Number Of Words To Be Fluent

[junkofdavid2]

Assuming you already have the basic structure right, and generally have no problem with "basic" things like buying food, selling, giving basic directions to taxi driver, etc....

How many words in your vocabulary, approximately, do you need to be able to understand and carry on an unstrained conversation with your Thai friends for everyday use (like when they talk about everyday things... gossip, the movies, etc.)

[meadish_sweetball]

There's no real answer to that, because it depends on your friends and to what extent you feel you need to express yourself precisely and distinctly.

Why do you want to know?

[soundman]

Everone has completely different learning curves.

IMO for those living in Thailand....

those going to school three++ days per week. 3 - 5 years.

those not going to school, however, immersing themselves in the language and learning a bit (especially spelling) from books etc. 5 - 7 years.

those living in a tourist bubble and not making much of an effort. never be close to fluent.

Cheers,

Soundman.

[junkofdavid2]

Well... I'm wondering how many more words I may need to learn to understand my friends when they are all chatting it up in a restaurant. I'm beginning to take Thai lessons (finally, after 3 years) but I'm really busy and don't have much time; not to mention an erratic schedule from my line of work.

I seem to get by on my Thai pretty okay for essential stuff such as buying stuff and giving detailed directions to taxi drivers, but i can only understand maybe 20% at most when my Thai friends and I are yakking it up in a restaurant and laughing and stuff... mostly gossip I think; such as the latest movies, or their telling stories of what happened to them the other day, or what they'll be doing for a trip next week.

Here's another question I guess... What are the 700 most commonly used words in "everyday" Thai?

[junkofdavid2]

As a background...

I moved here 3 years ago and learned basic structure and some basic words in a few hours on my own using the book and CD of Poomsan-Becker (pretty good actually). After that, I kinda just "picked up" some of the language slowly (very slowly!).

Because of my erratic sked, I can't enroll in a "structured" learning school (such as Union, etc.) and can't even hire a tutor because I never know if I'll be free today until the morning of the same day. (Plus, tutors are expensive). The only option for me therefore, was to try AUA recently which is not very structured. (Doesn't matter if you "miss" class or not, because today's lesson isn't based on yesterday's). I went there to AUA and after conversing with me in some (very basic) Thai they automatically put me to a class on "Level 5-10" (whatever that means) and I actually liked it and learned some vocabulary relatively quickly and easily in just 2 sessions (by the teachers' actions instead of translation). I probably learned about 10 words. I know it's not much but it would probably take me about a month to learn otherwise (since I sort of hit a learning plateau about a year and a half ago).

I'm just wondering around how many sessions more til I have better vocabulary to actually use in everyday life.

Edited October 24, 2008 by junkofdavid2

[DavidHouston]

Well... I'm wondering how many more words I may need to learn to understand my friends when they are all chatting it up in a restaurant. I'm beginning to take Thai lessons (finally, after 3 years) but I'm really busy and don't have much time; not to mention an erratic schedule from my line of work.

I seem to get by on my Thai pretty okay for essential stuff such as buying stuff and giving detailed directions to taxi drivers, but i can only understand maybe 20% at most when my Thai friends and I are yakking it up in a restaurant and laughing and stuff... mostly gossip I think; such as the latest movies, or their telling stories of what happened to them the other day, or what they'll be doing for a trip next week.

Here's another question I guess... What are the 700 most commonly used words in "everyday" Thai?

See http://www.thai-language.com/ref/starred for the Thai-Language.com compliation of common words, described as: "The maroon star icon () which appears next to words throughout this website is intended to designate some of the more commonly used words in the Thai language. Beginning students may wish to focus their studies on these important and useful words. The following is a complete list of the 1172 words that are currently so designated. Click on any Thai word to explore it in more detail."

[5tash]

As a background...

I moved here 3 years ago and learned basic structure and some basic words in a few hours on my own using the book and CD of Poomsan-Becker (pretty good actually). After that, I kinda just "picked up" some of the language slowly (very slowly!).

