech for the better.Games for vocabulary development
The most popular representative among games that develop vocabulary is Scrabble. This board game has been known and loved all over the world for many decades. Today, many online options and phone applications have been created based on it, so you can play and study anywhere. It is advisable to play in a company, but it will be no less interesting to come up with new words yourself.
To expand your child’s vocabulary, use the technique of describing objects. During the game, ask the children to describe in detail everything that is around them. The most interesting thing is to play on the street, while moving, when new objects appear to be described.
If you want to increase your child’s vocabulary, download the applications “Young Erudite”, “ First words for children», « Riddles for children».
The game “I See” will be interesting at any age. Invite your child to choose any object in his field of vision and try to describe it so that you can guess what it is about. Then switch roles. The game forces the brain to look for new words to describe objects or phenomena, increasing vocabulary.
For the development of young children, use the exercise “How to say more.” Name the word, and then ask the child to find synonyms, while helping him, since children draw new information primarily from their parents.
The fact that the language's dictionary contains approximately 300 thousand words is only of theoretical interest for a beginner learning this language. Perhaps the main principle for the reasonable organization of your studies, especially at the initial stage, is the economy of words. You need to learn to memorize as few words as possible, but do it as best as possible.
Let us emphasize that our approach is directly opposite to the guiding principle of “suggestopedia”, with its emphasis on the abundance of words presented to the student. As you know, in accordance with its canons, a beginner needs to be literally “showered with words.” It is best to give him or her 200 new words every day.
Is there any doubt that any normal person will forget all those numerous words with which he was “showered” using this, so to speak, method - and most likely very soon, in just a few days.
Don't chase too much
It will be much better if at the end of a certain stage of study you know 500 or 1000 words very well than 3000 - but poorly. Don’t let yourself be led into a dead end by teachers who will assure you that you need to first learn a certain number of words in order to “get into the swing of things.” Only you yourself can and must decide whether the vocabulary you have mastered is sufficient for your goals and interests.
Language learning experience shows that about 400 well-chosen words can cover up to 90 percent of the vocabulary you need for everyday communication purposes. In order to read, you will need more words, but many of them are only passive. Therefore, with knowledge of 1500 words, you can already understand fairly meaningful texts.
It is better to master the words that are most necessary and important to you than to constantly rush to learn new ones. “He who pursues too much risks missing everything,” says a Swedish proverb. “If you chase two hares, you won’t catch either,” the Russian proverb answers.
Vocabulary in oral speech
Very roughly speaking, about 40 well-chosen, high-frequency words will cover about 50% of word usage in everyday speech in any language;
- 200 words will cover about 80%;
- 300 words - approximately 85%;
- 400 words will cover about 90%;
- Well, 800-1000 words are about 95% of what would need to be said or heard in the most ordinary situation.
Thus, the right vocabulary helps you understand quite a lot with very little effort spent on cramming.
Example: if a total of 1000 words are spoken in an everyday conversation, then 500 of them, that is, 50%, will be covered by the 40 most common high-frequency words.
We emphasize that these percentages, of course, are not the result of exact calculations. They simply give the most general idea of how many words it will take to feel confident when entering into a simple dialogue with a native speaker. In any case, there is no doubt that by correctly choosing from 400 to 800 words and remembering them well, you can feel confident in a simple conversation, since they will cover almost 100% of those words that you cannot do without. Of course, under other, less favorable conditions, 400 words will cover only 80% of what you need to know - instead of 90 or 100%.
Reading vocabulary
When reading, having correctly chosen and well remembered about 80 of the most common, most frequent words, you will understand about 50% of a simple text;
- 200 words will cover approximately 60%;
- 300 words - 65%;
- 400 words - 70%;
- 800 words - approximately 80%;
- 1500 - 2000 words - about 90%;
- 3000 - 4000 - 95%;
- and 8,000 words will cover almost 99 percent of the written text.
Example: if you have a text in front of you with a volume of approximately 10 thousand words (this is approximately 40 printed pages), then, having learned the most necessary 400 words in advance, you will understand about 7000 words that are used in this text.
Let us note again that the figures we give are only indicative. Depending on various additional conditions, 50 words will cover up to 50 percent of the written text, but in other cases you will need to learn at least 150 words to get the same result.
Vocabulary: from 400 to 100,000 words
- 400 - 500 words - active vocabulary for language proficiency at a basic (threshold) level.
- 800 - 1000 words - active vocabulary in order to explain yourself; or passive reading vocabulary at a basic level.
- 1500 - 2000 words - active vocabulary, which is quite enough to ensure everyday communication throughout the day; or passive vocabulary sufficient for confident reading.
- 3000 - 4000 words - in general, enough for almost fluent reading of newspapers or literature in the specialty.
- About 8,000 words - provide complete communication for the average European. There is practically no need to know more words in order to communicate freely both orally and in writing, as well as read literature of any kind.
- 10,000-20,000 words - the active vocabulary of an educated European (in their native language).
- 50,000-100,000 words - the passive vocabulary of an educated European (in their native language).
It should be noted that vocabulary alone does not ensure free communication. At the same time, having mastered 1,500 correctly chosen words, with some additional training, you will be able to communicate almost freely.
As for professional terms, they usually do not present any particular difficulties, since in most cases this is an international vocabulary that is quite easy to master.
When you already know about 1500 words, you can start reading at a fairly decent level. With passive knowledge of 3,000 to 4,000 words, you will be fluent in reading literature in your specialty, at least in those areas where you are confident. In conclusion, we note that, according to calculations carried out by linguists based on a number of languages, the average educated European actively uses about 20,000 words (and half of them are quite rare). In this case, the passive vocabulary is at least 50,000 words. But all this concerns the native language.
Basic vocabulary
In the pedagogical literature you can find the terminological combination “basic vocabulary”. From my point of view, at the maximum level the vocabulary is about 8000 words. It seems to me that it is hardly necessary to learn more words, except perhaps for some special purposes. Eight thousand words will be enough for full communication in any conditions.
When starting to learn a language, it would be wise to make do with shorter lists. Here are three levels that I have found in practice to provide a good guide for a beginner:
- level A("basic vocabulary"):
400-500 words. They are enough to cover approximately 90% of all word usage in everyday oral communication or about 70% of simple written text;
- level B(“minimum vocabulary”, “mini-level”):
800-1000 words. They are enough to cover approximately 95% of all word usage in everyday oral communication or about 80-85% of written text;
- level B("average vocabulary", "medium level"):
1500-2000 words. They are enough to cover approximately 95-100% of all word usage in everyday oral communication or about 90% of written text.
An example of a good dictionary of basic vocabulary can be considered the dictionary published by E. Klett in Stuttgart, 1971, under the title "Grundwortschatz Deutsch" ("Basic vocabulary of the German language"). It contains 2,000 of the most essential words in each of a selected six languages: German, English, French, Spanish, Italian and Russian.
Eric W. Gunnemark, Swedish polyglot