The objective of the study was to determine the volume of passive vocabulary of native Russian speakers. The measurement was carried out using , in which respondents were asked to mark familiar words from a specially compiled sample. According to the rules of the test, a word was considered “familiar” if the respondent could define at least one of its meanings. The test procedure is described in detail. To improve the accuracy of the test and identify respondents who take it sloppily, non-existent words were added to the test. If the respondent marked at least one such word as familiar, his results were not taken into account. More than 150 thousand people took part in the study (of which 123 thousand passed the test accurately).

First, let's analyze the effect of age on vocabulary.

The graph shows the percentiles of the resulting distribution. For example, the lowest curve (10th percentile) for 20 years gives 40 thousand words. This means that 10% of respondents of this age have a vocabulary below this value, and 90% - above. The central curve (median) highlighted in blue corresponds to a vocabulary such that half of the respondents of the corresponding age performed worse, and half - better. The topmost curve—the 90th percentile—cuts off the result above which only 10% of respondents with the maximum vocabulary showed.

The graph shows the following:

1. Lexicon grows at an almost constant rate until about 20 years of age, after which the rate of its increase decreases, tapering off by age 45. After this age, vocabulary practically does not change.
2. During school, a teenager learns 10 words a day. This value seems unnaturally large, but is explained by the fact that in the test derived words were taken into account separately, as independent words.
3. By the time a teenager leaves school, the average person knows 51 thousand words.
4. During schooling, vocabulary increases approximately 2.5 times.
5. After leaving school until middle age, the average person learns 3 new words a day.
6. After reaching 55 years of age, vocabulary begins to decline slightly. This may be due to forgetting words that are not used for a long time. Interestingly, this age approximately coincides with retirement.

Now let's divide all respondents into groups according to education level. The following graph shows the median vocabulary scores of these groups. The curves start and end in different places because the statistics for each group are different - for example, there were not enough respondents with incomplete secondary education over 45 for the results to be statistically significant, so the corresponding curve had to be cut off so early.

From the graph you can find out that

1. Perhaps vocabulary saturation occurs in at different ages depending on education. Thus, for respondents with secondary specialized education, saturation can be determined at around 43 years old, with higher education - at 51 years old, for candidates and doctors - at 54 years old. This could be explained by the specifics of the respondents’ work—most likely, holders of an academic degree continue to study various literature even in adulthood. Or constant life in a university environment, with its abundance of communication with educated people of different specializations, constantly throws up new words. However, from a technical point of view, such conclusions should not be drawn yet - the resulting curves are quite noisy, and it is very difficult to determine exactly where saturation begins. Perhaps a further set of statistics will make it possible to see the dependence of the age of saturation on the level of education (if any) more clearly.
2. There is practically no difference in vocabulary between those who entered the university, but did not finish their studies, and those who completed this path to the end (for students: this does not mean that you can not go to lectures).

Now let’s exclude the influence of age, leaving only respondents over 30 years old in the sample. This will allow you to concentrate on education.

From the graph we see the following:

1. Respondents who have just completed school know, on average, 2-3 thousand words more than those who did not finish school at the time.
2. The vocabulary of those who have received secondary or specialized secondary education is practically the same and averages 75 thousand words.
3. Those who studied at universities and institutes (and not necessarily those who graduated from them) know an average of 81 thousand words.
4. Candidates and doctors of science know an average of 86 thousand words. Thus, an academic degree adds about 5 thousand units of vocabulary compared to higher education.
5. Education, of course, influences vocabulary size. However, the variation within each group with the same education is significantly greater than the difference between the group means. In other words, a person who has not completed school may well know more words than a candidate of science. Here are specific numbers: 20% of respondents with incomplete secondary education, who showed the best results for their group, have a vocabulary that exceeds the vocabulary of half of the respondents with an academic degree. Most likely, they read more on different topics, are interested and knowledgeable in more areas.