Because of my erratic sked, I can't enroll in a "structured" learning school (such as Union, etc.) and can't even hire a tutor because I never know if I'll be free today until the morning of the same day. (Plus, tutors are expensive). The only option for me therefore, was to try AUA recently which is not very structured. (Doesn't matter if you "miss" class or not, because today's lesson isn't based on yesterday's). I went there to AUA and after conversing with me in some (very basic) Thai they automatically put me to a class on "Level 5-10" (whatever that means) and I actually liked it and learned some vocabulary relatively quickly and easily in just 2 sessions (by the teachers' actions instead of translation). I probably learned about 10 words. I know it's not much but it would probably take me about a month to learn otherwise (since I sort of hit a learning plateau about a year and a half ago).

I'm just wondering around how many sessions more til I have better vocabulary to actually use in everyday life.

Why do you need to attend a school to learn new vocabulary?

Surely you can do this by yourself and save yourself time and money.

There's plenty resources out there available for students of the Thai language.

[mangkorn]

Just knowing "words" isn't enough. One also needs to know sentence structure, with all that entails. Among the most difficult things for comprehending Thai can be to figure out who is doing what, when. The ambiguity of pronouns, tenses and occasional lack of distinction between singular and plural requires very attentive listening. One also needs to be attuned to many colloquial speech forms, particles, adverbs, prefixes, etc...

As for mere vocabulary, 5tash makes a good point: you don't need to go to school for that. Carry a dictionary with you wherever you go, and consult it frequently.

[phaethon]

Here is a table I show to my students for a bit of fun. THE OEC is the Oxford English Cobuild - a collection of over two million words from current English sources (print and broadcast).

Vocabulary size : % in OEC : Examples

10 : 25% : the, be, to, of, and, a, in, that, have, I

100 : 50% : from, because, go, me, our, well, way

1,000 : 75% : girl, win, decide, huge, difficult, series

7,000 : 90% : tackle, peak, crude, purely, dude, modest

50,000 : 95% : saboteur, autocracy, calyx, conformist

>1,000,000 : 99% : laggardly, endobenthic, pomological

A native speaker will be in the 7-50k range, but just 10 words account for a quarter of English vocabulary, learn a hundred words and you are half-way there..!

I would imagine Thai, or any other langauge, has similar pattern - if anyone finds a similar table for Thai I'd be interested in hearing about it (or frequency tables like at the bottom of this page for English).

However, as stated above vocabulary is but one element in fluency.

Edited October 24, 2008 by phaethon

[mynextgig]

Well... I'm wondering how many more words I may need to learn to understand my friends when they are all chatting it up in a restaurant. I'm beginning to take Thai lessons (finally, after 3 years) but I'm really busy and don't have much time; not to mention an erratic schedule from my line of work.

I seem to get by on my Thai pretty okay for essential stuff such as buying stuff and giving detailed directions to taxi drivers, but i can only understand maybe 20% at most when my Thai friends and I are yakking it up in a restaurant and laughing and stuff... mostly gossip I think; such as the latest movies, or their telling stories of what happened to them the other day, or what they'll be doing for a trip next week.

Here's another question I guess... What are the 700 most commonly used words in "everyday" Thai?

As per some of the other posts here, gauging fluency by the number of words you know is irrelavant. Even words you know may not be recognisable when heard if they are mid sentance and mixed with slang as they often are in colloquial thai. Additionally most words have different meanings based on context and you not only need to understand each context but the surrounding dialogue that changes that context.

The only way to achieve fluency is to listen and speak Thai every day, there are obvious patterns of speech in everyday smalltalk that you will pick up on and can reuse, but specific conversations require a great deal of effort and time to understand.

[mangkorn]

Too right, mynextgig. One may know that "bpaak(L)" is "mouth," and that "maa®" is dog, but if you hear a conversation wherein a Thai person says "bpaak maa" - 9 times out of 10, they will not be talking about a four-legged beast.

Actually, probably 10 times out of 10...

[Oneman]

How many words in your vocabulary, approximately, do you need to be able to understand and carry on an unstrained conversation with your Thai friends for everyday use (like when they talk about everyday things...

The original poster asked about number of words to carry on an unstrained conversation for everyday use.

Many posts above about everything but that!

So I will focus on the original topic.

After four years of study, my vocabulary count -- as of today -- is 2,813 words.

I know exactly, because I keep a database of every word I study.

Using that database, my Thai teacher tests me on 100-200 words at every lesson.

My moving average score is 84% for listening and reading Thai script (not transliteration).

Can I carry on an everyday conversation with 2,813 words and 84% comprehension?

Well ... no.

