How big is your English vocabulary?

1. 82

   kerrygposted 12 years ago

   Just took this interesting quiz and came out with an estimated vocabulary of 32,700 English words - a bit lower than I would have liked. Time to crack the books, I guess.
   
   What's your score?
   
   http://www.testyourvocab.com/

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   1. 61

      tobey100posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      No too big I'm afraid.  I was born in Alabama and live in Tennessee.  It's a wonder I can even read!

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      1. 70

         LeslieAdrienneposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         

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   2. 60

      Gillmeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Mine won't be too bad comparing others in my grade , I'm in 8th grade. So....
      But if i do a contest or go in like...national spelling b then u could say I'm out!

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      1. 74

         WriteAngledposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I assume being eighth grade means you are a schoolchild. If this is so, you are not permitted to have an account here. Only adults aged 18 years or older can become members of Hubpages
         
         http://hubpages.com/help/user_agreement

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         1. 60

            Gillmeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            I'm only using hub when ther's an adult IN the room (duh) !

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            1. 82

               Uninvited Writerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               You are still not allowed to be a member.

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            2. 60

               Extinct Soulposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Or you could atleast accept the fact that you're old and stop pretensions..

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            3. 70

               LeslieAdrienneposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Gillme
               
               Where do you get off insulting other adults? And, what does the presence of an adult have to do with you violating the rules?
               
               See, this is the problem... your are not permitted to be here, the adult in the room is allowing you to be disobedient. Now, when you turn 15 and start acting a fool, that adult is going to wonder why....
               
               Well, they can place the blame first on themselves... the fact is, that adult is training you to disregard rules, conduct yourself in a disrespectful manner and is acting irresponsibly. 
               
               P.S. I really don't care if you like what I'm saying, in fact, I hope you get angry enough to go on a more suitable age appropriate site.

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   3. 70

      LeslieAdrienneposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I had to be honest because although I could pronounce the majority of the words and have seen many in print... I had to only check those that I actually could give a definition for....
      
      27,600

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2. 0

   EmpressFelicityposted 12 years ago

   34,900. Great quiz.

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3. 74

   WriteAngledposted 12 years ago

   39,700
   
   I'm wondering how accurate the estimate can be, given the small number of test words.

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   1. 61

      tobey100posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Me too, 39,700.  Wonder if we knew the same words?

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      1. 74

         WriteAngledposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Well, uxoricide was among mine.
         
         I was curious to see if there is an antonym, but could not find one on searching. I suppose it would be maritusicide, which is a bit of a tongue twister.
         
         Out of interest, I went back to the test and checked every word as known. The result for vocabulary size came to 45,000. Given the blurb on the side says the OED has 300,000 entries, that seems to be a very small proportion of the theoretical total, even allowing for derivatives.

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         1. 82

            kerrygposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            They talk about that on their FAQ and methodolgy pages, which are a rather interesting read. Basically, there aren't that many "general" vocabulary words beyond 45,000; it's mostly archaic, scientific, and technical terms.
            
            They also didn't test for things like country/city names, which would instantly raise all our scores by thousands, or derivatives (i.e. quick, quickly, quicker; jump, jumped, jumping).

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            1. 74

               WriteAngledposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               That implies an interesting value judgement on their part. Words such as "portmanteau" or "lothario" are unlikely to be known by many younger people who have probably not been fed as intense a diet of 19th and early 20th century literature at school as I was in the 1960s-1970s. In fact, I would class such words as archaic.
               
               On the other hand, these younger people are probably familiar with numerous modern scientific and technical terms that are not included in the test and thus their vocabularies may well be very much larger than is being reported.

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4. 0

   adeaugustusposted 12 years ago

   40,000
   words
   I should have done better

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5. 82

   classicalgeekposted 12 years ago

   Server crashes when I try, on the first page. I guess they just didn't expect me to know both "mawkish" and "uxoricide." That's why I get for taking Latin and reading so many Victorian novels.

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   1. 74

      WriteAngledposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I had to use the back arrow several times to get back to the completed first page because the second page would not load. Eventually it did load, and then I had to do the same to move on from the second page. Luckily, backtracking does not wipe the answers.

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   2. 82

      classicalgeekposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Ah, finally. 42,800. Pathetic. Back to the books.

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6. 89

   livelongerposted 12 years ago

   30,200

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7. 82

   Uninvited Writerposted 12 years ago

   36,500

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8. 82

   kerrygposted 12 years ago

   Okay, I am having way too much fun with this and just did the test with the kids I have hanging around today.
   
