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I am Dutch, and the estimated vocabulary is 15,600 words. It's really humbling, but on the other side surprising that one can participate in scientific discussi

I am Dutch, and the estimated vocabulary is 15,600 words. It's really humbling, but on the other side surprising that one can participate in scientific discussion with such a small vocabulary. But I bet the distribution is not very similar to an American kid with a vocabulary of that size ;). It's easy to notice the difference in vocabulary in practice. Native speaker's speech is much more varied. Also, it's maybe good for native speakers to realize that someone who may seem a bit rude or dumb on the Internet may be a non-native speaker who has difficulty expressing him/herself.

rhizome31 15y ago
> surprising that one can participate in scientific discussion with such a small vocabulary Not really surprising since most of English scientific vocabulary comes from greek or latin roots and is more or less the same in other European languages.
Dn_Ab 15y ago
This is actually not surprising since word Frequencies more or less follow a power law probability distribution. With a vocabulary of even 1,000 words you are very well covered. Anyone who engages in a discussion with words that are not very common is doing the very opposite of trying to communicate.
- barrkel 15y ago
  I choose words on the basis of how precisely they convey my desired meaning - which may exist at multiple levels, eg using esoteric words when talking about esoteric words. It seems to me somewhat anti-elitist of you to decry those who enjoy taking such care. (I scored 35,300; of the words I recognized only about six were ones I don't either read or use with some regularity. I read a fair amount of literature though.)
jvdh 15y ago
The vocabulary you need for scientific discussions can't be measured in these kinds of tests, because it is really very specific. So your english vocabulary may stil be a bit bigger. The words that are measure here are the words that you'd use in "general" conversation I guess.

rhizome31 15y ago

> surprising that one can participate in scientific discussion with such a small vocabulary Not really surprising since most of English scientific vocabulary comes from greek or latin roots and is more or less the same in other European languages.

Dn_Ab 15y ago

This is actually not surprising since word Frequencies more or less follow a power law probability distribution. With a vocabulary of even 1,000 words you are very well covered. Anyone who engages in a discussion with words that are not very common is doing the very opposite of trying to communicate.

barrkel 15y ago
I choose words on the basis of how precisely they convey my desired meaning - which may exist at multiple levels, eg using esoteric words when talking about esoteric words. It seems to me somewhat anti-elitist of you to decry those who enjoy taking such care. (I scored 35,300; of the words I recognized only about six were ones I don't either read or use with some regularity. I read a fair amount of literature though.)

jvdh 15y ago

The vocabulary you need for scientific discussions can't be measured in these kinds of tests, because it is really very specific. So your english vocabulary may stil be a bit bigger. The words that are measure here are the words that you'd use in "general" conversation I guess.