Yes, I can converse with Thai friends about daily events, food, and entertainment.

We even talk a little about their family problems, government problems, and even economic problems, but any conversation is still an effort.

Often, I must ask them to speak slowly, to pause between words -- not a natural flow of conversation.

My estimate is that I am at about 50% of comfortable conversation.

That puts the number of words I expect to need in the range of 5-6,000.

With 2,813 words, can I keep up with Thai's conversations with each other?

Not at all.

The reason is there is more to this than just number of words: The other factor is speed of comprehension.

I don't know how to measure that, but it will take a lot more skill than I have now until flowing conversation is possible; probably double my current ability.

So, I anticipate four more years of study to achieve 6,000 words, with comprehension consistently 80% or better.

-- Oneman

Chiangmai

Edited October 24, 2008 by Oneman

[Rikker]

My estimate is that I am at about 50% of comfortable conversation.

That puts the number of words I expect to need in the range of 5-6,000.

In fact, word frequencies have a Zipfian distribution. As has been alluded to earlier, a very small number accounts for a very large percentage of words. Each percentage point higher you get will require an ever larger number of words.

I'll go ahead and repost the earlier list:

Vocabulary size : % in OEC : Examples

10 : 25% : the, be, to, of, and, a, in, that, have, I

100 : 50% : from, because, go, me, our, well, way

1,000 : 75% : girl, win, decide, huge, difficult, series

7,000 : 90% : tackle, peak, crude, purely, dude, modest

50,000 : 95% : saboteur, autocracy, calyx, conformist

>1,000,000 : 99% : laggardly, endobenthic, pomological

Any language will follow this same distribution, though the exact percentages may vary a bit. If at 1000 words, you know 75% of words you hear, you have to septuple your vocabulary to get to 90%, and then septuple that (to 50,000) to gain another measly 5%. And the final 5% requires multiplying your vocabulary again many times over.

But along the way, one has learned so many roots and patterns that it becomes easier to make educated guesses and such, so it's not a purely statistical game. Nor is it simply a matter of doubling the words one knows to reach "fluency". It's an almost quixotic quest...

[Oneman]

.

The OP seeks to learn Thai to have comfortable conversions with his friends.

There is a tendency among some of the senior linguists posting here to make it seem that learning Thai is impossible, or almost so.

I respectfully accuse the posts from Phaethon and Rikker as guilty of that fallacy.

They do not offer much help to anyone struggling with the OP's important question.

just 10 words account for a quarter of English vocabulary, learn a hundred words and you are half-way there..!

In spite of the yellow wink, Phaethon's comment is dis-information for anyone trying to learn Thai.

Those ten English words are: the, be, to, of, and, a, in, that, have, I.

Impossible to have even "half" a conversation with just those 10 words, or even with the most common 100.

In fact, word frequencies have a

Zipfian distribution

. As has been alluded to earlier, a very small number accounts for a very large percentage of words. Each percentage point higher you get will require an ever larger number of words.

Vocabulary size : % in OEC : Examples

10 : 25% : the, be, to, of, and, a, in, that, have, I

100 : 50% : from, because, go, me, our, well, way

1,000 : 75% : girl, win, decide, huge, difficult, series

7,000 : 90% : tackle, peak, crude, purely, dude, modest

While demonstrating talent for the arcane trivia of linguistics, Rikker has distracted from the topic question.

Not asking about word distributions in the entire language, just asking how many words are needed for comfortable conversation.

With 100 words no one will have any kind of conversation in Thai, let 50% of the kind the OP is seeking.

100 is just barely enough to order beer, get simple food, go left, go right, ask how much, what's your name, say the numbers from 1 to 10, and know the days of the week.

It is far from conversation.

With 1,000 words you can order a meal, give directions to taxi drivers, and ask someone where they are from -- all with some added details -- but that is not daily conversation either.

And with 1,000 words you will not be understanding enough of what is spoken to you to reply with assurance and comfort -- an essential element in conversation.

From careful observing and listening, I am certain the median number of words in daily conversation here is somewhere around 5-6,000.

But the standard deviation is large, and the OP did not describe his friends.

Which leads to two more factors, not yet mentioned, which bear directly on the OP's question:

Dialect and social class of the other parties in his conversations.

For conversation with largely un-educated Isaan people, half of my estimate above would be sufficient.