The resulting vocabulary sizes - tens of thousands of words - seem quite large. There are two reasons for this. First, it measured passive vocabulary (words a person recognizes in text or hearing) rather than active vocabulary (words a person uses in speech or writing). These reserves differ significantly - the passive one is always much larger. The calculated vocabularies of writers, for example, are precisely active. Secondly, in the test all derived words were taken into account separately (for example, “work” and “work”, or “city” and “urban”).

Separately, I would like to note that the results obtained do not give an idea of ​​the vocabulary of the “average” (if such a thing exists) native Russian speaker. For example, the level of education of respondents who passed the test is significantly higher than the national average - 65% of respondents have higher education, whereas in Russia there are only 23% of these (according to the 2010 All-Russian Population Census). Then, it is obvious that the respondents who took the Internet test are mostly active Internet users, and this also makes the sample specific (mainly for older people). In the end, not everyone is interested in determining their vocabulary, but among our respondents there are 100% of them. It is logical to assume that the vocabulary results obtained from such a special sample should be slightly higher than the “statistical average”.

So, the data obtained revealed a strong dependence of vocabulary on age, and a weaker dependence on the level of education. Obviously, there are other factors that influence vocabulary - reading, communication, work, hobbies, lifestyle. All these are topics for further research.

A group of Belgian researchers representing Ghent University found out how many words, on average, people who have reached the age of twenty know, whose native language is American English. As it turned out, this figure is 42 thousand.

Experts note that we're talking about about words in their basic form, that is, in the form in which they can be seen in the dictionary. Proper names were also not included in the list. During their study, scientists used a list that included about 62 thousand words.

Scientists conducted testing involving more than 220 thousand people. Each of them was shown a list that included 67 “real” words, as well as 33 combinations of letters similar to English words, but in fact they are not. Study participants had to say which of the words in front of them they knew the meaning of. At the same time, choosing a non-existent word removed “points” from the participants, so it was unprofitable for them to try to name certain words at random. In addition to the actual testing, volunteers had to provide some information about themselves, including their age and level of education.

Based on the number of correct answers, scientists, using a previously developed algorithm, were able to guess how many words in English Each of the people tested knows the total. For participants aged 22 years, this figure was approximately 42 thousand.

According to scientists, after reaching the age of twenty, a person continues to replenish his vocabulary with new words approximately every two days, that is, by the age of sixty the number known to man words grow by about six thousand more.

The average active vocabulary of a Russian-speaking person, according to calculations by Russian researchers, is as follows:

• By the beginning of school, a child knows on average 20 thousand words (including derivatives), by the time of graduation this value increases to 51 thousand, that is, 2.5 times.
• Adults who have just completed school know on average 2-3 thousand more words than those who did not finish school at the time.
• The vocabulary of adults who have completed secondary or secondary specialized education is practically the same and averages 75 thousand words.
• Those who studied at universities and institutes (and not necessarily those who graduated from them) know an average of 81 thousand words.
• Candidates and doctors of science know on average 5 thousand more - 86 thousand words.

Vocabulary is a set of words in a person’s native language that are understandable in meaning and used in communication. It consists of words that are constantly used in oral and written speech, as well as words that are clear in meaning during conversation or reading literature.

There are two types of vocabulary:

• Active. This is a stock of words that a person uses every day in speech when communicating with people around him.
• Passive. These are words that are not used in communication, but are familiar by ear and content.

Active and passive vocabulary contain unequal word volume indicators. The active vocabulary of an adult greatly exceeds the passive one. The volume of words in both dictionaries is prone to constant change. They are able to increase if a person learns new terms, reads, develops, or decrease.

Active and passive vocabulary can decrease due to age, when words are forgotten or when they stop being used in communication. In this case, words will disappear from a person’s vocabulary or be replaced by new ones.

Estimating the exact vocabulary size of the average person is a difficult task. No one knows specifically what it should be in terms of content and number of words. The guideline in this matter is the dictionary of the Russian language by V. I. Dahl, which contains about two hundred thousand words and Dictionary Ozhegov, volume of 70 thousand Russian words.

Of course, it is clear that such a volume of words is beyond the power of even the smartest person. Human memory is not capable of accommodating such an amount of information without harm to health.

