Can somebody give me a rough idea about vocabulary numbers? It seems like I can't get a concrete answer (maybe because there isn't one). For example, how many vocabulary for shounen manga, seinen manga, visual novels, light novels, novels and how much does the average kid, teenager, adult, educated adult have? I know it depends on what the specific title you're reading, or the specific person, but I tried to divide it into categories. Please try and give actual numbers, thank.

[Zgarbas]

English is really the only language important enough to have thorough research done regarding the number of words, and even that is limited. Basically, there is no set rule, and it's not like people have a set list of common words to choose from (common words list are a statistic, and even in a not-so technical novel I managed to find 5 words listed as uncommon in the first page...). It's generally agreed upon that 2000 words suffice for the most basic of conversations and are considered a sufficient amount of words to provide a foundation.

In other words, it doesn't matter. It's never enough. As far as those based-on-statistics-we'll-count-the-words-you-know tests I know 50k+ words in English and I still have to learn new terms and encounter new words on a regular basis.

How do you manage to know 50,000 words in English if it's your second language? I'm native and I only know 16.4k

[Zgarbas]

I honestly doubt that . English has more words than your average language and a gazillion imported terms to boot, plus all the variations thanks to it being the lingua franca of the world, so I wouldn't count 50k words as necessary in other languages, but still. My English isn't even that advanced.

(I doubt that it's the best source for these things, but dictionary.com puts the average amount of words known by an English speaker at college level somewhere around 30k words. Had a cool test for these things a few years ago but I don't remember the source, and the dictionary.com test seems a bit random)

I took a test and it said 16.4k but then I took it again and it said 24k. I checked off every box in the test and it came to an even 45k. I don't know how you came up with the 50k statistic for yourself.

The problem with measuring your vocabulary is that you have to define what constitutes a word. This is also why vocabulary tests on the internet may yield very different results, and as such it probably doesn't make much sense to compare results between different vocab tests. For instance, are "fast" and "faster" different words? Do we count all conjugations of a word multiple times? How about "quick" and "quickly", as they are an adjective and an adverb respectively? How about irregular conjugations, should "am" and "is" constitute two separate words or count as a single? What about vowel changes like "run" and "ran"?

For this reason I also think it is hard to provide you with your desired vocabulary numbers, although you might want to take a look at this site: http://testyourvocab.com/
The link is to an English vocabulary test, which provides statistics from its results where you can also see the average vocabulary numbers for speakers of different age groups (including children), which might give you an idea of how vocabulary levels scale with age and what the expected vocabulary levels are among different age groups.

With all that said though, I think you should just start trying things out when you think you might be able to handle them instead of waiting until you reach some magical vocabulary number. If it turns out to be too hard, just put it aside for another week/month or two and try again...

I got most of my Japanese vocabulary FROM doing different things like reading novels etc.. I'm not sure how else to go about it.
There's a debate as to whether N+1 is really better for you or not. I feel that if you have enough motivation and interesting material (as well as a solid foundation.. say, a few thousand basic words and Tae Kim/Heisig1) you can start right away. It will be difficult but if you stay motivated you will gain all the vocabulary, grammar and comprehension you need.

I have no idea what's needed and what the average person knows but I began reading regular novels straight away (Murakami Haruki's "A Wild Sheep Chase" was my first. I had read it before in English) with ~3500 words (+Tae Kim +Heisig1). It wasn't easy but my vocabulary expanded quickly because I was motivated and reading interesting things. My ~3500 vocabulary was primarily from textbooks. Real basic stuff. My reading of novels was a desperate attempt to get away from textbooks ASAP.

Moral of the story: Don't worry about the numbers!

[Zgarbas]

Isbilenper Wrote:The problem with measuring your vocabulary is that you have to define what constitutes a word. This is also why vocabulary tests on the internet may yield very different results, and as such it probably doesn't make much sense to compare results between different vocab tests. For instance, are "fast" and "faster" different words? Do we count all conjugations of a word multiple times? How about "quick" and "quickly", as they are an adjective and an adverb respectively? How about irregular conjugations, should "am" and "is" constitute two separate words or count as a single? What about vowel changes like "run" and "ran"?

For this reason I also think it is hard to provide you with your desired vocabulary numbers, although you might want to take a look at this site: http://testyourvocab.com/
The link is to an English vocabulary test, which provides statistics from its results where you can also see the average vocabulary numbers for speakers of different age groups (including children), which might give you an idea of how vocabulary levels scale with age and what the expected vocabulary levels are among different age groups.

With all that said though, I think you should just start trying things out when you think you might be able to handle them instead of waiting until you reach some magical vocabulary number. If it turns out to be too hard, just put it aside for another week/month or two and try again...