For conversations among university graduates, probably double it.

Anyone learning Thai for daily conversation, should be aware that all Thai language schools, and virtually all books and on-line courses, teach Bangkok dialect (pasa-glaang).

But, most foreigners here mostly encounter Isaan people as waiters, waitresses, hotel staff, taxi drivers, Etc.

They speak a very different dialect than what is taught in the schools.

Word-count frequencies for Bangkok Thai wouldn't tell us anything about the other dialects, especially Isaan.

The other factor in answering the OP's question, is the social class of his friends.

A foreigner studying at Thai language school is going to have a very difficult time chatting with his Thai neighbors if they are from a low class background.

Their word count is much lower -- seemingly easier -- but the dialect and vernacular are very different than what is offered in schools and learning programs.

That's why many foreigners here get discouraged when they study in a proper school, then go to Soi Cowboy and try to talk with their "friends".

So, asking about just the number of words is not sufficient.

It is essential to be aware of the source of the words -- from which dialect -- and reflecting what social class.

There is still one more factor to aim more light on the OP's question.

Thai language has a distinction between spoken language and written language (pasa-poot, pasa-kien).

The schools teach "school book" Thai, but that is not what we hear spoken in daily conversation.

The fallacy in the word count statistics above -- even if they were for Thai words -- is they are taken from written materials, mostly newspapers and magazines.

That is not how people talk.

It's an almost quixotic quest...

All my observations contradict that claim.

Sure, learning Thai takes time and effort, but the range of words for daily conversation is limited and learnable.

The OP is asking valuable questions, trying to understand the dimensions of that range.

I want to encourage and assist his understanding, rather than trying to divert attention with irrelevant word-count statistics.

If one takes into account the dialect and social class of one's friends, somewhere in the vicinity of 5-6,000 words will be sufficient for comfortable conversation on daily topics.

-- Oneman

Chiangmai

[Rikker]

A fair criticism. I shouldn't have implied that fluency was quixotic (though fluent is a very slippery word). Rather, 100% comprehension is. So 100% shouldn't be an immediate goal, if ever. Which wasn't the OP's question anyway, I realize. I was responding directly to your post, though, Oneman. Apologies for distracting the conversation from the OP's point.

I have in my head (from where, I can't say) the notion that comprehension requires something like 95% recognition of the words used. As you've rightly said, Oneman, one's social circle and their educational background is important.

I don't personally think that hanging out with exclusively well-educated people makes one's efforts to learn Thai harder, though, any more than learning Isan instead of Thai is harder. They're just different "languages", or registers of the language, that one must become proficient in. Just like learning the Thai that business people speak. Or learning whatever the jargon of your particular social circle is. Comprehension across a wide selection of these social groups and register levels is a much greater challenge. And I think that's why many people think they understand less than they do, because we fail to appreciate the great variety in the language, and try to conquer many different "Thai languages" at once.

So keep it simple. Become comfortable speaking with those you know, familiarize yourself with a couple-few thousand words and their usage, and you should be at the conversational level. Then branch out from there if you please.

Edited October 25, 2008 by Rikker

[kiakaha]

Assuming you already have the basic structure right, and generally have no problem with "basic" things like buying food, selling, giving basic directions to taxi driver, etc....

How many words in your vocabulary, approximately, do you need to be able to understand and carry on an unstrained conversation with your Thai friends for everyday use (like when they talk about everyday things... gossip, the movies, etc.)

as far as i'm concerned , it is not just a matter of knowing words , you also have to be able to read,write and pronounce correctly each of the words you know. i know many non-thais who have quite vast vocabularys, but couldn't recognise any of the words they speak when presented in written form, and consequently mispronounce most of their words due to not learning them from thai script in the first instance.

i'd roughly say at least 2500 words as a good base(subject to my aforementioned requirements). That's 1 word a day for 7 years , but , from my personal experience, most of the words are learned in the initial year or 2 of applied study, and then vocabulary increases tend to taper off.

[rch1023]

How many words in your vocabulary, approximately, do you need to be able to understand and carry on an unstrained conversation with your Thai friends for everyday use (like when they talk about everyday things...

The original poster asked about number of words to carry on an unstrained conversation for everyday use.

Many posts above about everything but that!

So I will focus on the original topic.

After four years of study, my vocabulary count -- as of today -- is 2,813 words.

