English vocabulary testing. Vocabulary size: how many English words do you need to know to become fluent?

The language is quite difficult. Complex and big story Great Britain resulted in a very large number of words. The Oxford English Dictionary, famous in many circles, contains approximately 600,000 words and expressions. And if you add dialect and slang to this list, then the number of words will exceed 1 million. But do not be afraid of such a large number, because even native speakers do not know everyone English words. On average educated person, native speaker, knows 12,000-18,000 words. Well, the average UK resident knows 8,000-10,000 words.

How many words do you need to know?

There is a standard and generally accepted gradation of language. If the number of words studied is in the region of 400-500 words, then the level of proficiency is considered basic. If your active vocabulary is in the range of 800-1000 words, then you can safely communicate on various everyday topics. If such a number refers more to a passive vocabulary, then you can safely read simple texts. The range of 1500-2000 words will allow you to communicate freely all day long. If your vocabulary is 3000-4000 words, then you can easily read the English press or various thematic materials. A vocabulary base of 8,000 languages ​​guarantees fluency in English. With so many words studied, you can freely read any literature or write texts in the language yourself. Those who have more than 8,000 words in their luggage are considered highly educated people learning English.

According to the standard vocabulary base is distributed as follows:
- beginner - 600 words;
- elementary - 1000 words;
- pre-Intermediate - 1500-2000 words;
- intermediate - 2000-3000 words;
- upper-intermediate - 3000-4000 words;
- advanced - 4000-8000 words;
- proficiency - more than 8000 words.

Thanks to this data, you can determine your level of language proficiency and set goals for yourself. But how many words have already been learned? No, you don't need to measure anything with a ruler to do this. Everything is much simpler. There is testing that can determine the number of words studied with an error rate of 10%.

To create this test, 7,000 words were taken from the dictionary. Outdated and rarely used words were removed from there. We also removed words whose meaning could be determined using ordinary logic. As a result, 2 small pages with words remained.

How to take the test?

I use Puzzle-English as an additional learning source. I really love the “songs” section, I hope it will be updated! Even today I thought that it would be very interesting to take part in filling the service.
I also love the exercise section; unfortunately, I rarely get to watch the training videos themselves, but I enjoy going through the tasks! Thank you very much for your work!

Margarita,
26 years old, Moscow

• I really love learning English, and the Puzzle English website is truly the highest quality and thoughtful resource I have ever come across!!! I always feel a lot of gratitude to the creators and developers of the site for your work. What I like most is working with listening and videos, and in general, the fact that you can highlight any word and add it to your dictionary is, in my opinion, incredibly useful! THANK YOU SO MUCH!

  Violetta,
  36 years old, Rostov-on-Don

• I have been striving to master English for a long time. I need it for study and work. I took courses and tried using various computer programs, but the results were not encouraging. I learned about Puzzle-English on the Internet. I liked the project. I decided to try it. Having already completed 50 lessons (listening, videos, TV series), I noticed that I began to understand quite well English speech by ear. This inspired me, because... I could almost independently understand lectures in English. In this, I believe, he helped me great help namely Puzzle-English. I continue to study English on Puzzle-English and I am sure that the results will be even better. Working out is interesting and exciting. Well done authors! We took a creative approach to creating a website - from idea to practical implementation. I am glad that the guys do not stop there, but are constantly improving and developing services.

  Igor Vayzyan,
  53 years old, Volzhsk

• I am a housewife, far from young, practically approaching retirement age, and I SEEMS like I don’t need English anymore, and the meager school and institute base is enough for travel, BUT - having accidentally stumbled upon a puzzle-English website on the Internet, I plunged into it with something unexpected for myself pleasure. I don’t have a specific motive for learning the language, but almost every evening my hands type “Paz-In” on their own and I go to lessons and exercises. The idea of ​​​​a sentence constructor is so exciting that my daughter (9 years old) herself sits down with Peppa Pig and, now, for Mazzy, and asks me not to give any hints. Many thanks to the creators of the site, we are looking forward to new lessons and cartoons for girls. Good luck!