An interesting study was recently conducted to determine the volume of words among native Russian speakers. It was carried out in the form of testing, where those interested marked in the provided list the words they understood and used. Words were marked only if the definition was fully understood.

To improve the quality of testing and sort out unreliable information, non-existent designations were present in the lists. The presence in the subject's questionnaire of at least one non-existent word marked as familiar to him was considered unreliable information and was not taken into account.

During the work carried out, the following data were obtained:

• A person's passive vocabulary increases every year until the age of 20. Further, the rate of development decreases, gradually disappearing after 40 years. At this age and until the end of life, a person’s vocabulary remains unchanged.
• Studying at school adds up to 10 words to children's passive vocabulary every day. The student’s active and passive vocabulary is constantly growing.
• By the end of their studies, teenagers speak an average of 50 thousand words.
• School time increases the growth of word volume by almost 3 times.
• After leaving school, a person’s passive vocabulary stops growing and averages 3–4 words daily.
• At the age of 55, the vocabulary continues to decline, due to irreversible deterioration of memory and the use of some words in practice.

The study assessed the educational level of the subjects, yielding interesting findings. It turns out that people have the greatest amount of words at different times in their lives. Secondary specialized education implies the end of word growth at the age of 40, and higher education a little later - after 50 years. This 10-year gap is explained by the discrepancy between the work performed and the position held by people with different education. Some people at the age of 50 read scientific books and gain new knowledge due to the specifics of their work or at their own request for self-education.

It was also revealed interesting fact, which showed that subjects who completed their studies in educational institution and those who did not complete it for personal reasons have the same passive vocabulary.

Vocabulary vocabulary of adults with different levels education:

• Passive vocabulary has the same indicators among people with secondary education and secondary special education. It varies between 70-75 thousand words.
• People who have received higher education or have not graduated from college have a stock of 80 thousand words in their luggage.
• Educated people, candidates of science, have a rich vocabulary of 86 thousand words, which is 6 thousand more than those who have received a higher education.

The education received, of course, affects a person’s vocabulary, but not 100%. A person himself makes a huge contribution to the development of vocabulary, constantly improving himself and engaging in self-education. Therefore, it is easy to meet a person who only graduated from school with a vocabulary several times larger than that of someone who received a higher education. Main role Sociability, occupation and lifestyle of a person play a role in this matter.

The conducted research does not provide a complete picture of the vocabulary of the average Russian person, as it contains small errors. But despite this, it helps to determine the connection between vocabulary and age and level of education.

How to expand your vocabulary

There are no universal ways to increase words in the vocabulary of your native language. Each person chooses what suits only him. To replenish your vocabulary, several methods developed by polyglots for learning a foreign language will help.

To increase passive vocabulary:

• Reading literature.

The more and more often a person reads books, the richer and more interesting his speech sounds. It is pleasant to communicate and spend time with well-read people. This is a universal way to enrich your stock of new words. The quality of the selected literature is not last value. It is better to give preference in choosing popular science books, classical literature, avoiding modern “soap” novels or detective stories in them, you definitely won’t find new words in the correct application.

• Be interested in the meaning of unknown words.

Always ask your interlocutor for the meaning of unclear words or new terms; do not ignore them. During communication, new information will be much easier to assimilate and can be quickly recalled if necessary. If a new interesting word was heard by radio announcers, then its meaning can be seen in special dictionary.

• Dictionaries.

Every literate person should have a set of dictionaries at home that need to be used periodically. This is the explanatory dictionary of V. I. Dahl, Ozhegov, as well as the “Dictionary of Stresses for Radio and Television Workers.” It will help restore gaps in stress placement and contains many interesting words.

“The Dictionary of Stresses for Radio and Television Workers” has been published since 1960. Its authors are M.V. Zarva and F.L. Ageenko. The history of creating a dictionary of accents for radio and television workers began with the release of an announcer's reference book in 1951, and 3 years later the “Dictionary of Stresses” was released. To help the announcer."

