Some story if you care. Recently decided to move to the first world country for a quick buck. One of the requirements is something called "Superior English level". I've always considered my English fine enough, but since I've started my preparation for IELTS I realized that there's is a lot of work to do. My vocab is approximately 10000 words. Superior English requires close to a native vocab, which is twice bigger.
1. Do the test testyourvocab.com 2. Post your result 3. Feel the humiliation/superiority 4. Ask/share advice 5. ... 6. Profit!
If anyone has previously passed IELTS (or analogs) at 8-9 band, please share your learning methods.
they say at the site that native's level must be 20-30. Do you even read?
Brandon Morales
no
Jeremiah Moore
Wew. 15,300 words. I thought I would do better. You were right at the disappointment part. I still know more than most of the damn teachers in here though
Noah Green
how did you learn? what age are you? any particular advise?
currently I'm collecting all new words in a google excel sheet. One week of collection has lead me to 400 words. How do I even learn it, it's just the beginning! It's very frustrating, my hands are falling down already.
Colton Gutierrez
>tfw being brainlet kill me
Juan Roberts
Ok, I guess.
Connor Cook
>tfw 6530 at least you're korean
Benjamin Fisher
A lot of those were loanwords from French/German and a couple were more cultural references making it to the dictionary. I'm actually surprised by the result since I left a good half a column unanswered on each of the two lists I got.
Mason Turner
shit, you did better than american why do you even care about english in brunei, i've heard you all pissing oil and shitting gold like Lannisters and every citizen gets 100k immediately after birth
Joshua Johnson
i know my english is good enough to go by, could be better tho
Christopher Nelson
congrats on checking every box, Mr. Shakespeare
Elijah Robinson
No man, I answered honestly, you pick up a lot of archaicisms reading Donne, Blake and Milton.
You need to understand that this test is incredibly inaccurate and doesn't account for a wide range of factors. Also, not to mention that most of the words near the latter portion of the test are either literary or archaic terms, none of which native speakers should ever have to come by, much less an ESL student.
I currently study English literature at university and have read entire English dictionaries, and this test still gave me sub-par scores. I also took it three times, just to be safe, and it gave me significantly different scores each time, with an average difference of 8,000 words.
Your vocabulary doesn't really matter as much as proper grammar and the ability to convey ideas clearly. I can think of at least a handful of great writers that would've scored
Ayden Watson
so now you claim to be Martin's ghostwriter on Mexico's vacation? there's no way non-native can achieve this result I still struggle reading quality literature, albeit articles are not a problem
Jeremiah Garcia
It has got to do with english as the medium for almost all curriculum since primary/elementary school.
My spoken engrish is horrible though.
Isaac Russell
guess I can do 6-7 without preparation, the problem is that min is 8888
David Russell
damn
Henry Clark
It's decent I guess
Ayden Perry
I would like to thank the American entertainment industry and video games in general for this accomplishment. I also want to thank the required English class in school, my mother for teaching it even though she only speaks it on a basic level and every tourist I met in Amsterdam.
But on a serious note; Business English 101 was a nightmare on uni even though I can communicate with everyone just fine. It's just a lot of practice and a lot of lists to learn.
Jason Moore
For a past three or four years, I've read books in English only.
Mason Rivera
so how do i establish if the word is obsolete or not?
One the words i've recently found and learned is "valetudinarian" for example. does that sound retarded or shows my deep level of language knowledge?
Cooper Robinson
Nah, I grew up speaking English in a Mexican resort town and been reading in that language as much as on my own, everything from Star War novels to, as I mentioned, poetry. You can drill me on Melville, Hemmingway, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, etc.
Some of us don't care to live in an English speaking country but legit enjoy literature, I don't know why it would be surprising for you to find geeky people in Sup Forums. Also I'd agree with it isn't necessarily much of a test.
Also, I worked for a small while in a call center, I was the "American from America" manager people requested after hours with tech support in India and the Philipines. Job screwed my accent bad, ended up picking a southern drawl for a while.
