Number of Vocabulary Items Learners Must Know
Many researchers have tried to estimate the number of lexical items that
native speakers of any language know to assess that how many words other
than non-native speakers must know to learn the language. For a native
speaker, this estimate varies between 12,000 to 20,000 words depending
on the level of education (Goulden, Nation and Read, 1990). Exposure of
a few words can lead to greater comprehension for non-native speakers.
For instance, the students who have the knowledge of common20, 000 words
can comprehend around 80% of them in a normal text and if the
vocabulary is 50,000, words then learner’s understanding is increased to
88.7% (Francis and Kucrera, 1982). For spoken language 1,800 words make
up over 80% of the spoken corpus.( Mc Carthy and Carter, 2007).