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I tried to organize vocab by difficulty level for an English language-learning app once. It shocked me how there is absolutely no "right" answer. If you are t

I tried to organize vocab by difficulty level for an English language-learning app once. It shocked me how there is absolutely no "right" answer. If you are teaching English for travel, then you're prioritizing a lot of stuff around bathrooms, transportation, menu items, etc. If it's for understanding TV, it's a lot of words like "murder", etc. Depending on which TV shows you want to understand. If it's for reading the newspaper, you don't ever need to know "bathroom", but you sure do need to know words like "congressman". While if you are living somewhere, it's really important to know a lot of basic supermarket items that you wouldn't prioritize for other usages. Also, while it's easy to calculate word frequencies for stuff like newspaper articles, there aren't any good statistics (last I checked) around just normal everyday conversation. Because that stuff isn't getting recorded and transcribed. And the substitutes -- transcribed speech from TV, radio, podcasts, etc. -- is not the same context as the random stuff you say at home and during an average day.

thaumasiotes 2mo ago
> While if you are living somewhere, it's really important to know a lot of basic supermarket items that you wouldn't prioritize for other usages. Why? Having spent a good amount of time living in Shanghai, I found it important to be able to understand menus. But there's no pressure to know the words for supermarket items; you can just go to the supermarket and look for the item. Otherwise your point is correct; all semantic words are equally difficult and which ones you know depends on the things you like to talk about. Grammatical words are more difficult, and more important, but this is so widely understood that language-learning material already treats them as an entirely separate class of things to learn. > Also, while it's easy to calculate word frequencies for stuff like newspaper articles, there aren't any good statistics (last I checked) around just normal everyday conversation. Because that stuff isn't getting recorded and transcribed. (1) You seem to want COCA, which includes a bunch of transcribed telephone calls. (2) Word frequencies are still the wrong concept. If you want to understand a particular document, you need to understand almost all of the words that appear in that document. (You'll be able to learn some of them from their use in the document.) If you decide to learn a list of "frequent" words, you're unlikely to be able to understand more than a couple of isolated sentences in any given document.
- WalterBright 2mo ago
  > you need to understand almost all of the words that appear in that document I didn't learn English by reading vocabulary lists or dictionaries. Pretty much all was learned by context.
  - thaumasiotes 2mo ago
    Yes, but that was a process of over a year that involved being repeatedly presented with real-life scenarios accompanied by verbal descriptions. If you were to just listen to all the same input, you would never have learned anything. The learning comes from deciphering the connection between the reality you see and the words you hear. And if you want to understand a document, which is just a sequence of unsupported words, it is equally true that you must already understand almost all of those words.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
- fluoridation 2mo ago
  >(2) Word frequencies are still the wrong concept. If you want to understand a particular document, you need to understand almost all of the words that appear in that document. (You'll be able to learn some of them from their use in the document.) If you decide to learn a list of "frequent" words, you're unlikely to be able to understand more than a couple of isolated sentences in any given document. The point of learning by generic word frequency is to optimize study, not to attempt to brute-force understanding. If you have a document in front of you, would you rather have to look up every word in a dictionary, or only every other word?
  - thaumasiotes 2mo ago
    > If you have a document in front of you, would you rather have to look up every word in a dictionary, or only every other word? I've been in this situation. There's no real difference between the two circumstances you describe.
Sam6late 2mo ago
I tried to teach 'magicE vocab', sorting them by difficulty level for an English language plan, and got them easily arranged. For example, sham/shame and slide/slid are for hard to learn level, while ate, pale, kite, are for the easy level.
ReactiveJelly 2mo ago
Kinda like how there's no average-sized airplane pilot
DC-3 2mo ago
I think a lot about this. It's funny how there are certain domains of language, familiar to all native speakers, but that you are simply not likely to learn as an adult language learner, at least not without diligent and focused study. I live and work in a foreign country, and have a modest but functional grasp of the language here. Which is to say, I know how to say 'sustainability', 'union-negotiated collective agreement', and 'offensive conduct in the workplace'.... but if you asked me the words for 'cedar', 'robin', 'pond', or 'linen' I would be struck dumb. And yet presumably every ten year old I walk past in the street would know those words as comfortably as I knew them in English as a ten year old in England.
