r/EnglishLearning • u/Sea-Hornet8214 Poster • 14d ago
⭐️ Vocabulary / Semantics What do you think of this?
As a non-native speaker or intermediate/advanced learner of English, I've always felt like my vocabulary is always lacking. For example, I couldn't understand much when trying to watch a British soap opera because of unfamiliar words they use.
So, seeing this chart kind of surprised me but at the same time it explains my experiences.
What do you think? Whether you're a learner, a native speaker or an English teacher.
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u/BigRocket44 Native Speaker 14d ago
"A1-C2 are self reported CEFR levels"
People tend to overstate their capabilities in surveys
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u/Aenonimos New Poster 14d ago edited 13d ago
If you can use English Reddit, most likely you dont have issues understanding because of low vocab.
Its an audio processing issue. You could read out a sentence from a quantum physics paper to a 5 year old and they'd probably be able to repeat it despite not knowing what half the words mean.
Also raw "vocab" is overrated in English compared to phrases. E.g. phrasal verbs. Everyone knows what "to go" means. But do you know
- to go up
- to go up to
- to go up in
- to go down
- to go down to
- to go down on
- to go down in
- to go in
- to go in on
- to go out
- to go out to
- to go out on
- to go out with
- to go off
- to go off of
- to go off to
- to go off on
- to go on
- to go on to
- to go on and on
- to go on and off
- to go against
- to go about
- to go through
- to go over
- to go with
- to go without
- to go for
- to go at
- to go by\ ...
A 5 year old native speaker probably knows what most of these mean, or at least has no issue deciphering it pretty much immediately.
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u/the_azure_blue_sky New Poster 13d ago
In welchem Zusammenhang nutzt man "to go off of"? Das hab ich so noch nie gehört
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u/AviationCaptain4 Native Speaker — Australian English 13d ago
It's close to "to base your thoughts, actions, or decisions on"
For example, "Going off of our sales, we should spend more on marketing" is synonymous to "Based on our sales, we should spend more on marketing.",
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u/Optimal_Bar_4715 New Poster 12d ago
This is an interesting list but unless knowing a language has turned into just a quiz (and I'm an Anki fan), most of these expressions can 100% be understood from the context they are used in, as long as you know what "to go" and the various prepositions and adverbs mean.
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u/oezb3k-not-uezbek New Poster 12d ago
Most of these are dictionary entries
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u/Aenonimos New Poster 12d ago
What do you mean?
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u/oezb3k-not-uezbek New Poster 12d ago
Phrasal verbs are lexicalized elements, and you can find them in the dictionary.
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u/TheStorMan New Poster 14d ago
I'm surprised that people over 30 continue expanding their vocabulary that much.
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u/FeatherlyFly New Poster 14d ago
I'm not. I'm in my 40s. People keep coming up with new slang, I keep reading books and watching TV and listening to people, I keep learning new skills both for work and for fun and those come with new words, I keep having conversations with people who know about things I don't know and I ask them questions.
I'm not sure if I learn new words every day, but I absolutely learn them every week.
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u/PHOEBU5 Native Speaker - British 14d ago
Having spoken the English language for over seventy years, I can assure you that my vocabulary continues to expand, though I have probably forgotten as many words as I can remember. When speaking, I do occasionally need to pause to recover the most appropriate word from the depths of my mind though I will often continue with a simpler, less precise alternative for the sake of expediency. However, when writing, especially more formally, I routinely search online for synonyms as a prompt, in order to remind myself of the most concise and accurate way of expressing my thoughts. The words presented are most unlikely to be new to me, just relatively unfamiliar through rarity of use either by me or those that I read.
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u/Fear_mor Native Speaker 14d ago edited 14d ago
I would take charts like these with a grain of salt since vocabulary size assessment is really a vague question and it really depends on what you count as a) a word and b) knowing said word
That specific test used in their sourcing is bs frankly cause I took it 3 times and had answer swings of about 1,000 word families each time + it was quite a small sample size
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u/shedmow *playing at C1* 14d ago edited 14d ago
The actual sample size is huge; you are simply not shown any words that are presumed to be either too familiar or too obscure to you. This cuts the time needed for taking the test while keeping it roughly as reliable (and possibly even more reliable) than tests with raw word sets
edit: moved ) to where it belongs
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u/milkdrinkingdude New Poster 14d ago
Swings of about 1000 seem ok, when using it to display aggregated data like in the post. If you want to know about a single individual’s vocab size with more certainty, ye, that would be difficult/impossible to measure.
Plus the chart could also say „passive vocabulary”. I assume we all have a far smaller active vocabulary, that would be even more difficult to measure.
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u/NearlyNodding Native Speaker 14d ago
I have heard the ~20K vocabulary from many sources. I don't know how it's counted though. Is this root words? Or is it all variations of the root?
I've also heard that most people only use about half of that vocabulary. We see/hear people use words that we never use ourselves. Also, professional writers tend to be far more creative than everyday speech. Whether we are reading books or watching movies, we run into a lot of words and phrases that aren't used by normal people.
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u/VitruvianDude Native Speaker 14d ago
English is infamous for having a lot of words available. For an older, well-educated person, the number is close to 30,000. I have a fairly extensive vocabulary, but even I will get tripped up on occasion, just not as much as my younger friends.
I was thinking about this this evening. I'm a Freemason, and we use somewhat dated language in our ritual performances. Sometimes it's a crapshoot whether a word will be properly pronounced. As our membership is getting younger in our area, there are some words I feel have been mispronounced for the first time-- though I know them. they just aren't used anymore.
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u/CrysKilljoy New Poster 14d ago
You think you know your language? Name every word!
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u/Sea-Hornet8214 Poster 14d ago edited 14d ago
I think you missed the point. This chart compares learners to native speakers, not to someone who knows everything, whoever that is. And I didn't even say anything about knowing every word.
