C-Beeby
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2004 2:14 pm
Post subject: Estimating vocabulary size? |
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Hello all,
I have read that a native speaker of a language can recognise in context
about 20,000 words. But how do you estimate the size of your vocabulary? If
I have a 70,000 word dictionary, if I test myself on a page and can use half
the words defined there correctly and in context, do I have a vocabulary of
35,000 words? I suspect this approach is far too simplistic, because
of....er... statistics, but can anyone suggest a better method?
Thank you in advance for your thoughts,
--
Regards,
Helen.
I am in fact a Hobbit, in all but size." - J.R.R. Tolkien
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Alan OBrien
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2004 5:03 am
Post subject: Re: Estimating vocabulary size? |
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"C-Beeby" <tweenies@northamptonshire.co.uk> wrote in message
news:2q58k1Fos3bqU1@uni-berlin.de...
| Quote: | Hello all,
I have read that a native speaker of a language can recognise in context
about 20,000 words. But how do you estimate the size of your vocabulary?
If
I have a 70,000 word dictionary, if I test myself on a page and can use
half
the words defined there correctly and in context, do I have a vocabulary
of
35,000 words? I suspect this approach is far too simplistic, because
of....er... statistics, but can anyone suggest a better method?
Thank you in advance for your thoughts,
|
Well, I do it like this.. Shakespeare knew 31,534 words, and I know all of
them. I know that because when I read Shakespeare I no longer need a
glossary. I also know many words devised since 1616, such as shizzle,
nizzle, kafkaesque and fridge. I reckon I know about 20,000 crappy words
like that. So I reckon I know about 70,000 words. QED! |
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