  Irina-yori,
  Moscow

• I mostly watch only TV series, first with Russian, then English subtitles on headphones. I check new words in the EN-Ru dictionary. I like grammar exercises and a variety of videos. The main thing is to do this every day. I’m trying to conduct a monologue in English to myself, using new words from Puzzle English. I want to learn English more and more.

  Victor,
  55 years old, Tolyatti

• I'm already learning enough English for a long time both independently and with tutors. But this gave almost no visible results: either it was boring, or the approach to studying was not correct. But since I got acquainted with Puzzle-English everything has changed. Thanks to this resource, in less than six months I began to freely understand spoken English and translate texts of average complexity. Learning on this site is interesting, fun and always accessible. The “Serials” section was especially effective for me. I thank the site developers for such a wonderful resource and a great opportunity to finally learn English!

  Sergey,
  24 years old, Kharkov

• In the evenings I like to sit in Puzzle English. I love the play space the site offers. I love singing songs, although they often change and sometimes I don’t even have time to remember or write them down. I love children's songs, especially since their author is very talented musician. I like the series of programs about who lives in London and what. This greatly expands your horizons and gives you a lot of frequently used words in different versions. I liked the videos about Buddha and the Angkor Wat temple complex, I love the travel series. I liked the new Sherlock, the only thing I regretted was that there was no series about Poirot with David Suchet. The songs are the best. I began to understand English by ear, although if it is not native speakers who speak, but Asians, Latin Americans, Indians, I still have difficulty understanding. For me, this is gurgling in a cauldron... My vocabulary expanded and this was done playfully, without any tension. And I’m just happy to learn English on this site.

  Hera,
  Minsk

• I fell in love with English a long time ago during my school years. Unfortunately, when I was studying, we developed reading skills, so after school I read at a fairly good level, I understand about 80% of what is written. And such important skills as listening comprehension and speaking speech, was practically not taught at school, or was taught in limited quantities. I came across this site by chance about 2 years ago and I liked it for its gradation educational material for users with different skill levels. The audio clips presented on Puzzle English helped to significantly improve the listening comprehension of English speech, especially in films, because if you take news clips, the announcers speak very clearly and my level of listening comprehension reached 60-70% when watching such clips. And When watching films, usually all my words merged into an almost continuous stream and you can only make out individual familiar words. By watching films on this site and analyzing them in detail by phrases. On the second, third viewing, you already hear these phrases and remember what they are mean. And if you watch the film at least 10 times, the phrases are already spinning in your head and not only that, one might even say they roll off your tongue. Thanks to Alexander Antonov and his team for such a huge and necessary work, and most importantly for a not very large annual fee

  Vladislav,
  42 years old, Kyiv

• When I found out that in 5 years I would need a decent knowledge of English, I went on an Internet reconnaissance mission. This was in October 2012 and I had almost zero knowledge of English (basic reading rules, 3 simple tenses, 500 words of vocabulary as a result of all my previous attempts). After trying a bunch of sites, I ended up on Puzzle English... And I fell in love... Because that I found such a wonderful idea here, that I didn’t have to study in the classical sense, but could just play with words, trying to put them together in the right order. And to help, the translation is right next to the word, and the voice acting is right there, and it’s cool and clear. It’s great that the words are all in context and therefore are remembered much faster. And besides, the videos... After watching a bunch of different ones, I forever got rid of the fear of whether I could speak correctly in English, since I saw that straight people often use fairly free construction of sentences. When the movie appeared, I already understood the series by 50%, and TED by almost 90%. In a word, my results exceeded all my expectations about them. I recently passed an interview-test with teachers from the USA, which identified me as a strong Advanced. But it’s not even 2 years since I ended up on puz-eng. And all thanks to such a wonderful invention - not to study, but to PLAY folding puzzles. Super! Now I am sure that by staying with you, in a couple of years I will become proficient in English. I wish you to grow and develop, and I wish you the same.