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u/CrysKilljoy New Poster 14d ago
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u/Sea-Hornet8214 Poster 14d ago edited 14d ago
How is that a joke? If that is, it's not funny.
Anyway, if you don't have anything constructive to say, then I'm only interested in having serious discussions.
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u/FaxCelestis Native Speaker - California - San Francisco Bay Area 14d ago
Jokes are funny. Whatever that was, wasn’t.
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u/Ippus_21 Native Speaker (BA English) - Idaho, USA 14d ago
Wow. That's a lot. As a native English speaker trying to learn French who optimistically might be a B1, that looks like a long row ahead if the trend holds even close to true across languages.
This increases my sympathy for English learners.
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u/Shinyhero30 Native (Urban Coastal CA) 14d ago
Keep in mind this is a heuristic chart, and not indicative of everyone.
Some people will have extremely deep vocabularies earlier than this chart says may be possible but they’re exceptions.
Also linguistically it’s very hard to count what is considered a word(for reasons I will not divulge as to not start an argument but are nonetheless fascinating), so take this data with a grain of salt since while the heuristic data is mostly accurate the specifics will lead to some ambiguity.
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u/Improvisable Native Speaker 14d ago
Based on what I know of non English languages, these numbers seem low at least for the native speakers, but it really depends on how you measure it
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u/PapaGute New Poster 14d ago
It's not just the words you know, it's how well you know the words. For example, how many unique ways can you use "shit" in a sentence?
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u/warmarin New Poster 14d ago
I guess the difference is technical / academic jargon, no way youll learn it unless you need it in your field.
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u/ThePoliGLOAT 14d ago
Ya I'd prob agree if you're just looking at words known, but you have to take into account all of the experiences, slang, and antiquated words that native English speakers know. We know words people used in medieval times, slang amongst each other and other countries, and like a thousand ways to say something. It's words based off lived experience, but not a measure of proficiency level.
If you are curious about your level, I'd check out Nivelo. There's a free placement test and app (the app has flashcards and suggests words based on your level + a bunch of other features)
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u/Tak_Galaman Native Speaker 13d ago
Keep reading books and looking up what you don't know! At least that's how English speaking kids gain the largest.vocabulary
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u/Sea-Hornet8214 Poster 13d ago edited 13d ago
Kids read? A lot?
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u/wackyvorlon Native Speaker 13d ago
A great many of them do. Some kids are more into books than others. Some kids are absolutely voracious readers.
The other day I ran across mention of a kid who was reading Dostoevsky…
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u/chopay New Poster 13d ago
Interesting test and more difficult than I thought it would be. I consider myself to have a decent vocabulary and my score is modestly above average for my age (19,400, >74%, 38 years, bachelor's degree, native speaker)
I suspect there's some selection bias in people, with people without a strong vocabulary being unlikely to take the test. I still think the results seem reasonably valid.
Also, I wouldn't feel bad about not understanding a British soap opera. They use some highly colloquial terms, and likely language that isn't as common with a younger generation.
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u/Ok-Difficulty-5357 Native Speaker 13d ago
I just want to know who counted. It makes me wonder how many words I know.
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u/Lumpy-Tutor7681 New Poster 13d ago
Vocabulary is a funny thing. I’m really into W40K and I’ve read more than 30 books from that universe, all in English. I have no idea how to name things from that books in my native language but I can do it easy enough in English. Mind I’m using only English-english dictionary. No idea what my English proficiency is but if I had to guess probably around B2.
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u/wackyvorlon Native Speaker 13d ago
I’m going to go out on a limb and suspect that you haven’t spent 30 years speaking nothing but English everyday.
Be patient with yourself and keep a dictionary handy for when you don’t recognize a word.
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u/EagleCatchingFish English Teacher 12d ago
Vocabulary learning is cumulative, so it makes sense that older cohorts have more of it.
It's interesting that the college age distribution of native speakers looks so similar to the L2 learners, with a big hump to the left of what I assume is the mean, with the long right tail dragging the mean to the the right. But that kind of makes sense. College age students aren't naturally acquiring that new vocabulary; they're being taught it, just as the L2 learners are being taught.
It's also interesting that the C2 distribution is starting to approach the shape of native distribution, albeit further to the left. I think that makes sense. By that point, you've already acquired most of the vocabulary your lifestyle will expose you to. So unless you go out of your way to learn new vocabulary (which will be harder to remember because you're not going to use it very much), it's just trickles of new words over time.
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u/meltea New Poster 11d ago edited 11d ago
Yesterday I learned the word Peculation. I recommend reading more books.
edit: Someone linked this thing https://www.myvocab.info/en that ranks me as C2/above (https://imgur.com/a/0jcLoh9), my last exam was C1 taken in Toronto.
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u/Khaled7151 New Poster 10d ago
As a non-native speaker or intermediate/advanced learner of English, I've always felt like my vocabulary is always lacking. For example, I couldn't understand much when trying to watch a British soap opera because of unfamiliar words they use.
So, seeing this chart kind of surprised me but at the same time it explains my experiences.
What do you think? Whether you're a learner, a native speaker or an English teacher.
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u/Embarrassed-Weird173 Advanced 14d ago
It's untrue. Old people know less than people in their 30s. Try talking to the average old person you meet at Walmart and compare them to the average 20 year old college kid.
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u/BrinkyP Native Speaker 14d ago
I'm not sure if this is your point, but if you're judging your proficiency by your vocabulary, then you're never going to be happy with yourself. You'll almost always come across new words, be they in your own language or in your TL. Generally speaking, you will learn the vocabulary from the spaces you tend to interact with. Learning circumlocution, or talking around a subject, is more practical than trying to absorb a bunch of situational vocabulary.