English vocabulary test

[vils]

I did the test here: /testyourvocab.com
I scored 22100. Not sure how reliable the test is though.

[quadibloc]

I was very careful not to check any words I wasn't sure I knew the meaning of, but I still got 36,300.

[Teal]

25,000.
They hava a page explaining how the test is administered. Basically, the first page is 40 words spanning the entire spectrum from easiest to hardest, which gives an approximate result, the following pages are more specific test based on the prior ones to pinpoint your ability.

Edit: They say there's 10% margin of error.

[vils]

I was very careful not to check any words I wasn't sure I knew the meaning of, but I still got 36,300.

I suppose you're a native speaker? But even then it's a good result.

[keyboardlover]

What about "asshat" or "cocksmack"?

[keyboardlover]

Being one what?

[nathanscribe]

36,900.  I have never seen the word "sparge" before, but like the cut of its jib.

[DaemonRaccoon]

Being one what?

Being a gentleman speaker of the Queen's English.

[quadibloc]

They hava a page explaining how the test is administered.

I like the quote from Mark Twain on the page:

"Ours is a mongrel language which started with a child's vocabulary of three hundred words, and now consists of two hundred and twenty-five thousand; the whole lot, with the exception of the original and legitimate three hundred, borrowed, stolen, smouched from every unwatched language under the sun, the spelling of each individual word of the lot locating the source of the theft and preserving the memory of the revered crime."

which long anticipated the famous quote from James D. Nicoll,

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse ****. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."

but in addition notes the chief reason for the inconsistency of English spelling.

Walt Whitman, in his essay "Slang in America", also noted this, but in a direct rather than ironic way:

"View'd freely, the English language is the accretion and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition of all. From this point of view, it stands for Language in the largest sense, and is really the greatest of studies. It involves so much; is indeed a sort of universal absorber, combiner, and conqueror. The scope of its etymologies is the scope not only of man and civilization, but the history of Nature in all departments, and of the organic Universe, brought up to date; for all are comprehended in words, and their backgrounds. This is when words become vitaliz’d, and stand for things, as they unerringly and soon come to do, in the mind that enters on their study with fitting spirit, grasp, and appreciation."

And then there's Ralph Waldo Emerson:

"I like to be beholden to the great metropolitan English speech, the sea which receives tributaries from every region under heaven."

I suppose you're a native speaker? But even then it's a good result.

Oh, yes, I'm definitely a native speaker of English. And I learned to read at home before I started school.

[The Solutor]

English is easy.

giving zero answers you get 20 points... :pound:

Jokes aside i did the test from my smartphone while sitting on a noisy bar.

And I got 9010 points. They say that a non native English speaker should know from 7000 to 9000, so I know 10 words I shouldn't ;-)

I'm sure that I learned them from ripster :becky: (one is "jelly")

[csm725]

19.3K
Average for my age group according to the stats.

[RiGS]

Only 7640 for me.

[IvanIvanovich]

37,500. I noticed a lot of German, Italian, and French words on the test. Fairly amusing after reading the quotes quadibloc posted.

[iamtwon]

18,800, I need to read more.

[The Solutor]

I repeated the test sitting in front of my PC in a less distracting environment.

I'm sure I replied to less answers this time because i found more difficult words.

And I got 17300 points :madgrin:

http://testyourvocab.com/?r=561549

[hashbaz]

27,000 here.

[didjamatic]

The real test is using the more obscure words in conversation without sounding like a douche.

[Voixdelion]

the words change each time?
33,600 for me and leaving out anything I wasn't 90% sure of picking out a synonym for on an SAT type test and without being used in context  (This left mostly the French stuff and a few that I once knew when I actually had to take the SAT but have since forgotten due to the fact that I haven't encountered them anywhere else)


curious of how much deviation from personal score there will be if repeated, though

And there should also be a disclaimer added to the idea of where "most people" will score if  you consider that there is probably only a particular segment of society that will be interested in taking such a type of quiz in the first place. (Given the mangling that English is subjected to in the overwhelming majority of non-academic writings then I would at least be curious as to a bell curve within that range of "most." 15,000 words seems like a pretty broad scope to me)

EDIT>> Okay, they did take into account their average audience on the breakdown by age page.  Interesting too, my score is more in line with my age group than my SAT score, but I do know that it was the reading comp sections that affected my score on the SAT- If I knew then what I know now after looking at a study guide for those types of questions I could have brought up my score by at least a good 50-100 points on the verbal. I remember being shocked at the time that my math score was better by 60 points when English and writing that had always earned my awards.  But I didn't take an SAT Prep at all, and clearly it would have made a difference.  I did pick up a study guide when I took the exam for the Electrical Journeyman Apprenticeship program a few years back and learned what mistakes I had made on the SAT's when I discovered the Reading Comp to be a lot weaker than I expected on their practice tests. SO I learned what to look for more specifically and brushed up.  When I went for the interview they told me I had the 2nd highest written exam score overall. =)

[RiGS]

I repeated the test sitting in front of my PC in a less distracting environment.

