The objective of the study was to determine the volume of passive vocabulary of native Russian speakers. 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 procedure is described in detail. To improve the accuracy of the test and identify respondents who take it sloppily, 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 lexicon.

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 (median) highlighted in blue corresponds to a vocabulary such that half of the respondents of the corresponding age performed worse, and half - better. The topmost curve—the 90th percentile—cuts off the result above which only 10% of respondents with the maximum vocabulary showed.

The graph shows the following:

1. Vocabulary growth grows at a nearly constant rate until about age 20, after which the rate of vocabulary acquisition decreases, tapering off by age 45. After this age, vocabulary practically does not change.
2. During school, a teenager learns 10 words a day. This value seems unnaturally large, but is explained by the fact that in the test derived words were taken into account separately, as independent words.
3. By the time a teenager leaves school, the average person knows 51 thousand words.
4. During schooling, vocabulary increases approximately 2.5 times.
5. After leaving school until middle age, the average person learns 3 new words a day.
6. After reaching 55 years of age, vocabulary begins to decline slightly. This may be due to forgetting words that are not used for a long time. Interestingly, this age approximately coincides with retirement.

Now let's divide all respondents into groups according to education level. The following graph shows the median vocabulary scores of these groups. The curves start and end in different places because the statistics for each group 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 find out that

1. Perhaps vocabulary saturation occurs in at different ages depending on education. Thus, for respondents with secondary specialized education, saturation can be determined at around 43 years old, with higher education - at 51 years old, for candidates and doctors - at 54 years old. This could be explained by the specifics of the respondents’ work - most likely, holders of an academic degree continue to study various literature even in mature age. Or permanent life in the university environment, with its abundance of communication with educated people of different specializations, new words are constantly thrown up. 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.
2. There is practically no difference in vocabulary between those who entered the university, but did not finish their studies, and those who completed this path to the end (for students: this does not mean that you can not go to lectures).

Now let’s exclude the influence of age, leaving only respondents over 30 years old in the sample. This will allow you to concentrate on education.

From the graph we see the following:

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

The resulting vocabulary sizes - tens of thousands of words - seem quite large. There are two reasons for this. First, it measured passive vocabulary (words a person recognizes in text or hearing) rather than active vocabulary (words a person uses in speech or writing). These reserves differ significantly - the passive one is always much larger. The calculated vocabularies of writers, for example, are 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 a thing exists) native Russian speaker. For example, the level of education of respondents who passed the test is significantly higher than the national average - 65% of respondents have higher education, whereas in Russia there are only 23% of these (according to the 2010 All-Russian Population Census). Then, it is obvious that the respondents who took 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 determining their vocabulary, but 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 slightly higher than the “statistical 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 influence vocabulary - reading, communication, work, hobbies, lifestyle. All these are topics for further research.

The larger a person's vocabulary, the higher the likelihood that he will succeed in life.

Rich vocabulary: methods, methods and techniques for increasing it

IN modern world, beautiful and rich speech speaks of culture and good education. Society perceives a person with a rich vocabulary as smart and creative personality. The larger a person's vocabulary, the higher the likelihood that he will succeed in life.

Methods, methods and techniques for increasing vocabulary:

1. Think about which of the banal, hackneyed, hackneyed words and expressions you are used to using every day in standard communication situations. Write them down on a piece of paper. Have you recorded it?

Now take it off the shelf Dictionary or a dictionary of synonyms. Find these words that already hurt your ears and that you are tired of hearing every day.

Explore long list alternatives and say each of these words out loud. Which one reflects your personality? Which one is right for you personally?

Try each of them as you try on a suit and see which ones you find comfortable and cozy.

Choose a few of these words and practice by saying them out loud until they become a natural part of your vocabulary;

2. Communication is the main source of replenishing a person’s vocabulary. During a conversation, each participant replenishes his vocabulary from the arsenal of his interlocutor, and word exchange occurs between them.

Talk to friends, acquaintances, and family as much as possible. Use new words in your vocabulary; knowledge of a word is nothing without its use;

3. Read, reading books is useful. Start with those authors who are more understandable and close to your interests.

Gradually add literature that is more complex. Text where they meet interesting words and expressions that you want to remember and use in the future, reread them out loud (by reading to ourselves, we also replenish our vocabulary, but not so quickly, because in this way we only see the words, but when reading aloud, we also see them we hear and, most importantly, we pronounce it, so we remember better);

4. When you notice a new word, don't just look at its definition in the dictionary. Pay attention to the turn of speech in which this word is used, try to replace it with the appropriate synonym for yourself.