I think vocab counters generally agree that one lexeme=1 word for such statistics.

Isbilenper Wrote:For this reason I also think it is hard to provide you with your desired vocabulary numbers, although you might want to take a look at this site: http://testyourvocab.com/

Thanks a lot for the link! That's a neat test. Once you do the test you can compare your passive vocab size with your verbal SAT score (assuming you ever took one). My score was almost exactly what their estimated correlation would suggest... if that correlation is strong, then the test seems to be reliable (i.e. always measures the same thing no matter who takes it for the first time). We don't know if it's valid (i.e. actually measures vocabulary size) and self-reporting that you know at least one definition isn't particularly precise, but the test is supposed to have a 10% margin of error, which seems reasonable. What I can see from their statistical explanation they seem to have that right at least.

So e.g. a 25-year old native speaker of English with a 700 verbal SAT score would passively know 28-29k words on average.

Zgarbas, have you taken this particular test by chance? Your 50k+ in English would put you in the 99.9999th percentile, and you would probably get a perfect 800 score on the SAT. You would also practically never encounter an unknown word unless you read English dictionaries in your free time.

For Japanese, I think the consensus on this site (from discussion a few years back) was 6000 words is ok for easy manga, 10k for most TV dramas if you want to get more than just the gist.

It depends. I hardly believe Core6k would help you through a sci-fi manga for instance, as there are words that might be slightly uncommon or obscure, etc.

You shouldn't just wait until you are "ready". You only get good at something by doing it.

I remember one of my linguistics professors in college telling us that if you knew 10,000 words in any language (preferably the most common words) you wouldn't have a problem with 95% of that language's spoken form. Reading would be another thing all together though, but once you reached around 40,000-60,000 words (what they said research showed a well educated native speaker would know) you would likewise understand around 95%~99% of anything written as well. They made sure to emphasize though that their definition of a "word" was less static than just "one words= one distinct spelling", and was really more along the lines of "one word=one distinct meaning". For example the word "run":

My nose is running.
The car is running.
The man is running.

These "run"s wouldn't necessarily all just be considered knowing one word since the meanings are different.

Stian Wrote:It depends. I hardly believe Core6k would help you through a sci-fi manga for instance, as there are words that might be slightly uncommon or obscure, etc.

You shouldn't just wait until you are "ready". You only get good at something by doing it.

Stian Wrote:It depends. I hardly believe Core6k would help you through a sci-fi manga for instance, as there are words that might be slightly uncommon or obscure, etc.

You shouldn't just wait until you are "ready". You only get good at something by doing it.

Core6 could help provide a knowledge base of common language, and similar common word pattens, though, if the individual has an extremely limited or non-existent background in Japanese phraseology.

Not to contradict what you promoted. One cannot simply learn to swim by practicing arm movements in the dry by the poolside. Yet at least stretching the arms about and getting used to the mechanics of the movement can't hurt, so long as the person fully intends to dive in the pool and get wet. No one wants to watch stationary, pool-side butterfly movements and strange hip thrusts at the Olympics. Or maybe they might, lol.




EDIT: a general question/though to anyone reading.

When taking vocabulary into account, where does one place value of an individual word/static word and its generally understood "concrete" meaning; and how is this understanding valued compared to varied yet common applications of the same term in different collocations? I think possibly the question maybe a little bit circular and deceptive, as I am merely following a train of thought.

Or maybe it should be wherein does the value of meaning and definition arrive; from a single term or from an evolving and competitive phraseology over the interactions of different human generations. It seems, at least from my perspective at this very moment, that the topic of memetics could be a useful tool for understanding in respect to language vocabulary or at least in practical/learner friendly etymological descriptions of kanji/verb stems; collocations; nuances, etc. which are often poorly translated, lost in translation, and all of the above.

I apologise in advance for the rambling nature of this post. Not entirely sure where the thought begins or ends.

@uisukii
Stian doesn't mean don't do Core 6k, he means that it won't save you when you're trying to read sci-fi. Of course it's true. You can never be "ready" to read something in another language by studying it like a subject in school. You just do it and that's how you learn.

Probably. That's what I took away from his post anywho. And that's how I feel.
Make a base (core 6k? something else?). Then go for it. Dive in. thumbsup.

Well, personally I looked at Core 2k, tried a few sentences and found it so dreadfully boring that I immediately deleted the deck. I felt Tae Kim gave me enough vocabulary to start out with, though I have the added benefit of having watched a *lot* of subbed anime over the years (though never with the intent to learn anything)

Well, I enjoyed the N64 Zelda games and learnt from them only after adding 1000 sentences from the Genki books.

Do Core6k if you find it enjoyable, but don't do ONLY Core6k without doing anything else. At least by the end of Core2k, you should have been deep into the realm of Japanese media several times.