I know exactly, because I keep a database of every word I study.

Using that database, my Thai teacher tests me on 100-200 words at every lesson.

My moving average score is 84% for listening and reading Thai script (not transliteration).

Can I carry on an everyday conversation with 2,813 words and 84% comprehension?

Well ... no.

Yes, I can converse with Thai friends about daily events, food, and entertainment.

We even talk a little about their family problems, government problems, and even economic problems, but any conversation is still an effort.

Often, I must ask them to speak slowly, to pause between words -- not a natural flow of conversation.

My estimate is that I am at about 50% of comfortable conversation.

That puts the number of words I expect to need in the range of 5-6,000.

With 2,813 words, can I keep up with Thai's conversations with each other?

Not at all.

The reason is there is more to this than just number of words: The other factor is speed of comprehension.

I don't know how to measure that, but it will take a lot more skill than I have now until flowing conversation is possible; probably double my current ability.

So, I anticipate four more years of study to achieve 6,000 words, with comprehension consistently 80% or better.

-- Oneman

Chiangmai

This seems reasonable. I used to be a fan of Ogden's 'Basic English', and remember his working vocabulary was about 3000 words for basic communication. Again, in the back of the student learners dictionaries is the defining vocabulary of about the same size. The trick, of course, is to find out what this minimum vocabulary is in any target language.

And, as other writers have observed, this vocabulary is for basic communication - not for general conversation.

(Thanks for the thai-language.com list of common Thai words; more things to learn.)

- Roger -

[mangkorn]

All these observations about number of vocabulary words fail to recognize a fairly important factor: how to construct proper sentences.

Many farangs know words - but are incapable of structuring coherent sentences - and thus are not understood.

Much the same would happen if a non-native English speaker walked up to you and said, e.g.: "light." What does that mean?

Words are building blocks; syntax is communication.

[Oneman]

it is not just a matter of knowing words ,

you also have to be able to read, write and pronounce correctly

[emphasis added]

each of the words you know.

Kiakaha makes an essential point.

Exactly that is often overlooked by beginners reaching for more vocabulary.

I wonder if the OP is considering the correctness factor, in addition to his interest in word count.

Perhaps this brief experience will reinforce Kiakaha's point.

I know one farang here 10 years, fluent in Thai.

Close your eyes and you'd think a Thai person is speaking.

I asked him, "How did you get so good?"

His reply, "First, I learned to read and write the alphabet, and learned the tone rules. So now I know how every word should sound."

OP, whilst you're counting words, I hope you're also learning the alphabet and the tone rules so you can pronounce correctly.

And, please, post here about your progress -- I expect there are many readers here want to know what it takes to have unstrained conversations with Thai friends.

-- Oneman

Chiangmai

Edited October 26, 2008 by Oneman

[Oneman]

See

http://www.thai-language.com/ref/starred

for the Thai-Language.com compliation of common words

(Thanks for the thai-language.com list of common Thai words; more things to learn.)- Roger -

Thank you, DavidHouston, for posting that link, and RCH for pointing it out again.

1172 common words -- with Thai script, transliteration, and English.

Essential words for any new student of Thai.

But -- focusing on the OP's question -- are those 1172 common words enough for unstrained conversation?

No.

First, that list is "newspaper Thai", rather than conversational, spoken Thai.

Second, crucial in any conversation are words that come up less often, and are less likely to appear in short lists of common words.

Yet, most conversations turn on those less-frequent words.

A few examples to make my point.

Here are some words that came up in conversations during the past two days, where I had to ask for spellings and definitions:

"

early evening

" (hua-kahm

หัวค่ำ

) -- "Today you came to eat in the early evening. Usually you come in later."

"

a witch

" (meh-mot

แม่มด

) -- "My ex-wife has turned into a bad witch."

"

feel close to

" (khang-kieng-gan

ข้างเคียงกัน

) -- "I feel very close to my sister."

"

imitate

" (dahm-yhang

ตามอย่าง

) -- "Many Thai teenagers imitate the bad manners they see on TV."

"

very rude

" (huan-huan

ห้วน ๆ

) -- "We have many farang come in here who act very rude."

"

abyss

" (heyo

เหว

) -- "Will the Thai economy fall into an abyss?"

"

confirm

" (yeun yan

ยืนยัน

) -- "Everything is confirmed for your reservation."