- coliveira 2mo ago
  When you're a foreigner learning a language your experience is mostly from reading. There are words, however, that are much more common at home and in spoken language. So you'll probably never learn the words that a 10 year old kid knows.
  - watwut 2mo ago
    It is changing. A bulk of learners now get their vocabularies from youtube, netflix and podcasts. Watching kids shows is common recommendation (I disagree with it somewhat, but that does not make it not common), so I think people will learn also those 10 years old world words.
    - deleted 2mo ago
      [deleted]
  - TacticalCoder 2mo ago
    I started learning english around 1984, when I began to learn programming. Back then most books were, by very far, in english. I also spent some time in the US (about one year altogether). Copying lyrics from my favorite songs of the 80s was helpful. And then later on TV series and movies in english. I've watched Friends, HIMYM and Californication* more than once (it's probably the reason I swear so much) and those really helped. Now I raised my kid in english: from the beginning she was only ever allowed to watch TV shows in english. And she's always been to international schools, in english too. The other day she taught me a simply word which, surprisingly enough, I didn't know: a "coaster" (a drink coaster). My absolute favorite is when she uses english grammar and applies it to french: the rules about where adjectives do go vary between french and english and she regularly messes it up in french (supposedly her "native" language but at this point I wonder whether english ain't a first language, and french second). And one thing she has that I'll never have is a beautiful, proper, english accent. Mine shall forever be a strong french one.
adrianN 2mo ago
There is also a whole different language used to talk to toddlers and small children that native speakers know but very few adult learners ever pick up. And slang used among teenagers and young adults that often times not even their parents understand fully.
- dspillett 2mo ago
  The problem with adding slang to any organised education program is two-fold: some of it changes much more quickly than you course materials can, and much of it is quite localised.
- DiogenesKynikos 2mo ago
  I recently discovered that even high-level non-native speakers do not know the term "fraidy cat."
  - Gander5739 2mo ago
    Well, I didn't know the term until I looked it up just now (though the meaning was obvious enough). It appears to be a US term.
dadie 2mo ago
Beware though that only learning words may leave you confused as in my experience Americans tend to overload the same word with a different meaning depending on the context. They also often resort to idioms and cultural references. For reasons unknown to me, instead of using the word with the meaning they probably are trying to convey, they rather use vague analogies or metaphors. It always made me question if Americans in contrast to the British are a bit afraid to be precise.
- overtone1000 2mo ago
  Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra
  - bigstrat2003 2mo ago
    Sokath! His eyes uncovered!
- alyeska2 2mo ago
  Interesting perspective, I'm used to seeing the exact opposite observation, that British people are famous for saying things meant as insults that sound positive at a surface level and that people are often unsure if they're being mocked/ridiculed or not. Of course, American corporate-speak is unique from normal conversations, and people intentionally use vagueness to make sure there's general agreement before saying something concretely that might be contentious or cause problems.
  - TheOtherHobbes 2mo ago
    Different context. One social register is extreme understatement, which may be laden with passive aggression, but could also be approving. "That's not a bad idea" is likely to mean "Good idea, let's do it, or at least consider it seriously." But "Interesting idea" is likely to mean "You're an idiot." This is more corporate/middle class. There's also a working class register which is very direct and sweary, and extreme insults are actually meant affectionately. Even more confusingly, the two can overlap, and the same people will switch between them - sometimes in the same setting - with relative equals. Americans don't seem to do understatement. "My business died" becomes "My incredible journey." Relationships are cross-bred with hustle, so you can be friends with someone and they'll ask you to invest in their MLM scheme. Instead of using understatement US corporate speaks uses noise to act out hierarchy, to gaslight and to misdirect. I was talking to someone today who was asked to produce a report. They sent it on time, and then the team lead called a meeting to ask why it hadn't arrived. The report was literally sitting in their inbox unread. Everyone could see it, but they all went through the motions of pretending it wasn't there and developing an action plan for future delivery. It's all very David Graeber. So far as I can tell the US seems to specialise in situations where corporate insanity is happening but the sharp edges have been filed off, so it looks like productive activity higher up the pyramid.
