What is the vocabulary of modern man? How many words do we use?

The richest and most beautiful Russian language allows people who speak it to express themselves in a variety of ways. Accuracy of formulation and beautiful speech depend on the vocabulary a person owns. The more words he uses, the more intellectually developed he is considered. Therefore, it becomes important to increase the number of words used.

Scientifically lexicon is called a lexicon, meaning words familiar to an individual, a group, or included in a language. It is conventionally divided into;

• Active. The first group includes words used every day. They are included in both written and oral speech. A sign of an active vocabulary is free use that does not require additional effort.
• Passive. Passive words include understandable words that appear in various sources, but are not used in speech, or are used but extremely rarely. They are used when necessary, but it takes effort to remember.
• External. The external lexicon denotes unknown words related to specific areas of knowledge. These are professional terms, neologisms, etc. It is hardly possible to make clear boundaries between these groups. They are rather shaky and fluctuate in one direction or the other. When growing up and mental development the lexicon is growing.

So, if a child going to first grade speaks two thousand words, then in the last grade this number already grows to five thousand. For those who study and develop further, the vocabulary reaches 10,000 words or more. Then most of them are classified as passive stock.

Erudite people sometimes they even speak 50,000 words. But only a small part is used daily when communicating. The rest of the vocabulary is used only with intellectuals like him.

Exercises to expand your vocabulary

The following exercises are performed in written or orally.

• Nouns. They tell a short story using only nouns. "Day. Work. End. Exit. Door. Key. Entrance. Car. Key. Ignition" and so on.
• Verbs. The same thing that was told using nouns is repeated, only with verbs.
• Adjectives and adverbs. Then comes the turn of other parts of speech.
• Alphabet. Come up with related words that sequentially begin with the letters of the alphabet in order. “Alena talks in the evening, walking to the treasured spruce tree, gesticulating and eloquently cherishing the cute tender dandelions. Pasha follows nearby, dragging a convenient chrome flashlight, often catching the nimble chirping with an extravagant humorous language.”
• Monophone. They come up with their own speech, the words of which begin with the same letter. Each of them is connected to each other, even if the meaning suffers.

It is not easy to do each of the exercises. But words gradually move from a passive vocabulary to an active one and it is replenished.

Techniques for expanding your vocabulary without extra time

Developing vocabulary is essentially necessary for voicing your thoughts, intentions, analysis and conclusions. This skill is strengthened by practice and weakened by its absence. Therefore, in order to develop your speech, you should constantly communicate. The growth of vocabulary is ensured: by learning new words that we hear from our interlocutors; precise definitions when words are translated from a passive vocabulary into an active one.

• Therefore, it is advisable to communicate with unlike people. These are friends, neighbors, fellow students, comrades in the gym. People meeting on the Internet on forums and pages social networks, travel companions and vendors also serve as opportunities for communication and as a way to expand your speech.
• Another effective way replenish your vocabulary, which does not require special time - listening to audio books. This is relevant when you have to spend a lot of time on the road, driving your car, ideal for auditory learners (for people who better perceive information by ear). A variety of books are sold in this format: novels, aphorisms, and philosophical teachings. By recording it on a flash drive, you can now not get bored in a traffic jam, but listen to a fascinating story. It is convenient to listen to audio books before bed.

Replenishing vocabulary with time allocation

The following activities will help increase your vocabulary.

• Reading. Reading is a rich source of information. Books, newspapers, online publications, magazines - everywhere there are inexhaustible reserves of replenishing the vocabulary. It is advisable to devote an hour a day to this exciting activity. Sometimes it's good to say the words out loud.
• Studying of foreign language. Do not limit your vocabulary to knowledge of one Russian language. Others are also useful to study. How more people enriches his speech, the better connections are provided, and it is easier to recall words from memory.
• Games. There are interesting and exciting linguistic games: charades, puzzles and the like. When they guess them, they inevitably become interested in the words and meaning.
• Diary. Another useful activity is keeping a diary. When it is impossible to take foreign language courses, they write for themselves. This good way improve your vocabulary, because when taking notes, you formulate thoughts that are in the emotional and motivating spheres.
• Memorization. Memorization makes it possible to introduce new words into active stock. This is done by retelling what is heard, memorizing verses and definitions. It is one of the most effective methods of acquiring new knowledge.