  Irina,
  37 years old, Lviv

• Thank you very much for your site. Working with your website is very useful for developing listening skills. I have been learning English for many years, but understanding English has been my main problem. After studying on your site, I made a big leap in this area and began to understand English texts by ear much better. An important innovation of the site developers is interactive exercises - puzzles. They allow you not only to watch a video and read subtitles, but to actively act, making sentences from the words you listened to. The selection of videos and films is very impressive. Personally, I especially like popular science documentaries, large number which are available on the site. In the future, I would like to see on your website the series “Friends” (at least its first episodes) and classic English detective stories (such as, for example, “Inspector Morse” or “Inspector Lewis”), as well as films in which you can hear correct and competent English speech (“Royal English”). Also, in my opinion, it would be useful to create general table ranking of site participants so that they have the opportunity to compete with each other by being active. I would like to wish the site developers further success and further development of this very useful endeavor.

  Alexander,
  54 years old, Moscow

• A huge THANK YOU to the entire Puzzle English team for such a wonderful project!! I studied English like everyone else: school, college, even some courses at work, I tried many sites, but there was no such result, I “mumbled” something there, and nothing more)). About 1.5 years ago I accidentally came across Puzzle English, then the site was still very young, but from the first visit it attracted attention, I won’t lie, firstly, the price, compared to other sites, is VERY affordable, and secondly, such a variety of materials I haven’t seen this anywhere in Puzzle English and there are a large number of videos different levels, grammar exercises, service series (truly a unique service). Thirdly, you can study at any time convenient for you. It is also worth noting that the site is aimed at Russian-speaking people learning English and all explanations of the material take place in the RUSSIAN LANGUAGE, which is important if your level of language knowledge is not so high... In this regard, I would like to note one more interesting thing “thing” as “Tips-secrets”, personally I learned a lot of useful things from them!! After 1.5 years spent with Puzzle English, I’m finally starting to speak English, and not “moo” as before, the fear of communicating with native speakers has passed, before that I was always afraid of seeming stupid and avoided communication, I have improved my ability to perceive the language by ear . In general, we can talk about this project for a very long time, but it’s better to try!! Once again I would like to express my gratitude to those who are working on the project. I am very pleased with the way the whole process is organized. Administrators work very efficiently and quickly, the site is constantly evolving. I would like to wish a long life to the project!!

  Anton,
  28 years old, Khabarovsk

• I usually don’t write reviews, I don’t like it (or maybe I don’t know how). But for my favorite site Puzzle-English I will make an exception :-) In my opinion, Puzzle-English is the best site for self-study English language, and even in game form. There is never a dull moment on the site; you can always choose a video to your liking, regardless of your level of language proficiency. The site will be of interest to both beginners and experienced students: in front of you is a huge catalog of cute songs for children, cartoons, musical hits, thundering throughout the world, performances famous artists and politicians, fragments of TV shows, educational videos and other videos of varying difficulty levels. Your task is to listen to part of the video, try to hear the phrase clearly and assemble a mosaic of its words. I treat this service as a game, entertainment, when I want to take a break from my main work and relax for ten minutes, I just go to Puzzle-English and collect the video I like. There is an interesting effect with songs when you UNDERSTAND what the song is about.. Those who are interested in English grammar can go to the exercises section and practice the chosen topic, collecting specially selected sentences, of course, first listening to a short theoretical video explaining the intricacies of this topics. All phrases in this section are voiced by a narrator. The Puzzle-English website has a unique “Serials” service. Before you are several dozen episodes of famous TV series and programs: “Two and a Half Men”, “Sherlock”, “Great Expectations”, “Life on Mars”, TED conference speeches, etc. You just watch your favorite series, and in difficult moments you press pause and there is an opportunity to read the script of the episode, listen to the phrase again, watch a video explanation of slang expressions and words. If you are a beginner, you can set subtitles to display in English and/or Russian. The site has a built-in player specially designed, and therefore convenient, for learning the language. All unfamiliar words can be placed in a “personal dictionary”. It is noteworthy that in addition to the word, the dictionary contains a corresponding phrase with a translation into Russian. And in the end I want to recommend you the Puzzle-English channel on YouTube, the guys share tips there self-study languages, and the entire collection of educational videos of the site is collected there. PS. In order to use the site, you do not have to be a user with a paid account. Many sections can be used for free, but an annoying sign with a payment offer will be displayed all the time. P.P.S. And yet, I urge you to pay for the site’s services, this money will help make the site even better, and its creators deserve to be paid for their work, in addition, a lot of additional opportunities will open up for you.