.

I think for novels it's 20347, not 20345. Sheesh get your numbers right Arupan.

But for real.
And for reference(?)
According to my Anki, I have ~12,000 words in all of my decks combined.
I'm sure there's a thousand or two that I've picked up over the years but aren't in the program so let's assume 13-14,000 + because of this number, the words that I can understand without having heard before.

I have no problem speaking, listening, reading, writing and existing in Japanese.
Just do it. Vocab will catch up!

[Zgarbas]

Irixmark Wrote:

Isbilenper Wrote:For this reason I also think it is hard to provide you with your desired vocabulary numbers, although you might want to take a look at this site: http://testyourvocab.com/

Zgarbas, have you taken this particular test by chance? Your 50k+ in English would put you in the 99.9999th percentile, and you would probably get a perfect 800 score on the SAT. You would also practically never encounter an unknown word unless you read English dictionaries in your free time.

I got 36k on that particular test. Many terms I did recognize but could not explain properly so I didn't tick them (as opposed to a few years ago when SAT vocab was the thing so I could have), which would explain the drop. Close enough. Still probably more than I'll ever know in Japanese =). And probably more than I know in my native tongue (which makes sense since English has about 10 times more vocab than Romanian, and we get by on interjections).

We did do SAT simulations in high school and I'd get maximum or close to maximum score, IIRC. Most of the class did. No idea if they were just home-brewed tests based on SAT word list or former tests since I never cared about taking the actual exams(lots of my colleagues did, though, with good scores). I encounter unknown words all the time, usually in a "I've seen this word but can't remember the meaning for the life of me" setting. I did have many natives complain about my using "big" words though, even though they didn't seem big to me; they were the kind that bragged about getting a C in English for their Alevels though, so I don't think they count (笑).

Quote:My nose is running.
The car is running.
The man is running.

These "run"s wouldn't necessarily all just be considered knowing one word since the meanings are different.

IIRC in such situations run would actually be different lexemes, since unless it's idiomatic a word counts as a different lexeme with a different use, but it's always been a gray area for me. I think that the nose running and man running are the same version as run, but nose running is just idiomatic (as the snot is running away). So for example, run as in "the car is running" would be a different lexeme from the normal use of "run", whereas "to run an errand" or "run into someone" don't count as it is just part of a phraseme.

I got about 10k on that test! But honestly I almost have no problems understanding written and spoken materials, especially educational stuff, general stuff on the Internet and video games. I have some problems with novels though where I need to check about two words every page.

Zgarbas Wrote:I got 36k on that particular test.

I got 21k, and I'm native! Also supposedly a posh private school snob.

undead_saif Wrote:I got about 10k on that test! But honestly I almost have no problems understanding written and spoken materials, especially educational stuff, general stuff on the Internet and video games. I have some problems with novels though where I need to check about two words every page.

Just try reading more difficult books by authors with huge vocabularies if you want to feel inadequate. There's some authors that use such obsolete and obscure words it doesn't really make me want to learn the words or make me feel inadequate about my smaller vocab lol... Well if I effortlessly pick it up by reading in context that's cool

I sorta cheated while I took the vocab test bc some of the words I can't tell if I know it or not unless its put in context ie I know what chaste means bc I've heard of chastity belt ... So for the few words where I felt like I knew what it meant but wasn't 100% sure I thought up my definition and then looked up the actual definition

Zgarbas Wrote:In other words, it doesn't matter. It's never enough. As far as those based-on-statistics-we'll-count-the-words-you-know tests I know 50k+ words in English and I still have to learn new terms and encounter new words on a regular basis.

I agree with this sentiment, it doesn't matter. Honestly, the best way to learn words is to read and look up words you don't know. I have *no* idea why such an effective method has been dropped in favor of contextless word lists and flashcards. Eww. Unless you are studying for a test, there's no reason to ever drill vocabulary. No one on earth learned their first language through flash cards. Why in god's name would you treat your second language differently.

Nothing beats just reading. Working up to a reading level is what school/class/textbooks are for. If you are not at a reading level, work up to one. Once you are up to one, just read stuff. Visit children's websites, read all of their content, work your way up to news articles and books/manga. Just read....a lot. I mean read read read read. Smart ppl became smart by reading. Any word worth knowing will be repeated to you multiple times without you having to SRS stuff.

amtrack Wrote:Honestly, the best way to learn words is to read and look up words you don't know.

This is true only for common words. Once you start acquiring rare words that only show up once per 1,000,000 words, then that's when flash cards are useful. In fact, I use flash cards for rare English vocabulary.

Also, I should add that the average school-age child only learns a few words per day. With flash cards, it's possible to cram over a hundred words in a day.