English Vocabulary: The number of English words you need to know.

If you travel to English speaking countries for a short stay, you may successfully go shopping and eat at beautiful restaurants with limited vocabulary. For example, you may say like this in a shopping mall: “I want this”, “Credit card”, “Thank you”.

Some immigrants living in the US or UK say that they do not have any inconvenience in their lives and can express themselves sufficiently with limited vocabulary – for example with as little as 2,000 words. In fact, people say that American businessmen usually use only about 2,000 words every day (Of course, this does not mean that their vocabulary is only 2,000).

vocabulary

We are sure that your English speaking goal is more ambitious that just learning enough for shopping or living in a small community. You may need to communicate with native speakers about serious matters every minute and every day. If we assume that the average vocabulary of English native speaker college graduates is 100,000, then you need 50~60% of that if you want to travel conveniently or run a small shop in English speaking countries. If you need to negotiate and discuss in a business situation with English native speakers, your English should be at least 70% of that.

Of course, this may vary depending on specific situations. If you run a small shop and you just need a relatively small vocabulary to sell your products and receive money, without the need for talking about your neighbors or other interesting topics, your vocabulary requirement can be significantly smaller. If you work in an American or UK company but talk only with your colleagues in your first language and have very few opportunities to talk with your boss in English, the vocabulary number is meaningless – the point is that your vocabulary needs to be enough for your situation.

Let’s talk about how to improve your English vocabulary in our next post.

 

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