Reading Level of Average Adult in West Virginia

Have you ever wondered what an average person'south vocabulary size is?

Nosotros take language for granted and most of the time, we're not fifty-fifty enlightened of how many words we've already assimilated through the class of our lives. We probably don't even realize the number of words nosotros use on a solar day-to-day while communicating either through speaking or writing.

Unsurprisingly, historic period has a significant impact on how many words a person knows.

In 2013, The Economist published a blog article nearly "Lexical facts," based on results gathered by researchers at TestYourVocab.com. The study (which was based on the English language) revealed the post-obit:

• Well-nigh developed native test-takers have a vocabulary range of almost 20,000-35,000 words

• Adult native test-takers learn almost 1 new word a twenty-four hours until centre age

• Vocabulary growth stops at middle age

How Many Words exercise Native English Speakers Absorb by Age?

Then at present you're probably wondering — how many words can the boilerplate native English- speaking person assimilate by historic period? Resources vary when it comes to findings and figures, just according to the aforementioned Economist article, average native-examination takers aged 8 years old take a vocabulary size of about 10,000 words, while those aged 4 years know about 5,000 words.

A more contempo academic publication on vocabulary size and auditory give-and-take recognition among pre-school aged kids was published in May 2016. The study made use of "the visual earth image with semantic and phonological competitors to study lexical processing efficiency in children ages ii-5 years old."

The publication gave the following insights in its manuscript:

• At age one, a child will recognize about 50 words

• At age three, a child will recognize about 1,000 words

• At historic period five, a child volition recognize virtually 10,000 words

"Given that the average speaking rate is approximately 4 to v syllables per second, fifty-fifty small differences in the efficiency of spoken give-and-take recognition will identify some children at an advantage and others at a disadvantage," the manuscript further states, adding that "although children's vocabularies are much smaller than those of adults, their lexical processing is remarkably similar."

In August 2016, UPI.com conducted its own study which yielded a much college effigy — twice the size of what was previously perceived in 2013. Co-ordinate to UPI's findings, "near U.S. adults have a vocabulary of more than than 42,000 words."

Later careful analysis of tests taken past one meg respondents via social media, the results showed that U.S. native English speakers would have acquired a vocabulary of 42,000 words at historic period 20 and about 48,000 words past age threescore.

Is Shakespeare the Master Wordsmith?

Here'due south an interesting discovery: linguistics enthusiast Kono Kim made a comparing between William Shakespeare'south vocabulary vs. the number of words used in a 10-yr compilation of the Wall Street Journal.

Co-ordinate to Kim, Shakespeare's combined written works totaled 25,000 unique words compared to the Wall Street Journal which used less than twenty,000 unique words in its newspapers for a decade. (Note: Several other sources cite effectually over thirty,000 words for all of Shakespeare'southward collected writings).

It's a well-known fact that Shakespeare'south aptitude for learning words is beyond average — merely knowing his unique magnitude gives u.s. an idea of the human being mind'southward capacity when it comes to assimilating words. So, based on UPI's contempo findings, nosotros've become Shakespeares in our own right, at our own time!

And while we're measuring our human capabilities when it comes to increasing our vocabulary, it would be also good to annotation that new words are beingness created every single solar day — which means every bit the English language continues to expand, so does our vocabulary.

What are Active and Passive Vocabularies?

This is all probably overwhelming to notice, albeit in a proficient way. But realistically though, how many words do nosotros actually use in our daily lives every bit native English speakers?

Unbeknown to most, there exists an active and passive vocabulary. An active vocabulary consists of the words we have learned and actually utilise when speaking or writing. On the other hand, a passive vocabulary refers to words we've assimilated simply have not been able to utilize.

According to lexicographer and dictionary adept Susie Paring, "the average agile vocabulary of an adult English speaker is around 20,000 words, while his passive vocabulary is around 40,000 words."

In terms of bodily discussion usage, The Reading Teachers Volume of Lists claims that:

• the first 25 words are used in 33% of every day writing

• the first 100 words are used in 50% of adult and pupil writing

• the first ane,000 words are used in 89% of every day writing

While we've been patting ourselves on the back for beating Shakespeare, the truth is that the English language poet-playwright-actor however outnumbers u.s. when it comes to active vocabulary and actual word usage.

According to Kottke.org'southward statistical estimate, Shakespeare probably had well-nigh 35,000 words in his passive vocabulary. With both vocabularies combined, he would have known a full of about 65,000 words!

That's one staggering achievement that we however accept yet to conquer in our lifetimes.

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Source: https://wordcounter.io/blog/how-many-words-does-the-average-person-know/

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