Your English vocabulary

[Eleas]

36,600 at 31 years of age. 'tis my second language; guess I'm slipping.

[Mr. Coffee]

35,600 Not bad for a redneck flooring installer.

[starslayer]

I got 34,400. Still in the 99th percentile of American speakers, and way above average on their graph, so I'm not too concerned about my vocabulary.

[HMS Sophia]

Fucking Thanas
36,800 words at age 20.

[LadyTevar]

39500.

My mom used to get the Reader's Digest. It had many word-plays and tests that she and I challenged each other with.

[Block]

43,300. Most of the older/not used words gave me pause and I had to think about them.

[RazorOutlaw]

25,800 estimated. That was going through the quiz looking for words I knew almost immediately and not spending too much time on ones I wasn't sure about. Even if I'd spent ten minutes thinking of a definition for a word, I don't think I'd do much better though. I'm kind of disappointed in myself.

[The Vortex Empire]

English is my first (and due to the USA's INCREDIBLE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM my only) language, and I only got 25,900 words. I don't think using words that haven't been used in the language for several centuries is a very good way to test this. I can guarantee my vocabulary includes more words than that.

[haard]

29400, second language. I had actually expected more. Oh well.

[Raxmei]

25. It's a vocabulary test, of course a lot of the words are going to be obscure and out of common use. The whole point is to find out approximately what proportion of words of various levels of obscurity you know. Nobody's expected to get a perfect score.

[J]

44,100 and I'm old enough that I'm permanently 28. It seems my liberal arts education was good for something afterall; many of those words were found in my history and law courses. Knowing French as a second language along with smatterings of Italian & German gave me a few more on the second list, I was so close to getting it perfect.

[Eleas]

English is my first (and due to the USA's INCREDIBLE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM my only) language, and I only got 25,900 words. I don't think using words that haven't been used in the language for several centuries is a very good way to test this. I can guarantee my vocabulary includes more words than that.

Doubtless. I'd expect your active vocabulary would be significantly above mine, for instance. I also expect your use of meter and colloquialism to be light-years better.

Vocabulary is a pretty straightforward thing, and among the easiest to expand. Much harder to get the subtle things to work, like shades of meaning, the rhythm and flow of the language, and how to convey the nuances in a relaxed manner. One of the better newspaper comics poked fun at the level of English literacy among Swedes. The stages were "decent at English," "good," "wrote his thesis in English," "inveterate anglophile ('exquisite sherry, I say!')," and, at the last stage, "reasonably gifted 12-year-old British schoolgirl."

It was fun and accurate, yet kinda humbling.

[salm]

17 000. Not bad for... oh wait, it is bad.

[DaveJB]

I got 29,900 - which I suppose is decent enough for the average guy, but pretty atrocious for someone with a master's degree. (Well, a master's degree in video editing and effects...)

[Stofsk]

I got 29,900 - which I suppose is decent enough for the average guy, but pretty atrocious for someone with a master's degree. (Well, a master's degree in video editing and effects...)

It's a good thing you don't have a masters in vocabulary. Then you'd be in the shit.

[Spekio]

20,000, second langauge.

I do feel somewhat ashamed.

[Master of Ossus]

I'm OVER NINE THOUSAND!

(Well... 39,600).

[Gandalf]

42,100.

Good on me, I suppose.

[Ahriman238]

36,600.

I'm a little disappointed, since I teach English. I actually hand out SAT vocabulary lists on a more or less weekly basis, at least during the school year.

By the by, uxoricide is Spoiler

The murder of one's wife.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

35,900. There were some words that I know I used to know, but have forgotten. I feel like I've been losing my vocabulary since I left college...

Years of French helped a bit, as well as taking classes reading older works, including a lot of Middle English poems.

[Pollux]

31,400, first language.

Not as many as I would preferred, but encouraging to know, especially considering how little reading I do these days.

Hopefully college will help me there.

[Zac Naloen]

33000, 25

There were words I recognised but couldn't remember the definition of, even if I would have got them in context, so I didn't include those and my Latin and French are non-existant so I was let down on each of the last columns.

[Prannon]

It's my first language and I have a college degree, and still only got 25000 or so words on the second try at the test. I feel so ashamed... *hides in a closet and compulsively eats chips and dip*

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

39,900. Not bad.

[Ægen]

38,200. I feel like an idiot, should be able to figure some of them out.