{"id":1790,"date":"2019-08-10T16:20:58","date_gmt":"2019-08-10T16:20:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/?p=1790"},"modified":"2024-04-21T12:43:24","modified_gmt":"2024-04-21T12:43:24","slug":"fun-facts-17-vocabulary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/blog\/2019\/08\/10\/fun-facts-17-vocabulary\/","title":{"rendered":"Fun Facts About English #17 – Average Vocabulary Size"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Most experts believe that the English language has about one million words. Difficult to determine and not easy to agree on, the problem rests in defining what represents a discrete \u201cword.” It’s important to remember that this number includes different forms of the same word, or lemmas<\/em>, e.g., run<\/em>, running<\/em>, ran<\/em>, plus archaic words not commonly used in modern English. The Oxford English Dictionary<\/em> lists a mere 171,476 words that are in current use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides word counting, for individuals there’s a distinction between receptive knowledge — referring to our passive vocabulary, and productive or active knowledge — words we use when speaking and writing. As a rule of thumb, our receptive vocabulary is at least twice the size of our productive vocabulary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Studies show that the average native English speaker knows about 20,000 words with a university-educated person knowing around 40,000 words. When speaking and writing (emails, letters, notes, etc.) this goes down to about 5,000 very common words that are used repeatedly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Building vocabulary skills is a priority for many native speakers and non-native learners of English alike. The benefits include social and professional mobility as well as cognitive improvement. If you teach English as a foreign language, or you’re looking to expand your horizons abroad, check out the article, How to Teach English to Kids<\/em><\/a>, from IELTS Podcast<\/a>, a company dedicated to helping ESL students improve their reading, writing, and speaking skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Try this Ghent University (Belgium) online to test<\/a> to estimate your English vocabulary size. Good luck! If you enjoyed this post, you might also be interested in the history of American spelling bees<\/a>, or how American and British English diverged<\/a> over the centuries! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

See the previous<\/a> or next<\/a> Fun Facts About English<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Donald's<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Stories for Young Readers<\/em> is a graded textbook series designed to extend students’ skills and interest in developing their ability to communicate in English. To learn more, visit Kinney Brothers Publishing<\/a> or check out all the textbook downloads from Donald’s English Classroom<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most experts believe that the English language has about one million words. Difficult to determine and not easy to agree on, the problem rests in defining what represents a discrete \u201cword.” It’s important to remember that this number includes different forms of the same word, or lemmas, e.g., run, running, ran, plus archaic words not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[94],"tags":[620,1571,643,1566,20,104,1574,1568,11,539,1565,1564,1569,1573,477,232,1567,1572,1570],"class_list":{"0":"post-1790","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fun-facts-about-english","8":"tag-american-english","9":"tag-american-spelling-bees","10":"tag-british-english","11":"tag-cognitive-improvement","12":"tag-donalds-english-classroom","13":"tag-english-language","14":"tag-esl-students","15":"tag-ghent-university","16":"tag-kinney-brothers-publishing","17":"tag-language-evolution","18":"tag-native-speakers","19":"tag-non-native-learners","20":"tag-productive-knowledge","21":"tag-receptive-knowledge","22":"tag-teaching-english","23":"tag-vocabulary","24":"tag-vocabulary-skills","25":"tag-vocabulary-test","26":"tag-word-count","27":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/017.jpg?fit=1252%2C1252&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8GlQB-sS","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1790"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10135,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1790\/revisions\/10135"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}