mahdi7d1 2mo ago
After years of reading technical and scientific materials, listening to lectures and youtube tutorials and learning English exclusively through them I hit a wall when I watched a cooking youtube video for the first time. I was pretty confident in my English but I couldn't understand half of the sentences since I didn't know any of the vocabulary related to cooking. From tools (spatula) to ingredients (parsley) or even actions (frying). My delusions of proficiency shattered as I found out my everyday vocabulary is smaller than an elementary schooler.
WalterBright 2mo ago
I read years ago that: 1. TV vocabulary is 2,000 words 2. High school vocabulary is 10,000 words 3. College vocabulary is 30,000 words 4. English language has 1,000,000 words This is good news - you can be proficient in a foreign language by learning only 2,000 words!
- Guestmodinfo 2mo ago
  Please someone tell me where to get those 1 million words in decreasing order of difficulty or ascending order of usage along with their meanings and insinuations
  - WalterBright 2mo ago
    Sounds like a job for LLMs.
    - mahdi7d1 2mo ago
      Only if you mean llms finding already compiled lists on the internet. Since they would be too inefficient for actually compiling a list themselves.
  - stevesimmons 2mo ago
    https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Frequency_lists https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Frequency_lists
    - bilegeek 2mo ago
      Also worth going through the references of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipf%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipf%27s_law
- theli0nheart 2mo ago
  Being proficient in a language is really less about memorizing words than it is pronunciation and grammar. Memorization itself is pretty easy.
retrac 2mo ago
> Also, while it's easy to calculate word frequencies for stuff like newspaper articles, there aren't any good statistics (last I checked) around just normal everyday conversation. Because that stuff isn't getting recorded and transcribed. Linguists have resorted to spying on people in parks and shops and restaurants, to get "natural" language unperturbed by observer effects, audience tailoring, the filter of writing, etc. (In most cases that would not be considered ethical today!) The gold standard is something like: get acculturated to the language community you wish to study, make some acquaintances and friends, somehow finagle an invite to their homes or workplaces or social venues, and then with their permission, record their conversations as unobtrusively as you can. There is so little data on how language is really used it is quite bedevilling. As soon as people know you are listening they change how they speak.
- HPsquared 2mo ago
  This is one upside of the digital panopticon, I guess.
- itsamario 2mo ago
  That's what I discovered religion is for, understand the language as it was created. Ever wonder who decides what's self-explanatory and what resonates?
  - monk_grilla 2mo ago
    What?
- rsynnott 2mo ago
  > Linguists have resorted to spying on people in parks and shops and restaurants, to get "natural" language unperturbed by observer effects, audience tailoring, the filter of writing, etc. Hence the common phrase, found in most language phrasebooks: “is that a linguist hiding behind that bush?”
  - w-ll 2mo ago
    Im working this into some conversation this week. I feel its something Douglas Adams would have wrote.
tavavex 2mo ago
> If it's for reading the newspaper, you don't ever need to know "bathroom", but you sure do need to know words like "congressman". Unless you're reading a newspaper from the last 5 years or so - in which case, the word "bathroom" becomes surprisingly more relevant.
- protocolture 2mo ago
  >Retired radio shock jock Alan Jones′ influence and reputation survived one arrest, in a London public toilet in 1988. Always has been.
miki123211 2mo ago
Oh, this is such a fun rabbit hole. There are plenty of programmers who can write a commit message in almost perfect English, yet don't know the difference between lettuce and radish, and can't tell what a little sheep is called. My favorite area to catch people on is religion. Many C1 English speakers who grew up religious, some of whom are still devout and go to Church every Sunday, would be unable to hold even a basic conversation about their religion in English. The unfortunate side of this is how non-native speakers of English swear much more often. I got better at it, but I suspect I'd still struggle in American corporate culture.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
Smoosh 2mo ago
I see another problem being that the same words can have different meaning or intent in different contexts and particularly with different intonations and facial expressions.

