there's also https://www.myvocab.info/en
From what I can tell they actually have a bit more robust science behind their algorithm (and a lot less questions to answer)
How many of the 170k English words do you know?
111–120 of 575 posts
Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?
#112Nice. I want one in Spanish so I can compare results.
Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?
#113In addition to how much fun it was, it has potential pedagogic value for teaching sampling based estimation.
It would have paired well with an exposition of vanilla Monte Carlo and the benefits of stratified sampling.
Although stratified sampling is good, one can do better in this case by using adaptive sampling, where one uses a runtime (Bayesian) estimate of vocabulary to maximize information gain per question -- preferrentially sample from those strata where the current strata specific estimate has higher variance.
Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?
#114Getting "Obfuscate" as #99 and "Quixotic" as #100 made me feel exorbitantly smart.
Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?
#115That was fun. Bit confused by the result because it says I was "wow are you stephen fry?" Which I assume meant I did decent. (72K). But then below it said "you are a man of few words". I take it the latter is just because I've only done the test once? But it's mixed messaging on first attempt I think.
Combined with the factoid it features under "how is this calculated":
However, most native speakers have an active vocabulary between 15,000 and 35,000 words.
Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?
#116Interesting concept, but 100 words is really quite a lot to get through... It's tiresome trudging through the easy words at the start, and I never got to see the interesting words before getting bored. I've seen other systems like this calibrate far more quickly by assigning a sort of score and confidence behind the scenes. Confidence starts out low and increases over time - correct/incorrect answers rapidly adjust s…
> Also - too many clicks per word. It's low stakes, just let me click the definition once and I'll live if I misclick. This, and accept that people will have incorrect input and build it into the confidence. Even the smartest person in the world sometimes makes clerical errors, or has the wrong neuron fire at the wrong moment.
Moly holy the clicking is too much 3 clicks that could be one :O
Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?
#117Good fun! At first I was scared of having to answer 100 questions, but when the words got more sophisticated it turned to be more engaging. Also, the result is good for self-esteem! :) Many thanks to the author!
I wonder if the test is calibrated to the fact that some answers are just well guessed? I am not a native English speaker, but I speak 3 languages overall and have basic notions in Latin, and I have to admit it helped a lot in "deciphering" a few words that I didn't know at all. And in at least 2 cases I just guessed correctly.
Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?
#118Interesting concept, but 100 words is really quite a lot to get through... It's tiresome trudging through the easy words at the start, and I never got to see the interesting words before getting bored. I've seen other systems like this calibrate far more quickly by assigning a sort of score and confidence behind the scenes. Confidence starts out low and increases over time - correct/incorrect answers rapidly adjust s…
It also doesn't get hard enough. Also way too many of the words are just words about long words, or the tendency to be verbose.
Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?
#119I got an estimate of 70,550, from a score of 87/100 (20/18/16/17/16). Not native English speaker.
I suppose the words must be weighed, because other people in the thread with more correct words got a not much higher estimate.
Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?
#120I got 98 words right and it estimated I know 82k words. That's less than half the quoted 170k number, so what would it have estimated at 99 or at 100?