This is the kind of sentiment I had when people ask me about 日本語 regarding: “do Japanese people memorize all 50000+ Kanji?” I’m like “NO” since they don’t know all characters as only a small percentage of that is taught & used, around 2136. Although, some people learn jargon catered to specific fields (science, medicine) leading to them knowing 3000+ Kanji.

The estimated count for the “number of words” in English is 1,000,000 but that’s not an exact answer. The thing is, how many words is a native English speaker expected to know & understand? How much vocab do they teach students at school (from spelling to grammar)? After learning the alphabet, what types of words are taught across schools in the Anglosphere to kids?

For perspective, kids in Japan only learn 80 Kanji in their first year (mainly common & easy ones: 犬、校、九、女、男、名、森、右 to list a few) but the number expands through their years. I mean, something “similar” exists in English with spelling being taught at schools (teachers give a list of words to memorize spelling followed by a spelling test later).

The vocab lists expand from elementary to high school with difficult words (there’s a difference in difficulty with trying to spell a word like “animal” to “conscientious”). It’s like how a Japanese kid knows how to handwrite 海外 but has a hard time on trying to understand 傭兵 (ようへい) since 傭 is a harder Kanji to write in comparison to 海.

  • Agent641@lemmy.world
    21·
    21 hours ago

    Many words are just awkward Cronenberg creatures made up of parts of other words, so even if I haven’t heard a word before, it’s often not hard to deduce it’s meaning from context and components.

    In university I learned a bunch of new words though, like inchoate, ameliorate, atavistic and suzerainty.

    And reading old, old newspapers I learned of some great words that we just don’t use anymore, like ultimo. Ultimo means “of last month” and it was used a lot in old papers because news travelled so slowly 200 years ago that often the papers were reporting on something that happened weeks ago. The article would read like “Banker John Stoakes and wife were waylaid and murdered by bushrangers on 17th ultimo, perpetrators known to constables were tracked northeast into dense scrub.”

    It’s a great word, I want to see it come back.