How many words do we use in speech. What is active and passive vocabulary and how to increase them at times

“William Shakespeare's dictionary is estimated by researchers to be 12,000 words. The dictionary of a negro from the cannibalistic tribe "Mumbo-Yumbo" is 300 words. Ellochka Schukina easily and freely managed thirty, ”this quote from Ilf and Petrov’s“ Twelve Chairs ”is familiar to everyone. The satirists, and with them the readers, laughed a lot 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, starting to write texts, many, without noticing it, turn into the cannibal Ellochka. Whatever they want to write about, the same “Ho-ho!” comes out from under the pen. and “Hamite, boy!”. In this lesson, we will talk about how to get rid of the problem of the cannibal Ellochka, expand your vocabulary. And in the next lesson we will learn how to learn how to use it correctly.

Vocabulary

Vocabulary (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 ear or when reading, but does not use them himself. You can check your passive vocabulary on this site.

Usually the volume of the passive vocabulary exceeds the volume of the 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? Surprisingly, this question turned out to be quite difficult to answer. The 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 the average active and passive vocabulary of an educated adult. Active vocabulary estimates range from five thousand to thirty-five thousand words. As for the passive vocabulary, the spread 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 about fifteen thousand words (as you know, the active vocabulary of such a master of words as Pushkin was about twenty thousand words), and the passive vocabulary - 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 help you roughly estimate the amount of passive vocabulary. Take an explanatory dictionary, for example, the same Ozhegov dictionary, open it on an arbitrary 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 exactly what it means, then you don’t need to count this word. Then multiply this figure by the number of pages. Of course, keep in mind that this result is approximate: you must assume that all pages contain the same number of 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 the exact result.

If you are too lazy to mess with the dictionary and calculations on your own, you can use our test.

Ways to expand vocabulary

When writing texts, it is very important that the words used are as diverse as possible. This, firstly, allows you to express your thoughts most accurately, and secondly, it makes the perception of the text easier for the reader. There are several rules to help expand your vocabulary. They were developed primarily for people learning foreign languages, but can also be used effectively for their 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 of the highest level possible - it does not matter whether it is 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, they use words correctly. So 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 uncomfortable when their interlocutor seems to be very educated, well-read and uses a lot of unfamiliar words. In such a situation, many are afraid of being branded as ignorant, and therefore embarrassed to ask about the meaning of a particular new word. Never act like this. It's always better to ask about a word you don't know than to remain in the dark for the rest of your life. Don't think you'll look up this word 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 when needed. Naturally, good dictionaries are not cheap, they are often published in small print runs and take up a lot of shelf space. Fortunately, with the development of the Internet, the problem of access to dictionaries has been solved. Now you can find dictionaries and encyclopedias on almost any subject. Portals are quite easy to use: slovari.yandex.ru and www.gramota.ru.

Active vocabulary

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

note method. You need to take cards, leaflets 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 efficient!

Notebook of synonyms. You can take a simple notebook or create an electronic document where you will write down words and rows 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 attached here, but also entire constructions: in this way, so, from this we can conclude that we have come to the conclusion that, etc. Also, in such a notebook, you can make notes about the nature of a particular word: obsolete, high, vernacular, pejorative. If you use an electronic document, then words on the same subject 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 memorize and translate several words related to a common theme into your active dictionary at once. Write them down on one card and stick them in a prominent 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. The presence of such an association will help to remember the right word much faster. Moreover, you can rhyme a word important to you into some short rhyme or insert it into a stupid and meaningless, but memorable statement.

Presentations and compositions. We are used to the fact that presentations and essays are school exercises, and after finishing school, you can never return to them. Meanwhile, they help to significantly improve your writing skills and expand your active vocabulary. The presentations are suitable for the situation when you read a text in which you came across a lot of unfamiliar but useful words. Make a short written retelling of this text using these key words and they will remain in your memory. As for essays, there is no need to write long treatises, a short five-sentence story in which you insert new words is enough.

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 by repeating the material at regular intervals. Then it goes into long-term active memory. For this, the so-called rational repetition mode was developed. For convenience, here is a table:

First repetition. Immediately after 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. In a month
Ninth repetition. After two months

To achieve the maximum effect, it is advisable not to deviate from the schedule. It is also best not to try to remember a large array of words at the same time. It is better to break 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 the learned words and play! Here are some of the most common language games: scrabble (in the Russian version - erudite, bulldozer), 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. Only 1 option can be correct for each question. 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 passing. Please note that the questions are different each time, and the options are shuffled.

The Russian language is rich in vocabulary. Dahl's dictionary contains about two hundred thousand lexical units. In everyday life, a much smaller number of words are used.

Age norms for the number of words used

The number of words used changes throughout life. According to medical standards, the number of words used by a child of preschool age should be from two to three thousand. During the years of schooling, the active dictionary is replenished up to five thousand.

