How many words do you need to know in English? This is a very
common question and it varies depending on your goal. Because
TalkEnglish.com focuses on speaking, the vocabulary presented in this
section will be the most commonly used words in speaking.
- There are roughly 100,000 word-families in the English language.
- A native English speaking person knows between 10,000 (uneducated) to 20,000 (educated) word families.
- Professor Paul Nation found that a person needs to know 8,000-9,000 word families to enjoy reading a book.
- Studying heritage language learners reveal that a person with a
vocabulary size of 2,500 passive word-families and 2,000 active
word-families can speak a language fluently.
Many people do not know what a heritage language learner is.
Let's say a person from Mexico moves to the US at the age of 5. The
person knows basic Spanish and is fluent for a 5 year old but eventually
English will become dominant. This person whose first language is
Spanish actually does not know many Spanish words and must study Spanish
to retain it. Because they grew up for 5 years speaking Spanish, they
are a different type of language learners. This type of person is
considered a heritage language learner.
GOOD NEWS - If your goal is to speak English fluently, you are not
required to study 10,000 words. 2,000 is enough to get you started.
Here is another list of things to consider before studying vocabulary
- Before studying vocabulary, understand the difference between
each word in a word-family. By doing so, you will be able to understand
how to use words more easily. A word-family is a grouping of words
derived from the same base. For example, active, actively, activities,
and activity are all in the same word-family.
- There is a difference between passive vocabulary and active
vocabulary. Passive vocabulary is used in reading and listening, where
you are receiving information. Active vocabulary is used in writing and
speaking, where you are giving information. In reading, you have time to
think. If you want to be fluent, you don't have time to think because
the definition of fluent is to speak smoothly and easily.
- Your goal should be to increase the depth of your vocabulary
knowledge instead of the breadth of your vocabulary knowledge. There are
many English learners who know 8,000 words, but they cannot speak a
single sentence. On the other hand, there are people who know only 2,000
words and they can speak fluently. The difference is how deeply you
know a word. Knowing 10,000 words passively will not help you with
speaking. Instead focus on learning the first 2,000 words deeply.
- Learning vocabulary by memorizing the definition in your
native language is an inefficient way to learn words. Rather, reading is
the best way to increase your vocabulary. Learn words by seeing the
word in a sentence. You can look up words in a dictionary, but study
them in sentences, not the word itself.
The vocabulary words in the list below were created by extracting
words from dialogs totaling more than 250,000 words. The only words to
make it into the top 2,000 words were those that were present in 1) The
British National Corpus top 3,000 words, 2) The Corpus of Contemporary
American English top 5,000 words, and 3) The 3,000 most frequently
spoken words from Longman Communication.
If you had to choose the first 2,000 words to learn, the list
below is very accurate. The number next to the link is the actual
number.
Top 2000 English Vocabulary Words used in Speaking (2265)
Out of the 2265 words in the list, a total of 1867 word families were present.
Top 2000 Word Families (1867)
The following is broken down by type of words. All the words in
the following lists are in the list of 2000 words. The sum is greater
than 2,000 because many words can be both a noun and a verb.
Finally, before you start studying vocabulary, keep in mind that
you will need to learn a lot more than 2,000 words. However, studying
the right 2,000 words in the proper depth will help you to become fluent
in English much faster.
Top 1500 Nouns (1524)
Top 1000 Verbs (1010)
Top 500 Adjectives (528)
Top 250 Adverbs (252)
Top 60 Pronouns (58)
Top 50 Prepositions (46)
