【导读】最近蛋老师在研究单词及背单词的方法。在网上遇到一个很有趣的问题,就是:一般美国人有多少词汇量?或许你也很好奇。咱们一般中国成年人熟悉3000+中文词汇,基本可以做到识读不困难。但是美国人他们的词汇量到底有多少呢?
首先,咱们大约估摸一下他们的词汇量。我在美国研究生考试中,需要考一门GRE,GRE词汇量基本在万把来个,肯定要比雅思托福来得多。具体多少不清楚。
新东方网站上查到的信息是1.8万个,1万个核心词汇。所以应该就是1-2万之间。
根据网站realsimple,作者LIZ STEELMAN 告诉我们他们的词汇量到底有多大。
In the past, linguists and researchers didn’t have the tools to gauge how many words the average person knows. But, thanks to Twitter, Facebook, and a nation of online quiz-takers, we might finally have an answer. According to a new study from Ghent University in Belgium, the average native English-speaking American will know around 42,000 words by the time they are 20 years old. By 60, they will know around 48,000 words.
在过去,语言学家和研究员没有工具去衡量普通人到底知道多少单词。但是,多亏了twitter,facebook和很多线上做题人,我们可能最终有了答案。根据比利时根特大学的一项新研究,一般母语为英语的美国人在20岁时,会知道大约4万2千的单词。在60岁时,他们会知道大约4万8千个单词。(远比,蛋老师想象得要多很多额。吓尿!!)
The study, published in Frontiers in Psychology, uses data from a viral quiz taken by almost one million people across platforms. According to a release from the sponsoring university, the amount of participants and collected data makes this the largest study of its kind ever attempted.
这个研究发表在心理学前沿Frontiers in Psychology上,使用了来自在不同平台上100万网友的数据,而这些数据是他们做病毒性小测试得来的。根据发起研究的大学的消息,参与者的数量和收集到的数据使这个研究成为同类中做过的最大型的研究。
* Frontiers is a Swiss academic publisher of peer-reviewed, open-access journals currently active in the STM (science, technology and medicine) fields. Frontiers是瑞士的学术刊物。心理学顶尖期刊。
还有一个问题:这里的“单词”包括什么呢?包括词组、派生词吗?
How many words do you know? As Bill Clinton might say, it depends on how you define the word “word.” A new study suggests that—if you’re excluding proper nouns, multiword phrases (like “kick the bucket”), and derived words (like “helplessly,” from “help”)—the typical English-speaking American knows about 42,000 of these so-called “lemmas” by the age of 20, UPI reports.
你知道多少个单词?就如比尔·克林顿(美国前总统)可能会说,这取决你如何定义这个单词“word”。有一项新的研究表明——如果你排除掉专有名词,词组(如kick the bucket)和派生词(如helplessly是从help衍生出来的)——典型的母语为英语的美国人20岁大约知道4万2千个这些所谓的“lemmas”,合众国际社(United Press International)报道称。
The study, published this week in Frontiers in Psychology, asked more than 220,000 people to review a list of 100 words—some real and some made up—to decide which were actual entries in the dictionary. High scorers—those in the top 5%—knew an average of 52,000 lemmas, whereas low scorers—those in the bottom 5%—knew an average of 27,000. If you want to see where you fall on that scale, you can take the online test here.
这个研究在本周发表在心理学前沿Frontiers in Psychology,会让22万+人看100个词汇列表,有些是真的,有些是假的,来决定哪些是词典里的真正词条。5%的高分获得者,平均知道5万2千个lemmas,而5%的低分获得者平均知道2万7千个。如果你想知道你在什么水平,你可以在这儿做线上测试。
【蛋蛋结论】一般美国人的词汇量在2万-5万之间,所以达到2万是个门槛吧。基本考个GRE考试,就过了这个门槛,当然这只限于阅读词汇量(看到知道意思)。