Jason Clark
good enough
Michael Fisher
can you give an example of your secondary school materials? link or smth
Brody Sanchez
what kind of books? i suspect fantasy with knights and archers won't really help me with real-life situations
Nicholas Morgan
hmm. looks like everyone here is better than me. I should probably start spending time here. Did int improve your language, guys?
Leo Sullivan
Dictionary.com places each word on a scale that corresponds to its difficulty index, which also indicates how many people will recognize the word.
I've never had to use that word before, but if I came across someone who used in in real life, I'd would think that they were full of themselves; in writing, however, it's a different story.
Bentley Anderson
Read what you really like. If you like fantasy, read fantasy. Of course, it would be better if you read something classic. But not everbody can handle it, even natives.
Adrian Gray
I took the test and got a decent score (27,200) but honestly you're never going to use most of those words in a conversation, if you're learning a language for anything other than academia then holding a conversation should be the priority.
Michael Sanders
no bulli pls, English is my 3rd language
Lucas Russell
>Dictionary.com thx, will study it.
what about business language? i read vacancy sites for practice, i don't understand da fuck they mean.
what's a porter - google translate gives many unrelated meanings like door-opener, heavy-things mover, guide and railway staff. how do i find the correct meaning?
Another problem - the language is generally sounds nerd and bureaucratic. do they really speak this language at a job interview, or it's just an hr-thing?
Leo White
I'm not sure reading science textbooks would help but the more important thing is holding a conversation as you grow up to be able to convey the idea/message you're trying to convey in the selected language.
Owen Allen
I'm learning the language to pass the test and clean floors for a wage that governor gets in my country
Christian Rogers
I was able to communicate well enough with foreigners like 10 years ago. Since then my level did not really improve. I consider my vocab and grammar the issues. Delivering the ideas was never a problem
Daniel Cruz
could be worse I need to pick up some english course tho
Jacob Scott
ok, since everybody is between 16 and 30, can anybody explain to me, how do i even understand you here with my Australopithecus 10? i feel embarrassed and frustrated.
Julian White
moreover, my wife has scored 4. Every foreigner has always told her that her English is great!
Colton Lee
...
Oliver Parker
No other way to but grind the dictionary and other books into your heads I guess. At least till ya pass the test.
Ethan White
Video games helps a lot At least for me
Joseph Jackson
vocabulary is the most useless part of communicating, think about it in your native language, how many words would you really need to talk with someone? most languages have catch-all words and phrases that can be used to replace specific words. It sucks that you're going to need to learn so much vocabulary since you're probably not going to use most of it, also since english is such a mixed language you can't assume based on roots or suffixes, your best option in my opinion is to just grind the dictionary like the other user said.
Isaac Price
this desu
Gavin Allen
>how many words would you really need to talk with someone? If that "someone" is a stupid youngster, not so many. If you have some educated friends, especially the ones than have humanitarian degrees, there is not a big problem to use as much words as you know. (For example, in similar Russian test, I have 120k+ words)
Aaron Long
No bulli i ams autist
Ethan Gonzalez
I'd like to thank RPG game developers for all the garbage I consume; for their constant need to use different words for the same item, but this time with slightly more armour; and for making fedora dialogues
Cooper Wilson
>catch-all words and become toilet cleaner till the last ride? nope, pal. the goals are: 1. pass the fucking test 2. get visa 3. get any job 4. pass the interview for a real job 5. fulfill my qualification 6. integrate to the western society
Parker Martin
so what are you learning methods, beside of english books?
Ryan Jones
>15 years of education >10,200 words kill me
Caleb Fisher
the most offensive thing is that people who were born with this mother tongue don't even read
Brayden Butler
Not that bad for doing nothing but reading bullshit on internet, not even literature or something serious.
Jeremiah Gray
Not bad, but I still feel my vocab is fairly limited.
Juan Ross
>tfw oh well at least all those hours of vidya neetdom did not go entirely to waste