thaumasiotes 2mo ago

> While if you are living somewhere, it's really important to know a lot of basic supermarket items that you wouldn't prioritize for other usages. Why? Having spent a good amount of time living in Shanghai, I found it important to be able to understand menus. But there's no pressure to know the words for supermarket items; you can just go to the supermarket and look for the item. Otherwise your point is correct; all semantic words are equally difficult and which ones you know depends on the things you like to talk about. Grammatical words are more difficult, and more important, but this is so widely understood that language-learning material already treats them as an entirely separate class of things to learn. > Also, while it's easy to calculate word frequencies for stuff like newspaper articles, there aren't any good statistics (last I checked) around just normal everyday conversation. Because that stuff isn't getting recorded and transcribed. (1) You seem to want COCA, which includes a bunch of transcribed telephone calls. (2) Word frequencies are still the wrong concept. If you want to understand a particular document, you need to understand almost all of the words that appear in that document. (You'll be able to learn some of them from their use in the document.) If you decide to learn a list of "frequent" words, you're unlikely to be able to understand more than a couple of isolated sentences in any given document.

WalterBright 2mo ago
> you need to understand almost all of the words that appear in that document I didn't learn English by reading vocabulary lists or dictionaries. Pretty much all was learned by context.
- thaumasiotes 2mo ago
  Yes, but that was a process of over a year that involved being repeatedly presented with real-life scenarios accompanied by verbal descriptions. If you were to just listen to all the same input, you would never have learned anything. The learning comes from deciphering the connection between the reality you see and the words you hear. And if you want to understand a document, which is just a sequence of unsupported words, it is equally true that you must already understand almost all of those words.
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
fluoridation 2mo ago
>(2) Word frequencies are still the wrong concept. If you want to understand a particular document, you need to understand almost all of the words that appear in that document. (You'll be able to learn some of them from their use in the document.) If you decide to learn a list of "frequent" words, you're unlikely to be able to understand more than a couple of isolated sentences in any given document. The point of learning by generic word frequency is to optimize study, not to attempt to brute-force understanding. If you have a document in front of you, would you rather have to look up every word in a dictionary, or only every other word?
- thaumasiotes 2mo ago
  > If you have a document in front of you, would you rather have to look up every word in a dictionary, or only every other word? I've been in this situation. There's no real difference between the two circumstances you describe.

Sam6late 2mo ago

I tried to teach 'magicE vocab', sorting them by difficulty level for an English language plan, and got them easily arranged. For example, sham/shame and slide/slid are for hard to learn level, while ate, pale, kite, are for the easy level.

ReactiveJelly 2mo ago

Kinda like how there's no average-sized airplane pilot

DC-3 2mo ago

I think a lot about this. It's funny how there are certain domains of language, familiar to all native speakers, but that you are simply not likely to learn as an adult language learner, at least not without diligent and focused study. I live and work in a foreign country, and have a modest but functional grasp of the language here. Which is to say, I know how to say 'sustainability', 'union-negotiated collective agreement', and 'offensive conduct in the workplace'.... but if you asked me the words for 'cedar', 'robin', 'pond', or 'linen' I would be struck dumb. And yet presumably every ten year old I walk past in the street would know those words as comfortably as I knew them in English as a ten year old in England.