For this it is important:

• include new words in speech every day;
• apply notebook, putting in there intricate statements, words, phrases with clever expressions;
• study the essence of new words by adding visualization techniques;
• memorize poems, quotes, sayings, etc.

Improving your vocabulary requires conscious action. For achievement beautiful speech constant training is required. Ignoring new words will not give them a chance to enter the active or passive vocabulary. It turns out that those who want to expand their vocabulary and enrich their language should make regular volitional efforts for this.

The objective of the study was to determine the volume of passive vocabulary of native Russian speakers. The measurement was carried out using , in which respondents were asked to mark familiar words from a specially compiled sample. According to the rules of the test, a word was considered “familiar” if the respondent could define at least one of its meanings. The test procedure is described in detail. To improve the accuracy of the test and identify respondents who take it sloppily, non-existent words were added to the test. If the respondent marked at least one such word as familiar, his results were not taken into account. More than 150 thousand people took part in the study (of which 123 thousand passed the test accurately).

First, let's analyze the effect of age on vocabulary.

The graph shows the percentiles of the resulting distribution. For example, the lowest curve (10th percentile) for 20 years gives 40 thousand words. This means that 10% of respondents of this age have a vocabulary below this value, and 90% - above. The central curve (median) highlighted in blue corresponds to a vocabulary such that half of the respondents of the corresponding age performed worse, and half - better. The topmost curve—the 90th percentile—cuts off the result above which only 10% of respondents with the maximum vocabulary showed.

The graph shows the following:

1. Vocabulary growth grows at a nearly constant rate until about age 20, after which the rate of vocabulary acquisition decreases, tapering off by age 45. After this age, vocabulary practically does not change.
2. During school, a teenager learns 10 words a day. This value seems unnaturally large, but is explained by the fact that in the test derived words were taken into account separately, as independent words.
3. By the time a teenager leaves school, the average person knows 51 thousand words.
4. During schooling, vocabulary increases approximately 2.5 times.
5. After leaving school until middle age, the average person learns 3 new words a day.
6. After reaching 55 years of age, vocabulary begins to decline slightly. This may be due to forgetting words that are not used for a long time. Interestingly, this age approximately coincides with retirement.

Now let's divide all respondents into groups according to education level. The following graph shows the median vocabulary scores of these groups. Curves start and end at different places due to the fact that the statistics for all groups are different - for example, there were not enough respondents with incomplete secondary education over 45 for the results to be statistically significant, so it was necessary to cut off the corresponding curve so early.

From the graph you can find out that

1. Perhaps vocabulary saturation occurs in at different ages depending on education. Thus, for respondents with secondary specialized education, saturation can be determined at around 43 years old, with higher education - at 51 years old, for candidates and doctors - at 54 years old. This could be explained by the specifics of the respondents’ work - most likely, holders of an academic degree continue to study various literature even in mature age. Or permanent life in the university environment, with its abundance of communication with educated people of different specializations, new words are constantly thrown up. However, with technical point From a visual perspective, such conclusions should not be drawn yet - the resulting curves are quite noisy, and it is very difficult to determine exactly where saturation begins. Perhaps a further set of statistics will make it possible to see the dependence of the age of saturation on the level of education (if any) more clearly.
2. There is practically no difference in vocabulary between those who entered the university, but did not finish their studies, and those who completed this path to the end (for students: this does not mean that you can not go to lectures).

Now let’s exclude the influence of age, leaving only respondents over 30 years old in the sample. This will allow you to concentrate on education.

