Just double-checked the book. Relevant bits (heavily elided), from the section on deciding how much vocabulary to learn (on page 144), is, "Begin with the top t

Just double-checked the book. Relevant bits (heavily elided), from the section on deciding how much vocabulary to learn (on page 144), is, "Begin with the top thousand words. . . Your next steps depend on your individual needs. If you just want to chat in restaurants, those top thousand words may be enough." He then goes on to describe other benchmarks you might go for. But the minimum bar he's advocating is very low compared to what I think most people would expect.