Another link to an article online. For those wanting to improve your vocabulary, the study indicates two ways that are the best. The first is no surprise - live in a country where English is the native language. The second was more of a surprise to the researchers. People who read lots of fiction books have a larger vocabulary than people who read a lot but not lots of fiction.
Noted statistics from the study:
- Most adult native test-takers range from 20,000–35,000 words
- Average native test-takers of age 8 already know 10,000 words
- Average native test-takers of age 4 already know 5,000 words
- Adult native test-takers learn almost 1 new word a day until middle age
- Adult test-taker vocabulary growth basically stops at middle age
- The most common vocabulary size for foreign test-takers is 4,500 words
- Foreign test-takers tend to reach over 10,000 words by living abroad
- Foreign test-takers learn 2.5 new words a day while living in an English-speaking country
http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2013/05/vocabulary-size
Comments
Average native test-takers of age 8 already know 10,000 words...
Oh, I am so young!
I'm reading Tara's novel and have learned a lot from it. I'll try to write a blog about the book when I finish it.
Interesting study, though I do think fictions' writers are more free to use words than lets say reporters. Maybe that's why readers of fictions books have wider range of vocabularies.