  Inga,
  hero city Sevastopol

• When I started learning English in the eighteenth last century we had only boring and incomprehensible English manuals. At that time didn't exist the mp3 players, smartphones and laptops. I remembered even how People lived without the internet. And If I"d such stuff earlier, I"d was probably speaking English fluently now and could understand the English speech, movies and songs. Modernity has given us awesome facilities to study English. We can read the authentic books and newspapers, hear the English songs and audio books, watch the foreign movies and TV, communicate with native speakers. to practice this. Because I was glad when I found the site Puzzle English. On this website you can take a maximum of English stuff for yourself and spend a minimum of your time. Where are huge plenty of useful and interesting English lessons, exercises, TV"s serials and so long. All of the ones were carefully prepared for education purpose. You can instantly find translation and pronunciation each English word or phrase and add one in your private vocabulary to try it later. All workouts are doing easy and fast. And I"m visiting on every day this site to improve my English language. Of course I use not only this website, but Puzzle English is my favorite one. And I hope with Puzzle English my awful English will have been reached the perfection.

  Vladimir Shchepkov,
  49 years old, Sergiev Posad

The fact that the language's dictionary contains approximately 300 thousand words is only of theoretical interest for a beginner learning this language. Almost main principle for the reasonable organization of your studies, especially at the initial stage, this is an economy of words. You need to learn to memorize as few words as possible, but do it as best as possible.

Let us emphasize that our approach is directly opposite to the guiding principle of “suggestopedia”, with its emphasis on the abundance of words presented to the student. As you know, in accordance with its canons, a beginner needs to be literally “showered with words.” It is best to give him or her 200 new words every day.

Is there any doubt that any normal person will forget all those numerous words with which he was “showered” using this, so to speak, method - and most likely very soon, in just a few days.

Don't chase too much

It will be much better if at the end of a certain stage of study you know 500 or 1000 words very well than 3000 - but poorly. Don’t let yourself be led into a dead end by teachers who will assure you that you need to first learn a certain number of words in order to “get into the swing of things.” Only you yourself can and must decide whether the vocabulary you have mastered is sufficient for your goals and interests.

Language learning experience shows that about 400 well-chosen words can cover up to 90 percent of the vocabulary you need for everyday communication purposes. In order to read, you will need more words, but many of them are only passive. Therefore, with knowledge of 1500 words, you can already understand fairly meaningful texts.

It is better to master the words that are most necessary and important to you than to constantly rush to learn new ones. “He who pursues too much risks missing everything,” says a Swedish proverb. “If you chase two hares, you won’t catch either,” a Russian proverb answers.

Vocabulary in oral speech

Very roughly speaking, about 40 well-chosen, high-frequency words will cover about 50% of word usage in everyday speech in any language;

• 200 words will cover about 80%;
• 300 words - approximately 85%;
• 400 words will cover about 90%;
• Well, 800-1000 words are about 95% of what would need to be said or heard in the most ordinary situation.

Thus, the right vocabulary helps you understand quite a lot with very little effort spent on cramming.

Example: if a total of 1000 words are spoken in an everyday conversation, then 500 of them, that is, 50%, will be covered by the 40 most common high-frequency words.