From the graph we see the following:

1. Respondents who have just completed school know, on average, 2-3 thousand words more than those who did not finish school at the time.
2. Vocabulary of those who received average or average special education practically no different and averages 75 thousand words.
3. Those who studied at universities and institutes (and not necessarily those who graduated from them) know an average of 81 thousand words.
4. Candidates and doctors of science know an average of 86 thousand words. Thus, an academic degree adds about 5 thousand units of vocabulary compared to higher education.
5. Education, of course, influences vocabulary size. However, the variation within each group with the same education is significantly greater than the difference between the group means. In other words, a person who has not completed school may well know more words than a candidate of science. Here are specific figures - 20% of respondents with incomplete secondary education, who showed best result for their group, have a vocabulary that exceeds the vocabulary of half of the respondents with scientific degree. Most likely, they read more on different topics, are interested in and understand more regions.

The resulting vocabulary sizes - tens of thousands of words - seem quite large. There are two reasons for this. First, it measured passive vocabulary (words a person recognizes in text or hearing) rather than active vocabulary (words a person uses in speech or writing). These reserves differ significantly - the passive one is always much larger. The calculated vocabularies of writers, for example, are precisely active. Secondly, in the test all derived words were taken into account separately (for example, “work” and “work”, or “city” and “urban”).

Separately, I would like to note that the results obtained do not give an idea of ​​the vocabulary of the “average” (if such a thing exists) native Russian speaker. For example, the level of education of respondents who passed the test is significantly higher than the national level - 65% of respondents have higher education, while in Russia there are only 23% of such people (according to the 2010 All-Russian Population Census). Then, it is obvious that the respondents who took the Internet test are mostly active Internet users, and this also makes the sample specific (mainly for older people). In the end, not everyone is interested in determining their vocabulary, but among our respondents there are 100% of them. It is logical to assume that the vocabulary results obtained from such a special sample should be slightly higher than the “statistical average”.

So, the data obtained revealed a strong dependence of vocabulary on age, and a weaker dependence on the level of education. Obviously, there are other factors that influence vocabulary - reading, communication, work, hobbies, lifestyle. All these are topics for further research.

Every day we communicate with other people, pronounce hundreds of words, work with documents, browse the Internet, correspond with friends and relatives, read magazines and newspapers, watch films and television shows. In the process of communication, transmission and perception of information, our consciousness processes many words. Exactly how many words does a person need to know in order to fully communicate, understand the world and the surrounding reality?

According to various estimates by scientists, V English language about one million words, in Russian - from two hundred to five hundred thousand, Czech has about fifty thousand words. But this does not mean at all that in order to master a language, you need to learn such a huge number of words. The fact is that our vocabulary is divided into two types - active and passive. Active vocabulary is words that a person knows and actively uses. Words whose meaning a person knows, but which he rarely uses, constitute passive vocabulary. Of course, the passive reserve is several times larger than the active one. Researchers of the works of William Shakespeare have calculated that he used about twenty thousand words in his works; Karel Capek’s literary heritage includes almost thirty thousand words. However, this does not mean that in Everyday life great writers expressed themselves in a complex and ornate way, using all their lexical baggage.

According to linguists, the vocabulary that a European, including the average Russian, uses in everyday communication is about a thousand words. The active vocabulary is approximately two to three thousand words. Thus, to master the language in entry level A few hundred frequently used words are enough. Here is an approximate gradation of vocabulary size:

1. 400-800 words– lexical baggage necessary for basic level language knowledge;
2. up to 1500 words– stock that allows you to explain yourself and read literature at an elementary level;
3. up to 3000 words– a reserve with which you can confidently communicate at the everyday level and read non-specialized literature fluently;
4. 5000 words in the lexical baggage they will provide free reading of the press and specialized literature;
5. 8000 words enough for comprehensive communication, reading literature of any complexity, watching television programs and films.