coliveira 2mo ago
When you're a foreigner learning a language your experience is mostly from reading. There are words, however, that are much more common at home and in spoken language. So you'll probably never learn the words that a 10 year old kid knows.
- watwut 2mo ago
  It is changing. A bulk of learners now get their vocabularies from youtube, netflix and podcasts. Watching kids shows is common recommendation (I disagree with it somewhat, but that does not make it not common), so I think people will learn also those 10 years old world words.
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
- TacticalCoder 2mo ago
  I started learning english around 1984, when I began to learn programming. Back then most books were, by very far, in english. I also spent some time in the US (about one year altogether). Copying lyrics from my favorite songs of the 80s was helpful. And then later on TV series and movies in english. I've watched Friends, HIMYM and Californication* more than once (it's probably the reason I swear so much) and those really helped. Now I raised my kid in english: from the beginning she was only ever allowed to watch TV shows in english. And she's always been to international schools, in english too. The other day she taught me a simply word which, surprisingly enough, I didn't know: a "coaster" (a drink coaster). My absolute favorite is when she uses english grammar and applies it to french: the rules about where adjectives do go vary between french and english and she regularly messes it up in french (supposedly her "native" language but at this point I wonder whether english ain't a first language, and french second). And one thing she has that I'll never have is a beautiful, proper, english accent. Mine shall forever be a strong french one.

adrianN 2mo ago

There is also a whole different language used to talk to toddlers and small children that native speakers know but very few adult learners ever pick up. And slang used among teenagers and young adults that often times not even their parents understand fully.

dspillett 2mo ago
The problem with adding slang to any organised education program is two-fold: some of it changes much more quickly than you course materials can, and much of it is quite localised.
DiogenesKynikos 2mo ago
I recently discovered that even high-level non-native speakers do not know the term "fraidy cat."
- Gander5739 2mo ago
  Well, I didn't know the term until I looked it up just now (though the meaning was obvious enough). It appears to be a US term.

dadie 2mo ago

Beware though that only learning words may leave you confused as in my experience Americans tend to overload the same word with a different meaning depending on the context. They also often resort to idioms and cultural references. For reasons unknown to me, instead of using the word with the meaning they probably are trying to convey, they rather use vague analogies or metaphors. It always made me question if Americans in contrast to the British are a bit afraid to be precise.

overtone1000 2mo ago
Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra
- bigstrat2003 2mo ago
  Sokath! His eyes uncovered!
alyeska2 2mo ago
Interesting perspective, I'm used to seeing the exact opposite observation, that British people are famous for saying things meant as insults that sound positive at a surface level and that people are often unsure if they're being mocked/ridiculed or not. Of course, American corporate-speak is unique from normal conversations, and people intentionally use vagueness to make sure there's general agreement before saying something concretely that might be contentious or cause problems.
- TheOtherHobbes 2mo ago
  Different context. One social register is extreme understatement, which may be laden with passive aggression, but could also be approving. "That's not a bad idea" is likely to mean "Good idea, let's do it, or at least consider it seriously." But "Interesting idea" is likely to mean "You're an idiot." This is more corporate/middle class. There's also a working class register which is very direct and sweary, and extreme insults are actually meant affectionately. Even more confusingly, the two can overlap, and the same people will switch between them - sometimes in the same setting - with relative equals. Americans don't seem to do understatement. "My business died" becomes "My incredible journey." Relationships are cross-bred with hustle, so you can be friends with someone and they'll ask you to invest in their MLM scheme. Instead of using understatement US corporate speaks uses noise to act out hierarchy, to gaslight and to misdirect. I was talking to someone today who was asked to produce a report. They sent it on time, and then the team lead called a meeting to ask why it hadn't arrived. The report was literally sitting in their inbox unread. Everyone could see it, but they all went through the motions of pretending it wasn't there and developing an action plan for future delivery. It's all very David Graeber. So far as I can tell the US seems to specialise in situations where corporate insanity is happening but the sharp edges have been filed off, so it looks like productive activity higher up the pyramid.

mahdi7d1 2mo ago

After years of reading technical and scientific materials, listening to lectures and youtube tutorials and learning English exclusively through them I hit a wall when I watched a cooking youtube video for the first time. I was pretty confident in my English but I couldn't understand half of the sentences since I didn't know any of the vocabulary related to cooking. From tools (spatula) to ingredients (parsley) or even actions (frying). My delusions of proficiency shattered as I found out my everyday vocabulary is smaller than an elementary schooler.

