2006-11-05 15:50:54 · 5 answers · asked by bukowterpol 2 in Education & Reference ➔ Words & Wordplay
An estimate of how many English language words does the average person know/use is typically in the realm of 12,000 - 20,000 words, varying with the level of education achieved. Some say college/university graduates use upwards of 20-25,000 words. These estimates apply to natives of the English language.
Shakespeare actively used more than 30,000 words in his written works, and his entire vocabularly has been estimated at approximately 66,000 words.
Some accounts tally the English language consists of more than 600,000 words (source: The Unabridged Oxford English Dictionary), and this includes root words and derivatives.
2006-11-05 16:13:52 · answer #1 · answered by ? 4 · 14⤊ 0⤋
While there are over 180k english words (which is debateable depending on the dictionary that is used), the average person I think only uses about 5000-10000 in their normal vocabulary. There are many words people use that are not considered words like slang and other morphed terminology.
2006-11-05 16:12:48 · answer #2 · answered by Rugby Mania 2 · 3⤊ 1⤋
this is such a hard statistic to make. its almost impossible. some1 needs to count all the words a person hears. the situations may be biased. what if they were standing in the mall? thats a ton! i dont know, thats hard to simulate too.
2016-03-17 06:30:44 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
when i was taking a foriegn lang, they said the average person uses about 400 words in average conversation..i woudl think most people know a lot more than that
do you think you are average, below average or more intelligent than the average person..go through the dictionary and see how many words you know then guesstimate..good luck
2006-11-05 16:00:41 · answer #4 · answered by sevenout7 4 · 2⤊ 8⤋