I'm sure I replied to less answers this time because i found more difficult words.

And I got 17300 points :madgrin:

http://testyourvocab.com/?r=561549

Lol, same for me. This time I got 12170 points.

[neo]

I got 342,783,500 points.
And I wasn't even trying.

[Ekaros]

15,300 maybe with a bit of guess work. Still someone those aren't realy used...

Also, I think it isn't too bad for non-native and from totaly different language-group...

[Teal]

@Ekaros: The Finnish school system apparently teaches English with a vastly different approach than most countries. For example, our teachers speak English more in the classroom than in other countries.
Or so I've heard.

[Ekaros]

@Ekaros: The Finnish school system apparently teaches English with a vastly different approach than most countries. For example, our teachers speak English more in the classroom than in other countries.
Or so I've heard.

It depends a lot on teacher, on other hand we are teached on emphasis to write perfect English... Oral communication isn't often tested all, just writing and hearing/reading comprehension.

Still, I do now days read over half of my literature in English...

[Teal]

There's never really time to test oral communication; the teacher would have to sit down with each student ant talk to them separately. We had an optional class on conversational English in Junior High, which probably helped my score along somewhat. Now I have a larger vocabulary than my vocational school English teacher.

...on the other hand, she doesn't have much of a vocabulary to speak of. I had to explain to her what "inflammable" means.

[The Solutor]

It depends a lot on teacher

Yes it depends a lot, I had only *****es as English teachers, I learned more in six months dedicated to learn some basic technical words, than in the previous 5 years of proper English lessons, just because the teacher was great.

BTW it depends a lot more on similarities between the languages. Look at Google translator, if you translate from English to German or viceversa, the end result is more than reasonable.

If you translate from English to Spanish or Italian you get the funniest reading ever...

[The Solutor]

I assume your problem is typos.

Lot of typos here when i write fast on forums, but this is a my own behavior, no matter if I'm writing in English or Italian.

[Teal]

Finnish is pretty far from Germanic languages as well. Some Mormon (natively English) missionaries-to-be said it was designed by the Devil or something like that without one bit of irony. Their reasoning went something along the lines of "it's impossible to learn, therefore it's impossible to do evangelism in Finland, therefore the Finnish can't be converted to the Real Faith™."

[Ekaros]

Yes it depends a lot, I had only *****es as English teacher, I learned more in six months dedicated to learn some basic technical words, than in the previous 5 years of proper English lessons, just because the teacher was great.

BTW it depends a lot more on similarities between the languages. Look at Google translator, if you translate from English to German or viceversa, the end result is more than reasonable.

If you translate from English to Spanish or Italian you get the funniest reading ever...

My high-school teacher:
I'm not a *****
I'm the *****
but for you it's Miss *****

[Ekaros]

Ofc, I never cared about rules and correct spelling Mild dyslexia, might have something to do with it too...

[The Solutor]

Yeah but I'm telling ya dude the combo of typos and ESL make your posts almost up there with Princess Runeazn's.

:party: Feel free to correct me whenever you want, your English at least is surely better than mine.

I think his english is getting WORSE.

I'm puzzled by his posts, almost all the NL people I know are almost perfect bilingual people...

[Hydroid]

English has never really been that much of a strong point for me despite natively speaking English, reading a lot and constantly communicating with people in English. So I guess it's not surprising that I didn't have a super score, but I do feel a bit let down by myself that I only got an average score for my age. I would have hoped that all the reading would have boosted that up a bit. Granted, internet reading probably counts as a -10 points to reading, intelligence and sanity whereas a book only counts for +1 reading.

[prd]

The most attractive women I met in school were English teachers.

[The Solutor]

Hahaha

(a joke that doesn't works in Italian: Tanga/Dittongo)

[hashbaz]

The most attractive women I met in school were English teachers.

