Professor Arguelles for English
According to Prof Arguelles: my.vocabularysize.com -his students, Asian teachers of English get: around 10.000 -average native speaker: 16.000 -native speaker with a degree should have: 20.000 -Prof. Arguelles himself got: 28.000 In general, there is no minimum vocabulary size. Language ability is related to vocabulary size, so the more words you know, the more you will be able to understand. However, if you want to set a learning goal, Paul Nation's (2006) research suggests that the following sizes might be useful: How large a vocabulary is needed for reading and listening? Skill Size estimate Notes Reading 8,000 - 9,000 word families Nation (2006) Listening 6,000 - 7,000 word families Nation (2006) Native speaker 20,000 word families Goulden, Nation, & Read (1990) Zechmeister, Chronis, Cull, D’Anna, & Healy (1995) What is a word family? There are many different forms of a word, so this test measures your knowledge of the most basic form of a wo