Try to rhyme, come up with as many suitable phrases as possible. The more you know about a word, the faster you will learn to use it without complicating your memory. E this will immediately affect the beauty and individuality of your speech;

5. Write. Rewrite other people's articles and your favorite ones literary works following the example of Demosthenes, who rewrote Thucydides’ History eight times in a row.

Crosswords are not just entertainment, but also a way to develop vocabulary. Use this opportunity on the road, on vacation. Choose crosswords from well-known publications or those that have a good reputation;

6. For those who spend a lot of time on the road, driving or have absolutely no free time there is a unique opportunity to use books and dictionaries develop your speech and increase your vocabulary with audiobooks.

This method will also be acceptable for an audience that perceives better by ear. In any case, while away the time in traffic jams reading good literature is much more useful and effective for your development. published

Every language, dialect, dialect, slang on our planet is unique and interesting in itself. And each of the listed options has its own specific set of words with which students’ dictionaries and heads are filled. But before we start talking directly about English language, I would like to start with our native - native to me and to you reading this article - and the great Russian language.

Answer this question for yourself: how many words of your native language do you know and use absolutely freely in your speech? How will you count them? The first method is to take the most big dictionary and begin to put checkmarks in front of those words that are familiar to us. 3 weeks pass when we reach the words “jasper”, “box”, “foot and mouth disease” (who knows), open the first page again and start counting. After another 3 weeks, everyone will reach a certain huge number of words and think about why he did all these manipulations. For what, I will tell you a little later. The second way is that we don’t take a dictionary, don’t count anything, because we personally don’t need it and we have compelling arguments. I will also tell you why this is still necessary in this article. And finally, the third way is to find a definition test on the Internet, pass it and know exactly within what limits the number of words available to our consciousness varies. But even here a problem arises: how to choose the right test, because there are dozens of them, what are passive and active vocabulary, etc. So, let’s turn to theory and figure out what vocabulary is and why I decided to talk about this today.

In simple non-scientific language, vocabulary is that specific set of words that a certain person knows. He actually owns it, and not just “I heard a ringing, I don’t know where it is.” Those. understands the meaning of a particular word, knows how to apply it verbally and writing, perceives it during live communication. The entire vocabulary specific person can be divided into active and passive. Active vocabulary is the set of words he uses in spoken and written speech when he is the source of that speech. Passive vocabulary is a set of those words that a person recognizes by reading this or that literature, or hearing them in oral speech, but is not the source of these words, i.e. does not use in his own speech. This distinction is applicable both for your native language and for the language you are studying as a foreign language, since in both cases there are those words that you and I personally use, and those whose meanings we recognize in our memory.

If we talk about the composition of the language as a whole, then the Russian language is almost impossible to count, since it is too rich and diverse, and according to various sources, it contains from 2.5 to 4.5 million words and vocabulary units. In English everything is much simpler, last time An official count was carried out in 1999, and according to its data, there are slightly more than one million words and vocabulary units in this language. Therefore, we can safely be glad that we are studying English, because a million is not so much. But seriously speaking, out of this “a little more than a million” in ordinary everyday speech, even the most educated person uses no more than 20-30 thousand words and vocabulary units (and no more than 50 thousand are stored on the hard drives of his memory) - and at the same time, that English is his native language. If we are talking about English as a foreign language that we study, then the highest indicators for active vocabulary are 8-10 thousand words, and for passive vocabulary up to 15 thousand. Those. you see that the indicators are not as large and scary as they might seem at first glance.

