How many English words do you know?

What “vocabulary size” means

It is the number of words you know, but the answer depends on what you count. Dictionaries list headwords, and run, runs, running and runner can be one entry or four. Researchers count word families; apps often count forms, which gives bigger numbers. Two tests with different counting rules can give the same learner results thousands of words apart, so compare numbers only within one test.

VocabHang counts dictionary headwords you would recognise, from a large pool in which each word has a measured difficulty. Your number is the expected count of those headwords you know, given how you did on the words you were shown.

What the numbers look like

An educated adult native speaker recognises tens of thousands of headwords. A learner who can follow everyday conversation and simple articles typically knows the most frequent few thousand, which cover most of the words in ordinary speech. The jump from there to reading novels and news comfortably is another several thousand words, most of them rarer and more specific. That is why two learners who both “know English” can have vocabularies that differ by a factor of three.

The CEFR scale (A1 to C2) is the shared language for all of this. The test reports both: a word range, and the band your vocabulary is consistent with. It says “consistent with” because a vocabulary test measures the words you know, not your grammar, listening or writing, so it is not a certificate.

How the test works

• You see one word at a time and say whether you know what it means. There are no multiple-choice definitions to guess from.
• The words adapt: each one is chosen near your current estimate, so it gets harder as you go and no time is wasted on words that are far too easy or far too hard.
• Every fourth item is a made-up word, which keeps over-claiming in check.
• It stops after 12 to 30 real words, when the estimate is tight enough, and shows your range and level. Three minutes is typical.

Take the test, or read on for what to do with the result.

What to do with the number

On its own, not much. The useful part of the result is the edge: the words right at your level, which you half know or meet often without being sure of. Those are the ones worth learning next, and they are different for every learner.

VocabHang is a spoken conversation partner built around that edge. It talks with you about your own life and work, notices which words you know, and brings the next ones into the conversation, then brings them back later until they stick. The test result is where the tutor starts, so nothing you did is wasted.

Questions people ask

How accurate is a three-minute test?

Accurate enough to give you a range, not a single number. The test chooses each word near your current estimate, which is where an answer tells it the most, and stops when the uncertainty is small enough to report. The result is shown as a range for that reason. A conversation with the tutor keeps narrowing it.

Does it count words I can use, or only words I recognise?

Words you recognise. Knowing what a word means when you meet it (receptive vocabulary) is always larger than the set you can produce when speaking. The tutor works on the second kind: it brings words into conversation until you use them yourself.

Why does the test show made-up words?

To keep the estimate honest. Every fourth item is a word that does not exist. Saying you know one is a sign of over-claiming, and the test gives your yes answers less weight the more of them you accept. Answering “not sure” to a fake costs you nothing.

Do I need an account?

No. The test runs without sign-up and saves nothing unless you choose to continue into a conversation. If you do continue, the tutor starts from exactly the level the test found.