How many words are in English? What do you need to learn to talk freely?

Many inquisitive personalities are interested in the answerto the seemingly simple question: "How many words are in English or any other?". Of course, many people try to answer it, it's another matter that ideas on this subject are very different. And there are several explanations for this at once.

First, the English language, like any other of theexisting, changes with time: new words or terms appear, and some, on the contrary, are forgotten. So, many still remember the terrible modal verb "shall" from school, which the children's minds have been so hard to kill. The paradox is that it was done in vain, because it has already lost its significance, and it happened not today. Exception can be considered only for certain areas of application of the language.

Secondly, it is possible to count words included in vocabularies of general vocabulary or specialized, for example, medical subjects. It is clear that the scatter in the figures in this case will be enormous.

Thirdly, the mass of English words has notone, and at once several values, for example, "bow". It can act as a verb (nod, bend, bend) and as a noun (arc, bow, bow). How to calculate in this case is not clear. You can take it for a language unit, but you can add up the number of its values. Complicates the situation and the fact that the already mentioned word in combination with others replenishes the treasury of his interpretations. There are many similar examples.

Thus, it is possible to reliably determine how muchwords in English, it is impossible. The average figure ranges from five hundred thousand to several million. A lot of such a scatter, I must say. In addition, you can recall the numerous dialects and dialects, which by no means simplify this calculation.

This statistics is certainly interesting, but stillmore exciting question is: "How many words in the English language is actively used?" Actually this is for those who have just started to study it, and for those who have met with him for a long time.

English for Dummies: what to teach - words or grammar?

Until now, many teachers, especiallyold school, convince their students that knowing the language requires a daily cramming of the mass of words. In practice, if you follow this path, you can memorize a lot of information, but it is unlikely to be used. Similarly, you can learn the so-called passive language, which is very useful when reading literature, but nothing more. Competently speak, knowing only the words, will not work.

Much more attractive looks like a technique,according to which you need to master just a few hundred words in order to learn English. For tourists, for example, it will be sufficient to memorize five hundred words, but in such a way that no effort should be made to reproduce them, that is, it should happen automatically. It is more important to master the simplest grammatical constructions, such as word order in the affirmative and interrogative sentence, conjugation of verbs and so on. Masterfully owning them and possessing even a small vocabulary, you can express yourself fluently.

In general, the question of how many words inEnglish, you can answer quite differently. In colloquial vocabulary is used no more than one and a half thousand units. The collection of dictionaries, which include medical, technical, legal terminology, can number several million words.

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