For people who have received higher education, the norm is a vocabulary within ten thousand words.

A group of scientists from America and Brazil conducted a study of age-related changes in vocabulary. Two hundred thousand people participated in the experiment, so the data obtained during it can be considered quite accurate.

The survey showed that the maximum rate of mastering new words falls on the age from three to sixteen years. During this period, a person learns an average of 4 new words every day.

After the age of sixteen, the speed decreases markedly and, up to fifty years, there is about one new word for every day of life. People over the age of fifty retain the previously acquired baggage of words, but practically no new ones are added.

How many words do you need for everyday communication?

It is necessary to distinguish between the concepts of active and passive vocabulary. For example, reading fiction requires the reader to know tens of thousands of words and phrases. But you don't have to use them all every day.

An adult person in ordinary life during the day may need thousands of words if his professional activity is not related to communication. But this is an extreme option; for full communication, at least two thousand are required. Professionals in different fields add one and a half to two thousand more special terms.

The fact that the dictionary of a language contains approximately 300,000 words is only of theoretical interest to a beginner in learning that language. Perhaps the main principle for the reasonable organization of one's studies, especially at the initial stage, is the economy of words. You need to learn to memorize as few words as possible, but do it as best as possible.

We emphasize that our approach is directly opposite to the leading principle of "suggestopedia", with its emphasis on the abundance of words presented to the student. As you know, in accordance with its canons, a beginner needs to be literally "showered with words." It is best to ask him or her 200 new words every day.

Is there any doubt that any normal person will forget all those numerous words that he was "showered" by such, so to speak, method - and most likely very soon, in just a few days.

Don't chase too much

It will be much better if, at the end of a certain stage of the lesson, you know 500 or 1000 words very well than 3000 - but poorly. Don't be fooled by educators who will tell you that you must first learn a certain number of words in order to "get on with it." Only you yourself can and should decide whether the vocabulary you have mastered is sufficient for your goals and interests.

The experience of learning languages shows that about 400 correctly chosen words can cover up to 90 percent of the vocabulary that you need for the purposes of everyday communication. In order to read, more words are needed, but many of them are only passive. Therefore, with the knowledge of 1500 words, you can already understand quite meaningful texts.

It is better to master the most necessary and important words for you than to constantly rush to learn new ones. "He who chases too much runs the risk of missing everything," says a Swedish proverb. “If you chase two hares, you won’t catch one,” a Russian proverb answers her.

Vocabulary in oral speech

Speaking very roughly, about 40 well-chosen, high-frequency words will cover about 50% of everyday speech usage in any language;

200 words will cover about 80%;
300 words - approximately 85%;
400 words will cover about 90%;
well, 800-1000 words - about 95% of what you need to say or hear in the most common situation.

Thus, a well-chosen vocabulary helps to understand quite a lot with very modest effort spent on cramming.

Example: if a total of 1000 words are spoken in everyday conversation, then 500 of them, that is, 50%, will be covered by 40 most common high-frequency words.

We emphasize that these percentages, of course, are not the result of exact calculations. They just give the most general idea of how many words you need approximately to feel confident entering into the simplest dialogue with a native speaker. In any case, there is no doubt that by choosing correctly from 400 to 800 words and remembering them well, you can feel confident in a simple conversation, since they will cover almost all 100% of those words that you can’t do without. Of course, under other, less favorable conditions, 400 words will cover only 80% of what you need to know - instead of 90 or 100%.

Vocabulary while reading

When reading, by correctly choosing and remembering well about 80 of the most common, most frequent words, you will understand about 50% of a simple text;

200 words will cover approximately 60%;
300 words - 65%;
400 words - 70%;
800 words - approximately 80%;
1500 - 2000 words - about 90%;
3000 - 4000 - 95%;
and 8,000 words will cover almost 99 percent of the written text.

Example: if you have a text of about 10 thousand words in front of you (this is about 40 printed pages), then, having learned the most necessary 400 words in advance, you will understand about 7000 words that are used in this text.

Note again that the figures we give are indicative only. Depending on various additional conditions, 50 words will cover up to 50 percent of the written text, but in other cases you will need to learn at least 150 words to get the same result.

Vocabulary: 400 to 100,000 words

400 - 500 words - active vocabulary for language proficiency at a basic (threshold) level.
800 - 1000 words - active vocabulary for explaining yourself; or passive vocabulary for reading at a basic level.
1500 - 2000 words - an active vocabulary, which is quite enough to ensure everyday communication throughout the day; or a passive vocabulary sufficient for confident reading.
3000 - 4000 words - in general, it is enough for practically free reading of newspapers or literature in the specialty.
About 8000 words - provide full communication for the average European. It is practically not necessary to know more words in order to communicate freely both orally and in writing, as well as to read literature of any kind.
10,000-20,000 words is the active vocabulary of an educated European (in their native language).
50,000-100,000 words - the passive vocabulary of an educated European (in their native language).