Not me, man.  My English teachers were mostly older and ... less attractive.  I did have a couple of stand-out educators though, who demanded a lot of me and helped me learn.  My 9th grade English teacher made us diagram sentences for several months and write a 20-page paper to finish out the year.  In 12th grade my AP English teacher played the cranky old maid initially, but actually ended up being really cool and treating us like adults by the time we were ready to take the exam.  She lead us in a lot of genuinely interesting discussions about literature and grammar.  She was a real "Dead Poets Society" type, though not as exaggerated as Robin Williams' character.  Some of her former students from my generation formed a Facebook group in her honor to discuss memories of her class.  Good times.

edit: removed errant apostrophe :-|

[Hydroid]

I think that is an important part of learning. If teacher has a passion for what they are trying to teach and they are able to articulate and transmit that passion in such a way that it works as a highly effective teaching tool. Even a student who isn't interested in something might be able to be encouraged to put in a lot of work if they are around a teacher who has a contagious passion for their subject. Back when I was barely into my teens and I was wanting to get my first own computer I was shopping around and I saw something that was being marketed as a "budget gaming computer" for $800 and I got all excited. I posted it on a gaming forum saying I wanted to get it and a few of the resident tech heads replied and told me that I was getting a bad deal with it. So I started asking more questions and one guy in particular took the time to answer each one. Eventually he offered to build one for me and spent time getting links to each component to build a system that was priced $200 higher, but a far better deal in the long run. The only problem was that he was in the US and I am in Australia, so I set about trying to replicate the same system with parts from Australian sites. I ended up waiting another 6 months and getting something completely different from his original recommendation, but over that time he helped me to learn almost everything I know about computer hardware. He was always very helpful and when I gave a question he didn't reply purely with recommendations that one product was better than another, but would take time to practically write full essays for me on why something was better than something else and through that I learned what to look for. I have tried to carry this into the way I give computer advice if I think the person would be interested int he least to know about extras. If my grandparents ask which laptop they should get I'm not going to explain everything to them. However if there is someone looking to build their own computer and doesn't know what to get for the best balance and value in their system I will try to put some effort into helping them. Without that guy on those forums who took the time to help me all those years ago I wouldn't be where I am today.

[quadibloc]

Oh, this reminds me: I should mention this other site related to the same topic that a friend told me about: http://freerice.com/

[Lanx]

20,400- ah ny public schools, you barely got me a passing grade.

[kps]

35,900. I feel stupid beside quadibloc and lysol.

[keyb_gr]

16700. OK for not being a native speaker, I guess.

[nrd]

12600 (Was tempted to check a lot more words, but then again I didn't want to select anything I wasn't completely sure about... After all it's the Internet so you have to be honest, right?) Less than a native speaker, more than a non-native speaker, so what am I? Some kind of alien? :wacko:

[Findecanor]

I took the test twice. The first time I got 20,900, but I realized that I had taken it too fast and the test does not test whether I actually know the true meaning of each word or not. Therefore, I decided to take it again, but this time, I would think through each answer a bit more and avoid selecting those words that I am not entirely sure of. My score for the second time was 18,900.

[Voixdelion]

Interesting.  The majority of my English instructors were men - typically the tweedy sort with patches on the elbows or Saxophone playing poet-types. And only one year did I have a male instructor for any foreign language class I took in either French OR Spanish through both high-school and college.  

 Do other languages have to study their own language in school too? Do Germans study German, or  do French people study French in school the way American's study English?  

I find it woefully distressing that I would not likely be able to participate on a forum and get much out of it if I had to do it in French or Spanish, despite having studied both for several years.  Internet translation tools are somewhat less than satisfactory for actual sensible results too.  Is it so difficult to build an algorithm that takes into account context in order to create a translation tool that works a bit better than most which seem to just do a word for word swap?  Going from Chinese to English is REALLY bad from what I've seen - at least I can sort out the sentence structure in the romance languages, but the asian dialects often leave me just a mash of words that I have trouble identifying subject and verb in,forget clauses  or modifiers...[But then again:   My Dad is currently fulfilling some of his life's purpose and is the official "English Sentence Compiler" member of the team working a new translation of the Lotus Sutra from Sanskrit to Japanese, English and Spanish.  He's fluent in the last three (I  get to participate on the English parts and even get a credit in the final draft as a consultant!), but often the hardest part is debate over the Sanskrit meanings even within a group of designated "experts,"  so I guess a computer software tool short of A.I. would be pretty inefficient at translation/interpretations of such things if people who are native speakers can't even do it reliably.  When you consider that, I guess that makes the babble-fish stuff as understandable as anything else, at least as far as the languages that are so differently structured.]