My basic question is: How many words roughly speaking do you need to know to be able to have easy conversations in your target language in any non-specialized topic with very little work and so that the person you are speaking with thinks your language skills are generally fluent?
You can stop reading there unless you want to read the disclaimers I know I need to get out of the way...
1.) Yes, I know it depends on a number of factors. 2.) Let’s assume the person is practicing pronounciation, grammar, and listening. 3.) I’m not concerned about someone being able to know every nuance and being able to say the precise word for every occasion..as long as the person hears what you say and doesn’t think, “That’s the wrong word” or “That’s a bizarre word to use.” Sure, the native speaker might use a different word in a particular situation or use a more idiomatic expression but they might also use the words you said without a problem. They would listen to this hypothetical person and think, “They might have an accent but they speak like every other person in my country..” 4.) Conjugations are included as one word. I realize there are twenty+ ways or more to use a verb like “to have” depending on whether it’s present, past, future, subjunctive, etc. We’ll count “have” as one word. 5.) Again, I’m not speaking about being able to talk about any subject. This hypothetical person might flounder when he/she is talking about the intricacies of the genome and biotechnology or cloning but could probably stil get their point across by using similar words.
Okay, I hope I got rid of the obvious answer of “It depends” by some of those disclaimers and I realize the answer is still the same. I’m just looking for a general target of words to learn so that I can speak in my target language in the way described above, give or take a thousand or even five thousand words. Are we talking 20,000? 50,000? 100,000?
Thanks for any help.
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