Now it’s worth talking about how to calculate that very cherished figure that you reach with your amount of knowledge. There are many in various ways, tests, calculations. I suggest you pay attention to two of them, and I will argue why I chose these options. The first of these calculation options can be found on the website, which is dedicated to the joint American-Brazilian research project, aimed specifically at counting the words of your passive vocabulary. It is built very simply - you just need to mark those words whose meaning (at least one) you know for sure. The only problem is whether you can be honest with yourself and truly choose the words you learn truthfully. At the end, the system itself calculates your result and gives an approximate value of +/- 500 words. The second option for counting words allows you to do this by level and specifically see where your omissions are. You can find this calculation option on the website. This test will allow you to go through the levels and determine exactly where we stop and continue training. Each version of the test consists of 6 levels, and you must pass them starting from the very first, even if you are sure that you know much more. The result will give you the opportunity to understand what your vocabulary is and what you should pay attention to.

But why count? This is the question that many of you are wondering right now. After all, numbers are not important to anyone, you think. But that's not true. Firstly, such a calculation allows you to objectively assess your level of knowledge, and secondly, when passing certain tests in British and American schools, I will ask you to indicate the results of vocabulary calculation. And I do not advise any of you to do this offhand, since after testing, an embarrassment may occur due to the discrepancy between the data you specified and the test results. Therefore, knowing your vocabulary (especially active) is not only useful, but in some cases necessary.

• a vocabulary of 350-700 words is the active vocabulary required for the initial (basic) level of proficiency in a foreign language.
• a vocabulary of 700-1300 words – sufficient to explain yourself (if it is active for you); and for reading on basic level(if this is your passive vocabulary).
• vocabulary of 1300-2800 words - active vocabulary, sufficient for everyday life everyday communication; if it is passive, it is sufficient for fluent reading.
• a vocabulary of 2800-5500 words is quite suitable for free reading of the press or scientific literature.
• a vocabulary of up to 8,000 words is enough for normal, full-fledged communication of a person learning English as a foreign language, which will allow him to understand almost any literature, TV programs and the press.
• A vocabulary of up to 13,000 is the active vocabulary of a person with a high level of education who is learning English as a foreign language.

But even if you pass this test successfully, you should remember that only words recorded in your memory will not give you the opportunity to communicate fluently in English, since this skill has many other aspects. However, having mastered 2000 correctly selected frequently used words, with a certain grammatical base and practice, you can easily communicate in the magnificent language of Foggy Albion.

If you find an error, please highlight a piece of text and click Ctrl+Enter.

Learning is a continuous process. You can become an erudite person as in adolescence, and in retirement, when you are already over eighty, simply expanding your vocabulary. Develop habits that will help you remember and use the most accurate words in your language. And it will become easier for you to communicate, write and think. After you read more specific tips for expanding your vocabulary, read to the end of this article.

Steps

Part 1

Read avidly. When you graduate from school, you will no longer be given exercises on words, and in general there will be no homework, which at one time forced you to learn new words. You can just stop reading. But if you want to expand your vocabulary, make yourself a reading plan and stick to it.

• You can try reading one book a week or just reading the newspaper every morning. Choose a reading pace that suits you, and create a reading program that fits into your schedule.
• Try to read at least one book and a couple of magazines every week. Be consistent. You will not only increase your vocabulary, but you will also be up to date and know what happened. You will expand your stock of general knowledge and become an educated, comprehensively developed person.

1. Read serious literature. Set yourself the task of reading as many books as you have the time and desire to do. Read the classics. Read old and new works of art. Read poetry. Read Herman Melville, William Faulkner and Virginia Woolf.

   Read also online sources and “low-quality tabloid” literature. Read online magazines, essays and blogs on various topics. Read music reviews and fashion blogs. True, this vocabulary does not apply to high style. But to have an extensive vocabulary, you need to know both the meaning of the word "inner monologue" and the meaning of the word "twerking." To be well-read means to be familiar with both the work of Geoffrey Chaucer and the work of Lee Child.

   Look up every word you don't know in the dictionary. When you see an unfamiliar word, don't pass it over with irritation. Try to understand its meaning from the context of the sentence, and then look it up in a dictionary to clarify its meaning.

   • Get yourself a small notebook and immediately write down all the unfamiliar words that you come across so you can check their meaning later. If you hear or see a word you don't know, be sure to look it up in the dictionary.

2. Read the dictionary. Immerse yourself in it headfirst. Read dictionary entries about words that are still unfamiliar to you. To make this process more fun, a very good dictionary is necessary. Therefore, look for a dictionary that gives detailed explanations about the origin and use of words, as this will help you not only remember the word, but also enjoy working with the dictionary.