None of those examples are on the thai-language.com list of 1172 common words.

Yet, they are from speaking Bangkok dialect, with educated, middle-class Thais, in shops, restaurants and offices, or personal friends.

So, I'm still struggling with learning vocabulary, and my base of 2,800 words is only about half-way to comfortable conversation.

My conversations are still somewhat strained.

Still looking like 5-6,000 words will be needed for comfortable conversations on common, daily, topics.

I'm eager to hear of other experiences, especially if anyone has found a method for successful conversational ability with smaller vocabulary.

Likely, the OP wants to know, too.

-- Oneman

[junkofdavid2]

The other factor in answering the OP's question, is the social class of his friends.

A foreigner studying at Thai language school is going to have a very difficult time chatting with his Thai neighbors if they are from a low class background.

Thanks Oneman.

Based on this comment, I would think that Thai Language school's lingo would be sufficient, since practically all my friends are students/graduates of Chula/Thamassat/Abac ??? That means they are at least middle classed?

[meadish_sweetball]

Apart from the inevitable slang your friends will also use then I guess the answer is yes. But you need to let things take their time, too.

Close friends conversing rapidly with each other is difficult to follow in any language.

On my first visit to an English-speaking country, I was already close to fluent - I could read novels and newspapers and grasp the majority of the contents, and watch American TV series without subtitles or dubbing.

Still, when I found myself in a group of friends chatting away, my brain was completely overloaded and I soon lost track of the conversation. It took 3 months of intense immersion, living in the same flat as these people and not speaking or listening to a single word of Swedish, before I began to feel I was in tune with their conversations. And that was with a language I had been studying and using regularly for 11 years, since I was 10 years old...

Another thing to bear in mind is that some language teachers are rather conservative, sometimes to the point of refusing to discuss slang, since it is not 'proper' Thai.

For that reason, you may have to ask your friends for these words rather than get them from school.

Another point, somewhat similar to what mangkorn and others were saying above, in relation to 'words' is that the most common monosyllabic words in Thai in fact can have completely different meanings and/or functions depending on where in a sentence they occur.

One is bound to encounter words one already 'knows' in contexts or expressions where their meanings or functions are completely or partially obscure.

[kiakaha]

Apart from the inevitable slang your friends will also use then I guess the answer is yes. But you need to let things take their time, too.

Close friends conversing rapidly with each other is difficult to follow in any language.

On my first visit to an English-speaking country, I was already close to fluent - I could read novels and newspapers and grasp the majority of the contents, and watch American TV series without subtitles or dubbing.

Still, when I found myself in a group of friends chatting away, my brain was completely overloaded and I soon lost track of the conversation. It took 3 months of intense immersion, living in the same flat as these people and not speaking or listening to a single word of Swedish, before I began to feel I was in tune with their conversations. And that was with a language I had been studying and using regularly for 11 years, since I was 10 years old...

Another thing to bear in mind is that some language teachers are rather conservative, sometimes to the point of refusing to discuss slang, since it is not 'proper' Thai.

For that reason, you may have to ask your friends for these words rather than get them from school.

Another point, somewhat similar to what mangkorn and others were saying above, in relation to 'words' is that the most common monosyllabic words in Thai in fact can have completely different meanings and/or functions depending on where in a sentence they occur.

One is bound to encounter words one already 'knows' in contexts or expressions where their meanings or functions are completely or partially obscure.

case in point : my native language is english yet I have no idea what your average hip-hop rapper is saying on MTV

[5tash]

After four years of study, my vocabulary count -- as of today -- is 2,813 words.

I know exactly, because I keep a database of every word I study.

Using that database, my Thai teacher tests me on 100-200 words at every lesson.

My moving average score is 84% for listening and reading Thai script (not transliteration).

Do you also include particles in this list?

I think you could get by with speaking formal Thai (ภาษาเขียน) without using particles, but with informal, daily conversation (ภาษาพูด) , particles are necessary to express feeling, mood, deference and politeness.

In daily conversation (ภาษาพูด) the most common particles (อ่ะ ละ นะ หรอก ซิ etc), I would expect to appear in the top 100 of most common words, เนาะ?

[MKAsok]

An interesting and solid overview of this subject can be found here.

[mangkorn]

An interesting and solid overview of this subject can be found here.