All dictionaries for radio and television workers are based on the reserves of “heavy” words accumulated in the card index during the formation of the first radio in the era of the USSR. The radio and television files were constantly being replenished. Many words were never included in dictionaries. "Dictionary of Radio and Television" contains the title geographical names, names of works of art, surnames and first names of people.

How to expand your active vocabulary

To increase your vocabulary, you will need the ability of a person to translate words from a passive vocabulary to an active one. The following methods will help with this:

• Notes.

Write down new words along with their meanings on pieces of paper and stick them around the house in places where they will be most likely to catch your eye. This method will help you remember information more efficiently and quickly without memorizing it.

• Associative series.

To remember a word, build a suitable association for it. It can be aimed at smell, taste, motor, tactile characteristics or tied to color. The result depends on the person’s imagination and desire to consolidate the information received. An associative series helps to remember difficult words and makes it easier to remember in right time.

There are also exercises for developing your vocabulary. One of the most effective is the oral exercise of composing a story. To do this, you need to try to tell a small story, using only nouns, then only verbs or adjectives. This is not an easy exercise. It helps to use the existing stock of words, while refreshing them in a person’s memory.

« Lexicon William Shakespeare, according to researchers, is 12,000 words. The vocabulary of a black man from the cannibal tribe “Mumbo-Yumbo” is 300 words. Ellochka Shchukina easily and freely made do with thirty...”

Do you lack words to properly express your thoughts? If you are faced with the question “?”, this article will be useful to you.

IN modern world, beautiful and rich speech speaks of culture and good education. Rich Russian vocabulary indicates the level intellectual development person. Society perceives a person with a rich vocabulary as an intelligent and creative person. People with a rich vocabulary get jobs faster, move up the career ladder more successfully, and are generally listened to more often and more attentively. The more human vocabulary, the higher the likelihood that he will succeed in life.

The following recommendations will help you expand your Russian vocabulary:

Methods, methods and techniques for increasing vocabulary

1. Think about which of the banal, hackneyed, hackneyed words and expressions you are used to using every day in standard communication situations. Write them down on a piece of paper. Have you recorded it? Now take an explanatory dictionary or a dictionary of synonyms from the shelf. Find these words that already hurt your ears and that you are tired of hearing every day. Study the long list of alternatives and say each of these words out loud. Which one reflects your personality? Which one is right for you personally? Try each one out as you try on a suit and see which ones you find comfortable and cozy. Pick a few of these words and practice saying them out loud until they become a natural part of your vocabulary;
2. Communication is basic source of replenishment of a person's vocabulary.During a conversation, each participant replenishes his vocabulary from the arsenal of his interlocutor, and word exchange occurs between them. Talk to friends, acquaintances, and family as much as possible. Use new words in your vocabulary; knowledge of a word is nothing without its use;
3. Read, reading books is useful. Start with those authors who are more understandable and close to your interests. Gradually add literature that is more complex. The text where there are interesting words and expressions that you want to remember and use in the future, re-read it out loud (by reading to ourselves, we also expand our vocabulary, but not so quickly, because in this way we only see the words; when reading out loud, we In addition to this, we also hear them and, most importantly, we pronounce them, so we remember them better);
4. When you notice a new word, don't just look at its definition in the dictionary. Pay attention to the turn of speech in which this word is used, try to replace it with the appropriate synonym for yourself. Try to rhyme, come up with as many suitable phrases as possible. The more you know about a word, the faster you will learn to use it, without complicating your memory. This will immediately affect the beauty and personality of your speech;
5. Write. Rewrite other people's articles and your favorite ones literary works following the example of Demosthenes, who rewrote Thucydides' History eight times in a row.
6. Crosswords are not just entertainment, but also a way vocabulary development. Use this opportunity on the road, on vacation. Choose crosswords from well-known publications or those that have a good reputation;
7. For those who spend a lot of time on the road, driving or have absolutely no free time to use books and dictionaries, there is a unique opportunity develop your speech and increase your vocabulary using audiobooks. This method will also be acceptable for an audience that perceives better by ear. In any case, while away the time in traffic jams reading good literature is much more useful and effective for your development.

