How many words I need to know (1)
How many new words do I need to learn? This is a question often asked by ESL learners. To answer this question, we first need to agree on the definition of a new word. Do you regard “clear” “clearer”, and “clearly” as one word or three words? If we treat them as one word, we are talking about word families. Words have families. If we know one member of the family, we can recognize the rest of the family. When we talk about new words, let’s just talk about word families.
Do you know how many word families are there in a dictionary? About 55,000. How many word families does an ordinary native speaker know? About 20,000. How many words does a five-year old child know? Between 4,000 to 5,000.
We know some words are used more frequently than other words. As an ESL learner, we should learn the most frequently used words first. Do you know which word is the most frequently used word in English? According to the General Service list by Michael West, it is “the“, the second most frequently used word is “be“, the third is “of“, the fourth is “and“, the fifth is “a“. The Dolch list contains 220 most frequently used words. A good ESL textbook always introduces the most frequently used words first. -Ron Lee
Hello.
My ESL teacher said to me we need to know about 20000 world to become american college student level. It is too much for me!!
Comment by Mio — September 26, 2007 @ 20:01
iam suren live in kurdstan i like to learn english language alot but i don’t know haw to learn it please help me thanks for you
Comment by suren — September 29, 2007 @ 12:51
hi. for me, to understand each words are very difficult. first step i did was read english book and if i didn’t understood the words, usually i wrote it in my notebook and i used dictionary as my guide in order to understand more the meaning of those words. But this method still cannot improving my english skills.. please help me..
Comment by nana — October 2, 2007 @ 00:40
Hello.
I am a learner.I was looking for an evaluation for may vocabulary in comparisson with a native and I found your page.
I almost agree with your definition as a method for qulifying a learner’s vocabulary, but there are some defects. Firstly there are so many instances that the meaning of words in a family are not similar at all. For example moor(verb), moor(n), blaze and blazer… and each one has a complete different meaning. Secondly one word can have some different meanings,which the definition doesn’t distinguish them. It seems a more precise defenition is required.
With great thanks
Comment by Hamid — November 26, 2007 @ 09:30
I think the best way to learn many words is reading. The problem is that isn’t enough read one time each word; it’s necessary to read many times the same word in several contexts. When I read an essay one time, I find some words that I don’t know; some times I need to search ist meaning in the dictionary; another times, I understand the meaning of the word by the context. It’s most easy.
Comment by albeiro — December 20, 2007 @ 15:09
For me the best way to learn new words is reading very texts and
Searching in web. On the internet is very fun, because we can to find the most varied issues. This way you will learning english of an way speed and fun.
Comment by Sky — February 8, 2008 @ 09:38
i just recently got my ESL cert. i just realized that it is not necessary to count how many words we should know but how many words we use correctly. for non native speaker of english, practice and practice is the only solution. =)
Comment by leneihs — May 18, 2008 @ 03:24