   Read the dictionary of synonyms. Look for synonyms for words that you often use and try to use them.

   Part 2

   Use new words

   1. Set yourself a goal. If you are determined to expand your vocabulary, set a goal for yourself. Try to learn three new words a week and use them in speech and writing. Through conscious effort, you can learn several thousand new words that you will remember and use. If you can't use a word correctly in a sentence, it means it's not part of your vocabulary.

      • If you can easily memorize three words a week, then raise the bar. Next week try to learn 10 words.
      • If you look up 20 new words a day in the dictionary, you will find it difficult to use them correctly. Be realistic and develop a practical vocabulary that you can actually use.

   2. Use flash cards or post-its throughout the house. If you're going to make a habit of learning new words, try some simple memorization techniques as if you were studying for a test. Place a sticky note over the coffee maker that explains the word you hope to remember, so you can learn it while you make your morning cup of coffee. Attach a new word to each indoor plant, and thus you will learn while you water them.

      • Even when you're watching TV or doing other things, keep a few flashcards handy and learn new words. Expand your vocabulary under any circumstances.

   3. Write more. Start journaling if you haven't already, or start a virtual journal. Flexing your muscles intensely while writing will help you remember words better.

      • Write letters to old friends and describe everything down to the smallest detail. If your letters tend to be short and simple, change that up: start writing longer letters or emails than you've previously written. Spend more time composing letters as if you were writing a school essay. Make smart choices.
      • Do more written work assignments. If you usually avoid writing orders, writing group emails, or participating in group discussions, change your habits and write more. Plus, you might get paid for expanding your vocabulary.

   4. Use adjectives and nouns correctly and accurately. The best writers strive for brevity and precision. Get a dictionary and use the most accurate words in your sentences. Don't use three words where you can easily get by with just one. The word that shortens total words in a sentence will be a very valuable addition to your vocabulary.

      • For example, the phrase “dolphins and whales” can be replaced with the single word “cetaceans.” So "cetaceans" is a useful word.
      • A word is also useful if it is more expressive than the phrase or word it replaces. For example, many people's voices can be described as "pleasant." But if someone Very pleasant voice, then it is better to say that he has a voice that “caresses the ear.”

   5. Don't show it off. Inexperienced writers think that they will improve their writing if they use the thesaurus function twice in each sentence. Microsoft Word. But actually it is not. Using pretentious language and spelling words correctly will make your writing sound pompous. But what's worse is that it will make your writing less precise than more common words. Correct use of words is characteristic a real writer and sure sign large vocabulary.

      • You could say that "Iron Mike" is Mike Tyson's nickname, but the word "nickname" would be more accurate and appropriate in this sentence. Therefore, the word "nickname" is less useful in your vocabulary.

   Part 3

   Improve your vocabulary

   1. Subscribe to the “Word of the Day” newsletter in one of the online dictionaries. You can also get yourself a “Word of the Day” calendar. Remember to read the words on that page every day, try to memorize the words of each day and also use them in your speech throughout the day.

      • Visit word-building sites (like freerice.com) and expand your vocabulary while you satisfy your hunger or do something else useful.
      • There are many online sites dedicated to compiling alphabetical lists of unusual, strange, outdated and difficult words. Use a search engine to find these sites and learn from them. This is a great way to pass the time while waiting for a bus or standing in line at the bank.

   2. Solve word puzzles and play word games. Word puzzles are a great source of new words because word puzzlers often have to use a huge number of less commonly used words to ensure that all the words fit into their puzzles and make them interesting for those who solve them. There are many varieties of word puzzles, including crosswords, find the word, and hidden word puzzles. Along with expanding your vocabulary, puzzles will also help improve your critical thinking skills. For word games, try games like Scrabble, Boggle, and Cranium to expand your vocabulary.

      Learn some Latin. Although it may seem like a dead language, knowing a little Latin is a great way to learn about the origins of many English words, and besides, it will help you understand the meaning of those words that you do not yet know without looking in the dictionary. There are educational resources for Latin on the Internet, as well as a wealth of texts (check out your favorite old bookstore).