It should be noted that the stock of words by itself does not yet ensure free communication. However, by mastering 1,500 well-chosen words, with some extra practice, you will be able to communicate almost fluently.

As for professional terms, they usually do not present any particular difficulties, since in most cases this is an international vocabulary that is easy enough to master.

When you already know about 1500 words, you can start reading at a fairly decent level. With a passive knowledge of 3,000 to 4,000 words, you will be fluent in reading literature in your specialty, at least in those areas where you are confidently oriented. In conclusion, we note that, according to calculations carried out by linguists on the material of a number of languages, the average educated European actively uses about 20,000 words (and half of them - quite rarely). At the same time, the passive vocabulary is at least 50,000 words. But all this concerns the native language.

Basic vocabulary

In the pedagogical literature, one can find the terminological combination "basic vocabulary". From my point of view, at the maximum level, the vocabulary is about 8000 words. It seems to me that learning more words, except perhaps for some special purpose, is hardly necessary. Eight thousand words will be enough for full communication in any conditions.

When starting to learn a language, it would be wise to make do with shorter lists. Here are three levels that I have found in practice to give a good guide to the beginner:

level A("basic vocabulary"):

400-500 words. They are enough to cover about 90% of all word usage in everyday oral communication, or about 70% of a simple written text;

level B("minimum vocabulary", "mini-level"):

800-1000 words. They are enough to cover about 95% of all word usage in everyday oral communication, or about 80-85% of written text;

level B("medium vocabulary", "medium level"):

1500-2000 words. They are enough to cover approximately 95-100% of all word usage in everyday oral communication, or about 90% of written text.

An example of a solid dictionary of the main vocabulary can be considered a dictionary published by E. Klett in Stuttgart, 1971, under the name "Grundwortschatz Deutsch" ("The main vocabulary of the German language"). It provides 2,000 essential words in each of six selected languages: German, English, French, Spanish, Italian and Russian.

Eric W. Gunnemark, Swedish polyglot

Vocabulary is a set of words of a person's native language, understandable to him 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 understandable in meaning during a conversation or reading literature.

There are two types of vocabulary:

Active. This is a stock of words used daily by a person 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 indicators of the volume of words. The active vocabulary of an adult greatly exceeds the passive one. The volumes of words in both dictionaries tend to change constantly. They are able to increase if a person learns new terms, reads, develops or decreases.

The active and passive vocabulary may decrease due to the age when words are forgotten or when they stop using them in communication. In this case, the words will disappear from the vocabulary of a person or be replaced by new ones.

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

Of course, it is clear that such a volume of words is beyond the power of even the most intelligent person. Human memory is not able to contain 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 who wished to mark in the provided list the words they understood and used. Words were noted only in case of full understanding of the definition.

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

In the course of the work, the following data were obtained:

The passive vocabulary of a person 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 in a passive vocabulary every day. The active and passive vocabulary of the student is constantly growing.
By the end of their studies, teenagers speak an average of 50,000 words.
School time increases the growth of the volume of words 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 the irreversible deterioration of memory and the use of some words in practice.

The study assessed the level of education of the subjects, obtaining interesting conclusions. It turns out that the possession of the largest amount of words in people occurs at an unequal moment in life. Secondary special education implies the end of the growth of words at the age of 40, and higher education a little later - after 50 years. Such a gap of 10 years 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 the work or at their own request for self-education.

An interesting fact was also revealed, which showed that the subjects who completed their studies at an educational institution and did not graduate for personal reasons have the same passive vocabulary in terms of volume.

Vocabulary of adults with different levels of education:

The passive vocabulary has the same indicators for 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 the institute, have in their luggage a stock of 80 thousand words.
Educated people, candidates of sciences have a rich vocabulary of 86 thousand words, which is 6 thousand more than those who have received higher education.

The education received, of course, affects the vocabulary of a person, but not 100%. A person himself makes a huge contribution to the development of the lexicon, constantly improving himself and engaging in self-education. Therefore, it is easy to meet a person who graduated only from school with a vocabulary several times larger than that of a graduate. The main role in this matter is played by sociability, occupation and lifestyle of a person.

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

How to expand your vocabulary

There are no universal ways to increase words in the vocabulary of the native language. Each person chooses what suits only him. To replenish 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 the stock of new words. The quality of the selected literature is not the last value. It is better to give preference in choosing to 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.

Interested in the meaning of unfamiliar words.

Always be interested in the meaning of incomprehensible words or new terms from the interlocutor, do not let them pass by your ears. In the course of communication, new information is much easier to assimilate and can be quickly restored if necessary in memory. If a new interesting word was heard from the announcers on the radio, then its meaning can be peeped in a 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 Accents for Radio and Television Workers. It will help restore gaps in stress and contains many interesting words.

