Vocabulary describes that area of language learning that is concerned with word knowledge. Vocabulary learning is a major goal in most teaching programmes. It is now generally agreed that, in terms of goals, learners need a receptive vocabulary of around 3000 high-frequency words, in order to achieve independent user status. This will give them around ninety per cent coverage of normal text. For the productive vocabulary, especially for speaking, they may only need half this number. One should focus on the vocabulary that you need, and make sure that it’s universally useful. This vocabulary makes up the core of what I term basic fluency; the terms that relate to everyday life and conversations, such as the following verbs: to go, to walk, to sleep, to want — and nouns like name, house, car, city, hand, bed.
30 November, 2018