We emphasize that these percentages, of course, are not the result of exact calculations. They just give the most general concept about how many words approximately will be needed to feel confident when entering into a simple dialogue with a native speaker. In any case, there is no doubt that by correctly choosing from 400 to 800 words and remembering them well, you can feel confident in a simple conversation, since they will cover almost 100% of those words that you cannot do without. Of course, under other, less favorable conditions, 400 words will cover only 80% of what you need to know - instead of 90 or 100%.

Reading vocabulary

When reading, having correctly chosen and well remembered about 80 of the most common, most frequent words, you will understand about 50% plain text;

• 200 words will cover approximately 60%;
• 300 words - 65%;
• 400 words - 70%;
• 800 words - approximately 80%;
• 1500 - 2000 words - about 90%;
• 3000 - 4000 - 95%;
• and 8,000 words will cover almost 99 percent of the written text.

Example: if you have a text in front of you with a volume of approximately 10 thousand words (this is approximately 40 printed pages), then, having learned the most necessary 400 words in advance, you will understand about 7000 words that are used in this text.

Let us note again that the figures we give are only indicative. Depending on various additional conditions, 50 words will cover up to 50 percent of the written text, but in other cases you will need to learn at least 150 words to get the same result.

Vocabulary: from 400 to 100,000 words

• 400 - 500 words - active vocabulary for language proficiency at a basic (threshold) level.
• 800 - 1000 words - active vocabulary in order to explain yourself; or passive vocabulary for reading on basic level.
• 1500 - 2000 words - an active vocabulary, which is quite enough to ensure everyday communication throughout the day; or passive vocabulary sufficient for confident reading.
• 3000 - 4000 words - in general, enough for almost fluent reading of newspapers or literature in the specialty.
• About 8,000 words - provide complete communication for the average European. There is practically no need to know more words in order to communicate freely both orally and in writing, as well as read literature of any kind.
• 10,000-20,000 words - the active vocabulary of an educated European (at native language).
• 50,000-100,000 words - the passive vocabulary of an educated European (in their native language).

It should be noted that vocabulary alone does not ensure free communication. At the same time, having mastered 1,500 correctly chosen words, with some additional training, you will be able to communicate almost freely.

As for professional terms, they usually do not present any particular difficulties, since in most cases this is an international vocabulary that is quite easy to master.

When you already know about 1500 words, you can start reading at a fairly decent level. With passive knowledge of 3,000 to 4,000 words, you will be fluent in reading literature in your specialty, at least in those areas where you are confident. In conclusion, we note that, according to calculations carried out by linguists based on a number of languages, the average educated European actively uses about 20,000 words (and half of them are quite rare). In this case, the passive vocabulary is at least 50,000 words. But all this concerns the native language.

Basic vocabulary

IN pedagogical literature You can find the terminological combination “basic vocabulary”. From my point of view, at the maximum level the vocabulary is about 8000 words. It seems to me that it is hardly necessary to learn more words, except perhaps for some special purposes. Eight thousand words will be enough for full communication in any conditions.

When starting to learn a language, it would be wise to spend more short lists. Here are three levels that I have found in practice to provide a good guide for a beginner:

• level A("basic vocabulary"):

400-500 words. They are enough to cover approximately 90% of all word usage in everyday oral communication or about 70% of simple written text;

• level B(“minimum vocabulary”, “mini-level”):

800-1000 words. They are enough to cover approximately 95% of all word usage in everyday oral communication or about 80-85% of written text;

• level B("average vocabulary", "medium level"):

1500-2000 words. They are enough to cover approximately 95-100% of all word usage in everyday oral communication or about 90% of written text.

An example of a good dictionary of basic vocabulary can be considered the dictionary published by E. Klett in Stuttgart, 1971, under the title "Grundwortschatz Deutsch" ("Basic vocabulary fund German language"). It contains 2000 of the most necessary words in each of the selected six languages: German, English, French, Spanish, Italian and Russian.

