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Apparently Ghent University's Center for Reading is conducting a study on how many words English speakers know, and have devised a short 4 minute quiz to check your Vocabulary, and give an estimate for what percentage of English words you know. It also helps some research they're doing.

http://vocabulary.ugent.be/

Sadly, American spelling only, but it's usually not much of an issue.

Seems quite fun, I ran through it a couple of times and got an 89% and an 87%.

They mention in the FAQ that the test is based on a master list of 60k works, and native English speakers generally know around 66%+, while for non-native speakers it's usually between 10-33%.

I got 98%, I didn't know "billingsgate", and "childbed" were words.

79% on my first go.

I didn't know:-
venal
bowery
apostolically
drumble
skewback
liquidambar
broadbill (Which I coud've sworn I answered 'yes' to)
recognizant
gabbroitic (Which, according to the FOD the test lniked, doesn't actually exist)
sciaenid
granolithic
plastron
aardwolf
pilferage
postprandial

Some of them I could work out the meanings of, but ran the risk of the test taking a real word and sticking an '-ally' onto the end. Also, words like 'pilferage' and 'aardwolf' really sound made up.

EDIT: Took it again twice; 86% and 84% respectively.

66%.

52%. Got my hats handed to me. Apparently I think a lot of words exist that actually don't XD

57%. I figured that most of the compound words were thrown in as red-herrings. Silly me. I also don't do well with slang.

EDIT: 77% the second time around, 85 the third.

Wow that really embiggened my vocabulary!

65% of english words

 Fafnir wrote:
57%. I figured that most of the compound words were thrown in as red-herrings. Silly me. I also don't do well with slang.

EDIT: 77% the second time around, 85 the third.

Compound words are some of the hardest to decide on in this context, I think, as it is completely arbitrary whether a word gets compounded or not in general usage. Bookkeeper and Doorkeeper are single words obviously, but paperkeeper, saladkeeper and dogkeeper are not, not because of any rule but just because bookkeeper has been used as a compound word for long enough. That's a very obvious example, however, and for many compound words it's harder to spot if they're legitimate or not.

Apparently Jambbox is a non-word.


Who knew?

 Maddermax wrote:

Compound words are some of the hardest to decide on in this context, I think, as it is completely arbitrary whether a word gets compounded or not in general usage. Bookkeeper and Doorkeeper are single words obviously, but paperkeeper, saladkeeper and dogkeeper are not, not because of any rule but just because bookkeeper has been used as a compound word for long enough. That's a very obvious example, however, and for many compound words it's harder to spot if they're legitimate or not.

Generally speaking inanimate objects and nonspecific professions are not treated as compound words because there is a particular grammatical object (in this case the keeper) which is of greater emphasis.

Of course, it doesn't help change the fact that, while being an admirable effort in combining a bunch of different elements of other languages together, English is still a massive linguistic clusterfeth.

80% for me.
Although, I am pleased to say I didn't say yes to any nonwords.

78%. And in my defense, I haven't slept in nearly 24 hours.

Apparently there are some non-words in there just to check if people are saying yes to stuff they shouldn't.

 Breotan wrote:
Apparently there are some non-words in there just to check if people are saying yes to stuff they shouldn't.

According to the FAQ, 30% of all the words in each test should be fake.

Heaps of made up words. I was caught by one of them -- "tenned" -- though to be fair British people sometimes use such verb forms made from numbers colloquially.

It is a fun test and an interesting study.

Got 80%, but that was with a good few nonwords.

77%, I said yes to one nonword, and skipped a couple of real words as I did not know them. Well.. I had a feeling Negroid was a word.. but my progressive political correctness made me flinch and hit F. Oh and miling... I KNEW it was milling... but honestly I'm surprised that was the only word that got me on spelling... I'm terrible at spelling, more so after spellcheck became virtually ubiquitous.

88%, missed beldam, swill, amice and bast, and two non-words, clant (mistook it for clamp) and stranerirition (hit 'yes' by mistake )

65%. I missed some words I knew and originally had 79% to words but got 13 imaginary words I "knew" lol.

Edit:much better the second time with an 80%. Only 9% knowledge of "imaginary" words this time haha. I think the English website should learn math. 86-3 does not equal 82....

78%

Very high for a native speaker.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Chancetragedy wrote:
I think the English website should learn math. 86-3 does not equal 82....

My guess is that the numbers were rounded to the nearest whole percent.

Got bored so I had another go.

Sadly there are some errors in the test.

I accepted 5 non-words and was deducted 17%. It should be 5% taken off.

Also I refused a word they say is real but it isn't in their reference dictionary. I reported that one.

There isn't a mechanism to report incorrect addition.

 Jihadnik wrote:
Wow that really embiggened my vocabulary!

What a cromulent way of putting that.

70%... "High level for a native speaker"

I suppose my high school English teachers would be proud.

I learned an interesting word recently -- "campshedding".

75%, I guess I could do better.

85% there were some overtly American words in there.

I didn't know this one.

hawse·hole  (hôz′hōl′)
n.
An opening in the bow of a ship through which a cable or hawser is passed.

Coming from Bristol I should be ashamed of myself but now it's probably one of my new favorite maritime words, mainly because it sounds rude.

68%... yikes.

81%

hag·i·o·scope (hăg′ē-ə-skōp′, hā′jē-)
n.
A small opening in an interior wall of a church, enabling those in the transept to view the main altar.

I thought this one was some Scottish instrument for measuring haggis...