   My 4 year old daughter got 6,020, and I think could have gotten higher, but she started losing interest partway through the second page.
   
   My 9 year old niece, who's a native English speaker herself, but whose parents are not, got 10,300.
   
   My 14 year old nephew, who arrived in this country 4 years ago speaking very little English, got 23,300, which is well above the average for his age and in the top few percentage points for non-native speakers as well. \o/ It's amazing what a little reading will do! He wasn't much of a reader when he arrived, but then he discovered the wonders of fantasy novels and has never looked back.
   
   My 6 year old nephew, who arrived in this country two years ago without speaking a word of English, is already up to 5,520! The speed of language acquisition at that age is really phenomenal. I'm jealous.

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   1. 74

      WriteAngledposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Those are marvellous results!
      
      Fantasy is often denigrated. As an avid reader of fantasy, I'm really pleased to see the positive influence you mention.

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      1. 82

         kerrygposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I wish he'd read a little more variety, especially in nonfiction and the classics, but as a fantasy fan myself, I can't complain too much. Good fantasy is as good as any other genre, imho - I agree that it's often unfairly denigrated.

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         1. 74

            WriteAngledposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            I think other genres and non-fiction will come. There will come a time when he will want something a bit different for a change now and then.

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9. 0

   Emile Rposted 12 years ago

   35,700. I'm going to have to pass that link on. Great quiz.

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10. 72

    Cagsilposted 12 years ago

    Page won't load on my end. Oh well.

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    1. 0

       Home Girlposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       What particular end are you  loading it in, Cagsil? May be it's the wrong one...

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       1. 72

          Cagsilposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          
          
          It's called click on link and page won't load. Your sarcasm or joke, whichever, isn't necessary.

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11. 80

    kirstenblogposted 12 years ago

    Without taking the text I assume my vocabulary is roughly 1 mile by 12 with a weight of 600 tons....
    
    well you did ask how big it was!

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12. 0

    Home Girlposted 12 years ago

    Sorry, Cags, I thought my jokes are always safe with you. It's my fig's leaf against reality. I do not have any English vocabulary, do not even dare to check!

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13. 0

    Sherlock221bposted 12 years ago

    I'd rather not say, on the grounds that it might make me look stupid.

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14. 72

    Cagsilposted 12 years ago

    Finally got the link to work and as I expected, my vocabulary is limited to 20,500 words.

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    1. 0

       Emile Rposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Hey cagsil. You may be limited to 20,500 words, but you use those words well.

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       1. 72

          Cagsilposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Thank you kindly Emile. I'm humbled.

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15. 0

    Home Girlposted 12 years ago

    I usually use same words in different combinations until I get something that closely resembles to my thoughts in a different language. Sometimes I have no idea what language do I use for thinking!

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    1. 74

       WriteAngledposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Hah, I sometimes forget what language I'm translating out of...   mid-translation!
       
       Then I suddenly realise that the dictionary I'm searching in makes no sense whatsoever, because I'm translating out of Slovenian not Polish, or whatever... LOL!

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16. 86

    K9keystrokesposted 12 years ago

    41,600...out of 300,000; this just hurts!

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17. 60

    Extinct Soulposted 12 years ago

    for foreign learners of English the average is 2,500–9,000
    
    I got 10,100..whew! I better play on the Forums more often...

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18. 73

    AEvansposted 12 years ago

    Your total vocabulary size is estimated to be:
    43,000
    words Interesting but many of those words were easy. There testing was peculiar.

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19. 69

    Rosie2010posted 12 years ago

    Hol-ly!  All those high scorers!
    
    I only got 19,400 - no espeeka engles hahahahaha!
    
    good thing I fall under "foreign learners of English" phew!

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20. 87

    glassvisageposted 12 years ago

    Ha ha! 21,700 words for this journalism graduate!
    Thanks for the quiz!

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21. 0

    DoorMattnomoreposted 12 years ago

    I got to page two and felt stupid. I have a firm grasp on words like, "eat" and "sit", as well as many words considered "vulgar" or "slang". I will get out a dictionary to read while perusing the list later. I do not know as many words as I would like to know.

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22. 80

    Shadesbreathposted 12 years ago

    I got an 8.

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    1. 0

       DoorMattnomoreposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       sweet. 8 is great.

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       1. 80

          Shadesbreathposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Huh?
          
          
          
          
          
          

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          1. 0

             DoorMattnomoreposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             what? 
             
             I was going to say.."sorry, I like lame rhymes."
             
             but then I thought you might be joking.....

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             1. 80

                Shadesbreathposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                I had faith. Jokes only work if you trust people to get them.

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