Well, that's about English, and even so it may be of dubious utility: including the word "the" seems to skew the whole thing. The student can recognize the word "the" every time it appears - about 7 percent of the total words in an average text. So what?

And this statement: "With a vocabulary size of 2,000 words, a learner knows 80% of the words in a text" - is just silly. Which text? More importantly, do they understand the context of the text? Or just recognize words?

In any event, I defy anyone with a vocabulary of 2,000 words to comprehend even a single random headline in Thai Rath, much less have even a fleeting clue about the accompanying "text."

Seems quite irrelevant to this discussion.

Edit: I suppose I should clarify the last statement. When I achieved a vocabulary of 2,000 words, I could have many conversations with all kinds of people, but was nowhere near "fluent" - which is what the the OP asks about. And understanding their conversations among themselves, of course, is far more limited with that amount of vocabulary; certainly not even within shouting distance of 80%. Cheers.

Edited October 28, 2008 by mangkorn

[MKAsok]

Well, that's about English, and even so it may be of dubious utility: including the word "the" seems to skew the whole thing.

Yes, it's specifically about English. But didn't this:

How much vocabulary does a second language learner need?

There are three ways of answering this question. One way is to ask "How many words are there in the target language?" Another way is to ask "How many words do native speakers know?" A third way is to ask "How many words are needed to do the things that a language user needs to do?"

suggest in any way to you that the following discussion contained general rules (particularly in regard to word frequency etc.), which may be useful and applicable to determining the amount of vocabulary needed to reach a particular level in any language? Obviously these rules must be adapted to the particular language with regard to statistical analysis.

[mynextgig]

Well, that's about English, and even so it may be of dubious utility: including the word "the" seems to skew the whole thing.

Yes, it's specifically about English. But didn't this:

How much vocabulary does a second language learner need?

There are three ways of answering this question. One way is to ask "How many words are there in the target language?" Another way is to ask "How many words do native speakers know?" A third way is to ask "How many words are needed to do the things that a language user needs to do?"

suggest in any way to you that the following discussion contained general rules (particularly in regard to word frequency etc.), which may be useful and applicable to determining the amount of vocabulary needed to reach a particular level in any language? Obviously these rules must be adapted to the particular language with regard to statistical analysis.

Lets settle this argument once and for all.

I have been learning Thai for about 4 years, i would say that i know around 3500-4000 words in multiple context.

I can converse my point and understand the response with some repitition with non English speaking Thais with enough confidence to ensure i get what i need and vice versa.

I have a vague idea of what is being said on the TV if its news, factual type dialogue.

I read Thai like a 5 year old, but enough to be able to help me get the sounds and tones right most of the time.

Can i understand my Thai friends when they are in a full speed conversation ? Absolutely not. Can i understand Thai movies or dubbed english television smattered with slang ? Absolutely no.

Lets get a similar response from some of the more advanced members and see how many words they know. Including those that would consider themselves 'fluent' whatever that really means.

[Rikker]

I don't know how many words I know. My vocabulary covers a hodgepodge across registers, from royal vocab to obscure technical terms on down to the vulgar. Hmm.. now I want to know, though. I'd guess (just a guess) 10K+, but word recognition/comprehension is different than being able to use them all correctly.

I tend to describe myself as fluent, especially if I'm asked a leading question like "are you fluent?", because I can converse easily, but of course I still find plenty I don't know how to say, and I know my comprehension is well below 100%. Especially high speed colloquial speech on TV. News is much easier.

[soundman]

News is much easier.

You've got a good point there.

The news is far easier to understand than say a sitcom banter type show. The presenters speak clearly and the sound is adjusted so all the important harmonics carry clearly from the TV's speakers to your ears.

IMO, and I'm only barely able to keep up with the news presenters, if you only sort of keeping up with the news, you are not much past half way from being fluent in the language. If one word throws you, you lose concentration, and you then lose the next sentence completely, how fluent are you? (Picture me in this last sentence! )

Refering to my earlier post on this subject, I'm not so sure that it is how many words to be fluent, more how well you use them and understand their different meanings. I have seen farung's over here, who I know the extent of their vocabulary range, who maybe have a few thousand words down pat and can conduct reasonable conversations at reasonable speeds. I have seen others with larger vocabularies stuttering and slurring over ordering a bowl of noodles.

Cheers.