Ways to remember new words

“William Shakespeare’s dictionary, according to researchers, is 12,000 words. The dictionary of a black man from the cannibal tribe "Mumbo-Yumbo" is 300 words. Ellochka Shchukina easily and freely made do with thirty,” everyone is familiar with this quote from “The Twelve Chairs” by Ilf and Petrov. The satirists, and with them the readers, had a good laugh at the narrow-minded and undeveloped, but overly self-confident and arrogant Ellochka, all of whose interests, thoughts and emotions easily fit into thirty words. Meanwhile, when they start writing texts, many, without noticing it themselves, turn into the cannibal Ellochka. Whatever they want to write about, the same “Ho-ho!” comes out from the pen. and “Be rude, boy!” In this lesson we will talk about how to get rid of the problem of the cannibal Ellochka and expand your vocabulary. And in the next lesson we will learn how to learn to use it correctly.

Lexicon

Lexicon (dictionary, lexicon) is a set of words that a person understands and uses in his speech.

Vocabulary is usually divided into two types: active and passive.

Active vocabulary - these are the words that a person regularly uses in speech and writing.

Passive vocabulary - this set of words that a person knows and understands by hearing or reading, but does not use them himself. You can check your passive vocabulary on this site.

Typically, the volume of passive vocabulary exceeds the volume of active vocabulary several times. At the same time, the volumes of active and passive vocabulary are moving quantities: a person constantly learns new words and at the same time forgets or stops using words that he has already learned.

What should be the volume of active and passive vocabulary? Unexpectedly, it turned out that answering this question is quite difficult. Volume of the dictionary V.I. Dahl has two hundred thousand words, the academic dictionary of the modern Russian literary language - about one hundred and thirty thousand, the latest edition of Ozhegov's explanatory dictionary - seventy thousand words. Obviously, such meanings exceed the vocabulary of even the most erudite person. Unfortunately, there is no exact scientific data on what the average active and passive vocabulary of an adult educated person is. Estimates of active vocabulary range from five thousand to thirty-five thousand words. As for passive vocabulary, the range is from twenty thousand to one hundred thousand words. Most likely, the truth, as always, lies somewhere in the middle. It is reasonable to assume that the active vocabulary of an adult reaches approximately fifteen thousand words (as is known, the active vocabulary of such a master of words as Pushkin was about twenty thousand words), and the passive vocabulary is forty to fifty thousand words (it is difficult to imagine an ordinary person who would know all the meanings of words from Ozhegov’s dictionary).

There is a simple way to roughly estimate the size of your passive vocabulary. Take an explanatory dictionary, for example, the same Ozhegov dictionary, open it on a random page, count how many of the defined words you know. Be honest with yourself: if a word seems familiar to you, but you don’t know its exact meaning, then you don’t need to count that word. Next, multiply this figure by the number of pages. Of course, you need to keep in mind that this result is approximate: you must assume that all pages contain the same number articles from which you know the same number of words. For the purity of the experiment, you can repeat these steps several times. However, you still won’t get an accurate result.

If you are too lazy to bother with the dictionary and calculations yourself, you can use our test.

Ways to expand your vocabulary

When writing texts, it is very important that the words used are as diverse as possible. This, firstly, allows you to most accurately express your thoughts, and secondly, makes the perception of the text easier for the reader. There are several rules to help expand your vocabulary. They were designed primarily for people studying foreign languages, but can also be used effectively for the native language.

Passive vocabulary

Read as much as possible. Reading- this is one of the main sources of new information, and, accordingly, new words. At the same time, try to choose literature as broad as possible. high level- it doesn’t matter whether we are talking about fiction, historical literature or journalism. The higher the level of the authors, the greater the chance that they use a variety of vocabulary, and most importantly, use words correctly. This way you will remember not only new words, but also the correct ways to use them.

Don't be afraid to appear ignorant. Many people feel extremely awkward when their interlocutor seems very educated, well-read and uses a lot of unfamiliar words. In such a situation, many are afraid of being branded ignorant, and therefore are embarrassed to ask about the meaning of this or that new word. Never do this. It's always better to ask about a word you don't know than to remain ignorant for the rest of your life. Don't expect to look this word up in the dictionary when you get home. You will simply forget it. If your interlocutor is really smart, your question will never seem funny to him.