WalterBright 2mo ago

I read years ago that: 1. TV vocabulary is 2,000 words 2. High school vocabulary is 10,000 words 3. College vocabulary is 30,000 words 4. English language has 1,000,000 words This is good news - you can be proficient in a foreign language by learning only 2,000 words!

Guestmodinfo 2mo ago
Please someone tell me where to get those 1 million words in decreasing order of difficulty or ascending order of usage along with their meanings and insinuations
- WalterBright 2mo ago
  Sounds like a job for LLMs.
  - mahdi7d1 2mo ago
    Only if you mean llms finding already compiled lists on the internet. Since they would be too inefficient for actually compiling a list themselves.
- stevesimmons 2mo ago
  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Frequency_lists https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Frequency_lists
  - bilegeek 2mo ago
    Also worth going through the references of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipf%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipf%27s_law
theli0nheart 2mo ago
Being proficient in a language is really less about memorizing words than it is pronunciation and grammar. Memorization itself is pretty easy.

retrac 2mo ago

> Also, while it's easy to calculate word frequencies for stuff like newspaper articles, there aren't any good statistics (last I checked) around just normal everyday conversation. Because that stuff isn't getting recorded and transcribed. Linguists have resorted to spying on people in parks and shops and restaurants, to get "natural" language unperturbed by observer effects, audience tailoring, the filter of writing, etc. (In most cases that would not be considered ethical today!) The gold standard is something like: get acculturated to the language community you wish to study, make some acquaintances and friends, somehow finagle an invite to their homes or workplaces or social venues, and then with their permission, record their conversations as unobtrusively as you can. There is so little data on how language is really used it is quite bedevilling. As soon as people know you are listening they change how they speak.

HPsquared 2mo ago
This is one upside of the digital panopticon, I guess.
itsamario 2mo ago
That's what I discovered religion is for, understand the language as it was created. Ever wonder who decides what's self-explanatory and what resonates?
- monk_grilla 2mo ago
  What?
rsynnott 2mo ago
> Linguists have resorted to spying on people in parks and shops and restaurants, to get "natural" language unperturbed by observer effects, audience tailoring, the filter of writing, etc. Hence the common phrase, found in most language phrasebooks: “is that a linguist hiding behind that bush?”
- w-ll 2mo ago
  Im working this into some conversation this week. I feel its something Douglas Adams would have wrote.

tavavex 2mo ago

> If it's for reading the newspaper, you don't ever need to know "bathroom", but you sure do need to know words like "congressman". Unless you're reading a newspaper from the last 5 years or so - in which case, the word "bathroom" becomes surprisingly more relevant.

protocolture 2mo ago
>Retired radio shock jock Alan Jones′ influence and reputation survived one arrest, in a London public toilet in 1988. Always has been.

miki123211 2mo ago

Oh, this is such a fun rabbit hole. There are plenty of programmers who can write a commit message in almost perfect English, yet don't know the difference between lettuce and radish, and can't tell what a little sheep is called. My favorite area to catch people on is religion. Many C1 English speakers who grew up religious, some of whom are still devout and go to Church every Sunday, would be unable to hold even a basic conversation about their religion in English. The unfortunate side of this is how non-native speakers of English swear much more often. I got better at it, but I suspect I'd still struggle in American corporate culture.

deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]

Smoosh 2mo ago

I see another problem being that the same words can have different meaning or intent in different contexts and particularly with different intonations and facial expressions.