What is your vocabulary count?

Building your vocabulary is a very important skill that every English learner should acquire, especially when his major goal is a good command of reading (and listening) comprehension so he can read books, watch movies and surf the Internet, among other things. This skill can be assessed by your vocabulary count (ie the number of English words you know and use without resorting to a dictionary), which is a reliable gauge of your English competency. Is there a way to measure this count? Of course there is. Just go through a dictionary, counting the words you know without reading the definitions. Iõ?Tm just kidding. Naturally there is no accurate measurement, but you can obtain a rough estimate by evaluation tests as simple as this one, which I found on www.prolingua.co.jp.

A word of warning though: this test doesnõ?Tt seem to give a decent estimation, at least for me. My test produced a vocabulary count ofõ?Ư 20,000, while I frankly admit itõ?Ts a false number. However, just try for yourselves and give your comments. Good testing.


VOCABULARY ESTIMATOR

This Vocabulary Estimator test will give you a rough idea of how your vocabulary compares to that of a native English speaker. Count the words you know in the 70 vocabulary words listed below, and then look at the chart at the bottom of the page to see what your score means.

The words are listed according to how often they are used in the English language. For example, the first ten words are among the 1500 most commonly used words in English. To find your vocabulary, count how many words you know among the words numbered 1 through 40, and multiply by 150. Then count the number of words that you know among words 41 through 70 and multiply by 600. Add the two subtotals together and this is your vocabulary.


Words in the 1 to 1,500 Level
1. baby
2. corner
3. country
4. doctor
5. grass
6. cotton
7. experience
8. prize
9. shake
10. short

Words in the 1,500 to 3,000 Level
11. arrow
12. backward
13. breathe
14. complain
15. destroy
16. drum
17. fatal
18. funeral
19. shelter
20. tremble

Words in the 3,000 to 4,500 Level
21. admiral
22. barrier
23. disobedient
24. essential
25. resemble
26. shipment
27. theory
28. tropical
29. universe
30. wrinkle

Words in the 4,500 to 6,000 Level
31. binoculars
32. carnation
33. drowsy
34. expe***ion
35. jungle
36. matinee
37. mention
38. progress
39. ripple
40. unique


A = (Number of words known in 1 through 40) x 150


Words in the 6,000 to 12,000 Level
41. abyss
42. bale
43. canyon
44. exterminate
45. instrument
46. javelin
47. obvious
48. password
49. rhythm
50. scalp

Words in the 12,000 to 18,000 Level
51. adaptable
52. capsule
53. embargo
54. gavel
55. justify
56. liberate
57. memento
58. naturalize
59. porous
60. oblivion

Words in the 18,000 to 24,000 Level
61. capacious
62. emaciated
63. gargantuan
64. laconic
65. nubile
66. nomenclature
67. prolixity
68. rabid
69. redolent
70. resurgent

B = (Number of words known in 41 through 70) x 600

Add (A) and (B) to find your total English vocabulary.

õ? Below 6000 words - Children up to 9 years old
õ? 6,000 to 9,000 words - Children ages 10 to 16
õ? 9,000 to 12,000 words - 25% of adults in the U.S. have vocabularies of this size
õ? 12,000 to 18,000 words - Most adults have vocabularies in this range
õ? 18,000 to 24,000 words - Most college graduates and professional people
õ? Over 24,000 words - People at the top levels of their professions

Note: This test only measures your passive (listening) vocabulary as opposed to your active (speaking) vocabulary. Native speakers generally can use most all of the words they know in their active vocabularies. Many students feel that their fluency is poor due to limited vocabulary, however, the real cause is most likely a lack of speaking practice. Speaking practice turns passive vocabulary into active vocabulary and improves fluency.

17400
12,000 to 18,000 words - Most adults have vocabularies in this range
So CLOSE to over 18000 -_-;;
Stupid me. I need to learn more!!! ;_;

Doi la bien kho..

Hey, thanks for posting this up, I was often wondering how many words do I know and there was no way to check that out in any ordinary way ... (hahah, no i did not attempt to browse the dictionary). Hmm, I got 22,200 according to the chart, this is quite consistent with my accademic background but still..., need to study more ^_^
"Don't settle for the one you can live with, wait for the one you can't live without."

I got above 6000
oh well at least i feel much... younger (10-16)

profoundly inaccurate. Would you trust the Japanese, most horrible English learners ever to roam the earth, to judge how much you know of the language anyway

Tiền bất kiến cổ nhân
Hậu bất kiến lai giả
Niệm thiên địa chi du du
Độc sảng nhiên nhi lệ hạ

As it happens, I''m from Japan!!
I''m just joking..^^;;. It is true that they''re horrible English learners though..Check out this www.engrish.com. Hahahaha I crack myself up everytime.
However, they are very logical, precise and systematic people. So I do trust their counting system.

Doi la bien kho..

Let''s hope that no Japanese would stumbled onto this page.

7650 - not so bad, no so good
Shake hand, nod head, say "yes" with A3

Yes, a typical Japanese speaks poor English. But this is made by Japanese language experts and I think they are much better than those in Vietnam for instance, so this might be justifiable. But as I already said, this is not accurate. Don''t rely on it for serious purposes.

Oops! I kinda found out that the test I posted is not decent at all! Just ignore it and keep your feet on the ground. The two following online tests seem much more reliable:
http://www.insightin.com/test/test.phtml?test=test10k
http://www.forumeducation.net/servlet/pages/vi/show/static_vocabulary2.html
which produced for me estimates respectively of 7400 and 9350! So I guess my vocabulary size is somewhere around 8000. I am pretty sure this number is justifiable compared to the false 20,000 I got from the Japanese test (It''s really a big number, considering that some native English speakers could have a count of as little as 10,000 !). Just try for yourself and see the result.