“William Shakespeare’s dictionary, according to researchers, is 12,000 words. The dictionary of a black man from the cannibal tribe "Mumbo-Yumbo" is 300 words. Ellochka Shchukina easily and freely made do with thirty,” everyone is familiar with this quote from “The Twelve Chairs” by Ilf and Petrov. The satirists, and with them the readers, had a good laugh 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, when they start writing texts, many, without noticing it themselves, turn into the cannibal Ellochka. Whatever they want to write about, the same “Ho-ho!” comes out from the pen. and “Be rude, boy!” In this lesson we will talk about how to get rid of the problem of the cannibal Ellochka and expand your vocabulary. And in the next lesson we will learn how to learn to use it correctly.

Lexicon

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

Typically, the volume of passive vocabulary exceeds the volume of 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? Unexpectedly, it turned out that answering this question is quite difficult. Volume of the dictionary V.I. Dahl has two hundred thousand words, the academic dictionary of modern Russian literary language- about one hundred 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 what the average active and passive vocabulary of an adult educated person is. Estimates of active vocabulary range from five thousand to thirty-five thousand words. As for passive vocabulary, the range 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 approximately fifteen thousand words (as is known, the active vocabulary of such a master of words as Pushkin was about twenty thousand words), and the passive vocabulary is forty to fifty thousand words (it is difficult to imagine ordinary person, who would know all the meanings of words from Ozhegov’s dictionary).

There is a simple way to roughly estimate the size of your passive vocabulary. Take an explanatory dictionary, for example, the same Ozhegov dictionary, open it on a random 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 its exact meaning, then you don’t need to count that word. Next, multiply this figure by the number of pages. Of course, you need to keep in mind that this result is approximate: you must assume that all pages contain the same number of articles, of 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 an accurate result.

If you are too lazy to bother with the dictionary and calculations yourself, you can use our test.

Ways to expand your vocabulary

When writing texts, it is very important that the words used are as diverse as possible. This, firstly, allows you to most accurately express your thoughts, and secondly, makes the perception of the text easier for the reader. There are several rules to help expand your vocabulary. They were designed primarily for people studying foreign languages, but can also be used effectively for the native language.

Passive vocabulary

Read as much as possible. Reading- this is one of the main sources of income new information, and, accordingly, new words. At the same time, try to choose literature as broad as possible. high level- it doesn’t matter whether we are talking about 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, use words correctly. This way you will remember not only new words, but also the right ways their use.

Don't be afraid to appear ignorant. Many people feel extremely awkward when their interlocutor seems very educated, well-read and uses a lot of unfamiliar words. In such a situation, many are afraid of being branded ignorant, and therefore are embarrassed to ask about the meaning of this or that new word. Never do this. It's always better to ask about a word you don't know than to remain ignorant for the rest of your life. Don't expect to look this word up 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 whenever necessary. Naturally, good dictionaries are not cheap, are often published in small editions and take up a lot of shelf space. Fortunately, with the development of the Internet, the problem of access to dictionaries has been solved. Nowadays you can find dictionaries and encyclopedias on almost any topic. The portals are quite convenient to use: slovari.yandex.ru and www.gramota.ru.

Active vocabulary

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

Notes method. You need to take cards, leaves 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 effective!

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

Presentations and essays. We are accustomed to the fact that presentations and essays are school exercises, and, after finishing school, we can never return to them. Meanwhile, they help to significantly improve your writing skills and expand your active vocabulary. The presentations are suitable for a situation where you have read a text in which you came across many unfamiliar but useful words. Make a short written retelling of this text using these keywords, and they will remain in your memory. As for essays, you don’t need to write long treatises; a short story of five sentences is enough, into which you insert new words.

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 if you repeat the material at certain intervals. Then it goes into long-term active memory. For this purpose, the so-called rational repetition mode was developed. For convenience, here is a table:

• First rep. Immediately after finishing 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. A month later
• Ninth repetition. After two months

To achieve maximum effect, it is advisable not to deviate from the schedule. It is also best not to try to memorize a large array of words at once. It is better to divide words into small thematic groups and create your own repetition calendar for each group.

Crosswords, language games and puzzles. Great way combine business with pleasure: practice learned words and play! Here are some of the most common language games: scrabble (in the Russian version - erudite, bald), 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. For each question, only 1 option can be correct. 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 completion. Please note that the questions are different each time and the options are mixed.