Question: How many words do I need to learn exactly? Answer: 8000! (For the English language.) Hi all, I read this somewhere on the internet a long time ago. It inspired me and gave me hope when I was in my pre-intermediate Spanish days, struggling horribly with listening to native Spanish speakers. My old mindset was "this is too difficult, I'm never going to be proficient in Spanish, grrrr." After reading the following I realized that if I keep practicing and learning, one day I will know my 8000 words. This seems like a reachable target and gives me the strength to continue learning day after day. Whatever language you are chasing I hope this inspires you too: ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Memory: How many words can we remember? Take a look at how thick dictionaries are, and this will make you realise how many more words you can still learn. Oxford English Dictionary, for example, contains around 218,632 words (171,479 currently in use and 47,156 that are considered obsolete). “Children know on average 9000 words at the end of primary school”, Alain Lieury illustrates his point. “We all know about 26,000 words at the end of secondary school at 16, and continue learning words after this in sixth form and in higher education. An educated adult probably has a vocabulary of between 30,000 and 50,000 words.” But it should be pointed out that there is a gap between what we know and what we use. A study in Strasbourg showed that vocabulary used in everyday speech is made up of only 8000 words on average! -------------------------------------------------- After I read this I downloaded "ANKI" flashcard software and loaded up a set of the top 1000 frequency words from English to Spanish, you can search for these on Wikipedia for example: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Frequency_lists/Spanish1000 I'm still a long way from 8000, but I´m getting closer everyday and so can you. Good luck everyone! Jon Ex-pre-intermediate Spanish speaker