Eric W. Gunnemark, Swedish polyglot

What should it be? vocabulary) to solve certain problems (reading English literature, communicating in household topics, conducting business correspondence, watching TV shows, etc.)? Many students learning English ask themselves this question.

Today we will talk specifically about English vocabulary for various levels and you will find out what opportunities each of these levels opens up for you. First, let's find out what vocabulary is. Vocabulary is the set of words that a person knows. It is divided into active (words that a person uses himself in written and spoken speech) and passive (words that a person recognizes when reading or speaking, but does not use them himself). It is obvious that the passive stock significantly exceeds the active one. It is worth noting that vocabulary should be understood not only as knowledge of words, but also as their correct pronunciation, writing and recognition in speech.

How many words are there in English?

It is quite difficult to answer this question. The history of Great Britain is confusing in this regard - the Iberians (the most ancient population British Isles), Celts (came from modern Belgium and France), Picts (lat. pices- colourized), the 400-year domination of the Romans, the invasion of West Germanic tribes (Angles, Saxons, Nomes, Frisians), the raids of the Scandinavians and, finally, the Normans (Northern France, King William the Conqueror), led to the fact that words in the English language became very many. The famous Oxford English Dictionary, which contains only English words and expressions, has about 600,000 English words. But according to the linguistic portal Global Language Monitor, which also includes hybrid words from dialects (Chinese English, Spanish English, computer jargon and others), there are already more than a million words in English. In practice, the vocabulary of a native speaker is an order of magnitude smaller than all the words in the language. For example, the average vocabulary of an educated English speaker is 12,000 – 18,000 words. For comparison, I will say that V. I. Dal’s “Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language” contains about 200,000 words, 30,000 of which are the most commonly used, and a person with a higher education knows about 10,000 Russian words. (Wikipedia).

English vocabulary for different levels

How can you use this or that English vocabulary?

• In order to be able to express yourself fluently or read at a basic level (Elementary/Pre-Intermediate), you need to have about 1000 words in stock.
• If you have about 2,500 words under your belt, you can already communicate fairly well on everyday topics and read at an intermediate level.
• With 4000-5000 words, you can communicate fluently different topics, read newspapers and specialized literature, watch and listen to television/radio programs (understanding the main meaning).
• Having a vocabulary of 8,000 words or more, you can already communicate at the level of an average native speaker. This reserve is enough to feel confident among the carriers in almost any situation. You can read any English literature, watch movies, have conversations on a variety of topics.

Now you understand what English vocabulary You need it to achieve your goals in your life. Having reached a certain level of English proficiency, you need to constantly maintain it. It should be remembered that if you are not actively using the language, you are not practicing English in everyday life, you can easily lose your skills acquired through such painstaking work. Your active English vocabulary will shift towards passive. How can we make sure this doesn’t happen? The ideal solution would be to stay in an English-speaking country. In this case, you will have constant practice and your level of language proficiency will naturally improve and increase. But what to do if this is not possible? In my article I described in detail different approaches in learning English and effective ways maintaining motivation. To test your English vocabulary you can use good service Test your vocabulary.

You can also check out other articles on learning vocabulary.

Hi all! Each language contains a certain number of lexemes. The complete English vocabulary is about 300,000 words. Of course, such a figure will discourage a beginner from learning a foreign language. However, I hasten to reassure you that you will not need to learn all these lexemes, since even educated speakers have an arsenal of approximately 100,000 words. Today we will find out how many English words you need to know to speak English fluently. Minimum vocabulary There are methods of learning English in which students are forced to learn up to 200 words every day. For some, this approach is applicable, but for the majority, these numbers remain incomprehensible, and the learned words do not bring them closer to free communication with native speakers. In my opinion, the best organization of classes is, on the contrary, saving words, that is, remembering less, but more effectively.