Use a dictionary. It is useful to have a set of academic dictionaries and encyclopedias at home that you can refer to whenever necessary. Naturally, good dictionaries are not cheap, are often published in small editions and take up a lot of shelf space. Fortunately, with the development of the Internet, the problem of access to dictionaries has been solved. Nowadays you can find dictionaries and encyclopedias on almost any topic. The portals are quite convenient to use: slovari.yandex.ru and www.gramota.ru.

Active vocabulary

The tips above help expand primarily your passive vocabulary. However main topic our lessons are about effective writing. Therefore, the goal is not only to learn new words, but also to learn how to actively use them in writing. Here are a few exercises aimed at translating words from a passive vocabulary into an active one:

Notes method. You need to take cards, leaves or colored stickers. On one side you write the word you want to remember, on the other - its meaning, synonyms, examples of use. Such cards can be sorted out at home, in transport, at work. Fast, convenient and effective!

Notebook of synonyms. You can take a simple notebook or create an electronic document where you will write down words and a series of synonyms for them. For example, take the word result. A number of synonyms for it: consequence, consequence, trace, fruit, sum, total, conclusion, conclusion. It must be remembered that not only synonymous words can be added here, but also entire constructions: thus, so, from here we can conclude that we have come to the conclusion that, etc. You can also make notes in such a notebook about the nature of a particular word: obsolete, high, colloquial, pejorative. If you use an electronic document, then words on the same topic can be combined into separate blocks. In addition, such a notebook can also be supplemented with antonyms.

Thematic cards. They are convenient to use if you want to remember and translate several words related to a common theme into your active dictionary. Write them down on one card and stick them in a visible place. As a result, if you remember at least one word from the card, the rest will inevitably come to your mind.

Association method. Try to accompany the memorization of words with associations: figurative, color, olfactory, tactile, gustatory, motor. Having such an association will help you remember the right word much faster. Moreover, you can rhyme a word that is important to you into some short poem or insert it into a stupid and meaningless, but memorable statement.

Presentations and essays. We are accustomed to the fact that presentations and essays are school exercises, and, after finishing school, we can never return to them. Meanwhile, they help to significantly improve your writing skills and expand your active vocabulary. The presentations are suitable for a situation where you have read a text in which you came across many unfamiliar but useful words. Make a short written summary of this text using these key words and they will stay in your memory. As for essays, you don’t need to write long treatises; a short story of five sentences is enough, into which you insert new words.

Memory calendar. This is a repetition graph of the words you want to translate into the active dictionary. It is based on research into how human memory works. Scientists have long found out that after a week a person forgets eighty percent of all new information received. However, this percentage can be significantly reduced if you repeat the material at certain intervals. Then it goes into long-term active memory. For this purpose, the so-called rational repetition mode was developed. For convenience, here is a table:

• First rep. Immediately after finishing reading
• Second repetition. After half an hour
• Third repetition. In one day
• Fourth repetition. After two days
• Fifth repetition. After three days
• Sixth repetition. A week later
• Seventh repetition. In two weeks
• Eighth repetition. A month later
• Ninth repetition. After two months

To achieve maximum effect, it is advisable not to deviate from the schedule. It is also best not to try to memorize a large array of words at once. It is better to divide words into small thematic groups and create your own repetition calendar for each group.

Crosswords, language games and puzzles. A great way to combine business with pleasure: practice learned words and play! Here are some of the most common language games: scrabble (in the Russian version - erudite, bald), anagrams, antiphrases, burime, metagrams, hat, contact.

Test your knowledge

If you want to test your knowledge on the topic of this lesson, you can take a short test consisting of several questions. For each question, only 1 option can be correct. After you select one of the options, the system automatically moves on to the next question. The points you receive are affected by the correctness of your answers and the time spent on completion. Please note that the questions are different each time and the options are mixed.