The Stress Dictionary for Radio and Television Workers has been published since 1960. Its authors are M. V. Zarva and F. L. Ageenko. The history of creating an accent dictionary for radio and television workers began with the release of an announcer's guide in 1951, and after 3 years the Dictionary of Accents was released. To help the announcer.

All dictionaries for radio and television workers were based on the stocks of "heavy" words accumulated in the card index during the formation of the first radio in the era of the USSR. The replenishment of the card file of radio and television took place constantly. Many words never made it into dictionaries. "Dictionary of radio and television" contains the name of geographical names, the names of works of art, surnames and names of people.

How to expand your active vocabulary

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

Notes.

Write down new words on pieces of paper along with the meaning and stick them around the house in those places where they will often catch your eye. This method will help you remember information more efficiently and quickly without memorization.

Associative line.

To memorize a word, build a suitable association for it. It can be focused on smell, taste, motor, tactile characteristics or tied to colors. The result depends on the imagination of the person, and the desire to consolidate the information received. The associative series helps to remember difficult words and is easier to remember at the right time.

There are also exercises to develop vocabulary. One of the most effective is the oral storytelling exercise. To do this, you need to try to tell a little story, using only nouns, then only verbs or adjectives. This is not an easy exercise. It helps to use the available vocabulary, while refreshing them in a person’s memory.

The task of the study was to determine the volume of the passive vocabulary of native speakers of the Russian language. 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 methodology is described in detail. To increase the accuracy of the test and to identify respondents who pass it inaccurately, 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 highlighted in blue (median) corresponds to such a vocabulary that half of the respondents of the corresponding age performed worse, and half better. The uppermost curve - the 90th percentile - cuts off the result, above which only 10% of respondents with the maximum vocabulary showed.

The graph shows the following:

Vocabulary grows at a nearly constant rate up to about 20 years of age, after which the rate of acquisition decreases, fading away by age 45. After this age, the vocabulary almost does not change.
While studying at school, a teenager learns 10 words a day. This value seems unnaturally large, but it is explained by the fact that in the test derivative words were taken into account separately, as independent ones.
By the time they graduate from school, the average teenager knows 51,000 words.
During schooling, vocabulary increases by about 2.5 times.
After graduation from school and before middle age, a person on average learns 3 new words a day.
After reaching the age of 55, vocabulary begins to decline somewhat. This may be due to forgetting words that are not used for a long time. Interestingly, this age roughly coincides with retirement.

Now let's divide all the respondents into groups according to the level of education. The following graph depicts the medians of the vocabulary of these groups. The curves start and end in different places due to the fact that the statistics for all groups 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 see that

Perhaps the saturation of the vocabulary occurs at different ages, depending on education. So, for respondents with a secondary specialized education, saturation can be determined at around 43 years old, with a higher education - at 51 years old, for candidates and doctors - at 54 years old. This could be explained by the specifics of the work of the respondents - most likely, the 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 various 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.
There is practically no difference in vocabulary between those who entered the university, but did not finish their studies, and those who went through this path to the end (for students: this does not mean that you can not go to lectures).

Let us now exclude the effect of age, leaving only respondents over 30 in the sample. This will allow you to focus on education.

From the graph we see the following:

Respondents who have just finished school know, on average, 2-3 thousand words more than those who did not finish it at the time.
The vocabulary of those who have received secondary or secondary specialized education is practically the same and averages 75 thousand words.
Those who studied at universities and institutes (and not necessarily graduated from them) know an average of 81,000 words.
Candidates and doctors of science know an average of 86,000 words. Thus, an academic degree adds about 5,000 vocabulary units compared to higher education.
Education, of course, affects the size of the vocabulary. However, the spread within each group with the same education is much larger than the difference between the group means. In other words, a person who has not finished school may well know more words than a candidate of sciences. Here are the specific figures - 20% of respondents with incomplete secondary education, who showed the best result for their group, have a vocabulary that exceeds that of half of the respondents with an advanced degree. Most likely, they read more on different topics, are interested in and understand more areas.

The resulting vocabulary values—tens of thousands of words—seem to be quite large. There are two reasons for this. First, passive vocabulary (words that a person recognizes in text or by ear) was measured, not active vocabulary (words that a person uses in speech or writing). These reserves differ significantly - passive is always much larger. The calculated vocabulary of writers, for example, is 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 exists at all) native speaker of the Russian language. For example, the level of education of the respondents who passed the test is significantly higher than the national level - 65% of respondents have higher education, while in Russia there are only 23% of them (according to the 2010 All-Russian population census). Then, it is obvious that the respondents who passed 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 defining their own vocabulary, 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 somewhat higher than the “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 affect vocabulary - reading, communication, work, hobbies, lifestyle. All of these are topics for future research.