You shouldn’t chase quantity; your prerogative should be quality. It is much better if you know 1000 words by heart than to know 3000-4000 lexemes poorly. Each teacher determines his own minimum required number of lexemes. But only you can decide how many words you need to know so that they are necessary and sufficient to achieve your goals.

Experience shows that a minimum vocabulary of 450 correctly selected lexemes can compensate for about 90% of the vocabulary arsenal necessary for free everyday communication in English. For a comfortable English reading, it will take a little more words, but passively. With knowledge of approximately 1600 lexemes, you will be able to navigate freely in literary and journalistic texts.

The famous teacher, polyglot and methodologist E. Gunnemark made calculations of the necessary vocabulary for the English language, dividing them into several categories.
Thus, he calculated that for oral speech it would be enough to learn from 40 to 1000 correctly selected, most frequent words:

• 40 lexemes will cover about 50% of everyday uses in communication
• 200 words will already raise this figure to 80%
• 300 lexical units will add a few more percentages - 85%
• 450 words is almost 90%
• 900-1000 - almost 98% of what you can say or hear in everyday conversation

Please note that these indicators are not exact calculations, but general idea about how many units you need to remember in order to feel confident when communicating with native English speakers. E. Gunnemark The famous polyglot found out that for reading, you will need to select and learn about 80 - 8000 high-frequency words in order to understand ordinary simple text:

• 80 words will help you understand about 50% of the text
• 200 units - 60%
• 400 tokens - will cover about 70%
• 2000 words - approximately 90%
• 8000 lexical units will help you understand written or printed text 100%

Again, these are just indicative numbers. In some cases, you will be able to understand the text knowing only 45 words, while in others you will not have enough knowledge of even 1,000.

Why know 100,000 words?

You may ask, why are 100,000 words needed if only a few thousand are enough to communicate? On the one hand, you are right - this number of lexemes is quite enough for everyday conversations. BUT is a minimum vocabulary. If you want to become a full-fledged, educated member of society who will be able to hold a conversation on any topic that a native English speaker suggests, then you need to constantly increase your vocabulary. Rich vocabulary What does a rich vocabulary give:

• 350−700 words - enough for language proficiency at a threshold level
• 800−1200 lexemes - an active arsenal for communication or a passive arsenal for reading at a beginner level
• 1500−2500 units - confident reading or free communication on everyday topics
• 3000−7000 words - free reading of specialized literature and the press
• 8000−9000 lexemes - full oral and written communication, reading any kind of literature
• 10,000−40,000 words - active vocabulary of the native speaker
• 50,000−100,000 units - a passive arsenal of words for an educated English speaker

Thus, for you, as a foreigner, knowing 9,000 English words will be enough to confidently study, work and live among English speakers.

I also note that knowledge of this vocabulary alone does not guarantee you free communication. To be able to speak foreign language, requires practice and constant training, knowledge of basic knowledge English grammar and syntax.

As for international vocabulary and special terms, you should not have any particular difficulties here. Since it is enough to check these words once with the term in your native language and remember them.

Core Vocabulary Levels

In pedagogical practice, teachers and linguists distinguish several levels of basic vocabulary, which serve as a guide for beginners. They significantly reduced the huge gradation by creating a list of three main levels:

• Level A- basic vocabulary and phrases - 350 - 500 lexemes. This amount is quite enough to cover about 85-90% of all uses in daily oral conversation or about 70% of simple written text.
• Level B- mini-level or minimum vocabulary and phrase stock - 900 -1000 units. This number is enough to cover approximately 95% of usage in everyday spoken conversation and approximately 85% of simple printed text.
• Level C— media level or average vocabulary arsenal — 1200−2000 words. This amount is enough to compensate for almost 100% of the use of phrases in everyday oral communication or approximately 90% of literary text

According to this gradation, a beginner needs 2,000 words for everyday communication in English. Again, I note that everything is relative, and only you determine for yourself how many English words you need to know. But also overload yourself a large number There is no need for unnecessary information either.