It should be taken into account that these figures are only a rough estimate of the number of words needed to communicate at a certain level, and, as a consequence, the number of words that those wishing to learn need to know foreign language. Note that the active vocabulary is dynamic; it changes depending on the environment in which a person lives, what he does, where he works, etc. For example, the specifics of a person’s work determine the lexical baggage he uses in his work. Therefore, it is important not only to expand your active vocabulary, but also to ensure that words do not disappear from use and do not pass from active to passive.

There are various ways enrichment of active vocabulary. Let's look at some of them:

1. The most common, effective and accessible method– live communication method. When two interlocutors communicate, as a rule, there is a mutual enrichment of their vocabulary.
2. Reading aloud allows you to use not only visual, but also auditory memory, facilitating and speeding up the memorization process.
3. Retelling what you read. When retelling what you read, the brain actively processes the information received, and you need to try to make maximum use of those words from the text that you encountered for the first time or that caused difficulty.
4. Working with a dictionary of synonyms is interesting and useful. Many words have a number of synonyms, and small game, the goal of which is to use a dictionary to replace words in the text with synonyms as much as possible, will significantly expand your vocabulary.

The richer a person's vocabulary, the more succinctly, colorfully and accurately he can express his feelings and thoughts, the brighter his picture of the world. You should strive to expand your vocabulary not only of the language you are studying, but also of your native language. This seems all the more relevant for native speakers of the Russian language, about which he spoke so wonderfully French writer Prosper Merimee: “The Russian language, as far as I can judge, is the richest of all European dialects and seems deliberately created to express the subtlest shades. Gifted with wonderful conciseness, combined with clarity, he is content with one word to convey thoughts when another language would require whole phrases for this.”

How many words do you think the average person knows? Everyone remembers the famous passage from the immortal work of E. Petrov and I. Ilf “The Twelve Chairs” about the comparison of the vocabulary of Shakespeare and Ellochka the Ogress. The same quote can be cited as confirmation of the hypothesis that a person’s vocabulary depends on what that person is like. For example, an uneducated person or a small child would be several hundred; literate - several thousand.

And such geniuses as Pushkin or Shakespeare have up to fifteen thousand. By the way, clarifications should be made regarding the latter. The four-volume Dictionary of the Pushkin Language contains 21,191 words. Scientists have calculated exactly this number of words used in all the letters and works of the famous Russian poet. The vocabulary of the great English playwright is a little less - about fifteen thousand words. But according to some sources, there are about eighteen thousand of them. With regard to ordinary people the picture looks a little different. But first, let's figure out what a lexicon is. We will also define the concepts of passive and active vocabulary. So...

What is a lexicon?

From ancient Greek it means “word”, “figure of speech”. The exact lexicon sounds like this: a combination of words of a particular language, parts of words or language that a specific person or a specific group of people speaks. Vocabulary is the central part of the language, which names, forms and conveys knowledge about any phenomena or objects. In other words, this is a language section that studies words, pronunciation, composition of speech, etc.

Passive and active vocabulary

When we're talking about about a certain set of words that a person uses every day in his speech, which he uses to express his feelings and thoughts, then this implies an active vocabulary. The usage and combinatorics of such words can be varied. But it is still a “tool” of thoughts, feelings, actions. In the case when a person does not use certain words, but knows their meaning (often very approximate), he recognizes readable text, then we mean passive vocabulary. The passive lexicon includes words of special use: neologisms, archaisms, many dialectisms and the like.

Number of words in the lexicon

It should be noted, returning to the question of what a lexicon is, that each person’s active and passive dictionaries are individual. It depends on the age, profession, general cultural level, personal qualities, tastes and even the place of residence of the person. According to statistics, the active vocabulary of an adult with higher education is seven to nine thousand words. Passive - twenty to twenty-four thousand. Although in everyday communication we get by with only one or two thousand words. They say that the possibilities of human memory are almost limitless. Therefore, you can safely increase your vocabulary and learn foreign words, thereby enriching the Russian vocabulary.