How many of the 170k English words do you know? • Hacker News Board

Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?

#401

Post by deejaaymac » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 4:32 AM UTC

brianleb wrote: post #263

As others have pointed out, too many clicks per word. I am a sucker for a 'how many words do you know' quiz so I finished anyway. Overall I'm skeptical of the classifications. In broad strokes, the early words are easier and the latter words are more challenging, but the middle is pretty muddied. Some of the words chosen are rather absurd/inappropriate: breviary (which I got wrong but felt like a vaguely religious wo…

"what high schooler doesn't learn about kinetic energy?"

A lot of them, because being an anti-intellectual is 'cool'

Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?

#402

Post by derektank » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 4:40 AM UTC

Antoniocl wrote: post #389

buzzerbetrayed wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sick burn bro. I can assure you that just about every American that has made it through middle school has been taught about kinetic energy. Let alone high school.

Oh interesting, is it actually covered as part of the standard compulsory public school curriculum? Genuinely surprised, because here in Canada (Ontario) it's covered as an elective in 11th grade physics, which roughly 15/120 people in my graduating class opted to take.

Each state maintains its own public school curriculum, so generalizing about US education in the first place is a fool’s errand. But certainly in many states, students will take a generic science course covering the basics of Newtonian mechanics, the periodic table, and Mendelian genetics in middle school (roughly ages 12-14) before more specialized courses become available in high school, such as Physics or Biology where these subjects would be covered in greater depth and breadth.

Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?

#403

Post by duk3luk3 » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 4:48 AM UTC

This felt like it had the stink of AI on it and I was second-guessing myself about it: I don't play these kinds of trivia / questionnaire type games a lot, so maybe some of what I'm feeling comes from plain unfamiliarity.

But no - other people pointed out the same things I noticed, such as many of the wrong answers being very weird.

This could have been a neat game, but it is ruined by being unrefined AI slop.

Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?

#404

Post by da_grift_shift » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 4:58 AM UTC

brianleb wrote: post #263

As others have pointed out, too many clicks per word. I am a sucker for a 'how many words do you know' quiz so I finished anyway. Overall I'm skeptical of the classifications. In broad strokes, the early words are easier and the latter words are more challenging, but the middle is pretty muddied. Some of the words chosen are rather absurd/inappropriate: breviary (which I got wrong but felt like a vaguely religious wo…

Unfortunate bullshit asymmetry here. Taking the time to thoughtfully point out inaccuracies in a piece of vibesludge excreted in seconds.

Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?

#405

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 5:00 AM UTC

What I read long ago in a book on English:

TV vocabulary is targeted at 6th grade reading level.

Conversational English is about 2,000 words.

High school vocabulary is about 10,000 words.

College degree vocabulary is about 30,000 words

English has over a million words.

Which heartens me, because it means I can be "fluent" in another language by learning just 2,000 words.

Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?

#406

Post by asparagus8940 » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 5:01 AM UTC

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #333

They got the second word wrong, I got it right, but still scored against me. Haha. Impartial does not mean "treating all parties equally". It means "uninterested in the results". Fair would be "treating all equally". That's why there's a phrase "fair and impartial". "Partial" of course, doesn't mean "unfair", so negating it can't turn it into "fair". Partial means to favor one side or the other. This is why when peop…

In the end I correctly guessed what the quiz wanted me to pick, but came here to the replies to see if anyone else had the same hangup. The wording for me was "treating all rivals equally."

Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?

#407

Post by da_grift_shift » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 5:03 AM UTC

EtaoinWu wrote: post #277

It is quite easy to cheese the problems: many of them don't look like word definitions ("a sharp pain in the back"), many problem have this "correct answer + opposite meaning + 2 unrelated things" answer structure, and for the second half of the answers, very often the longest answer is the correct one. The wrong options are not well designed here. The sample of words is also heavily biased towards concepts relating…

>The design is also painfully similar to Duolingo if anyone can spot that.

Yeah. Clocked it from the landing page.

Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?

#408

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 5:05 AM UTC

zvr wrote: post #307

stbullard wrote: post #246

In addition to everything everyone else has said: their math is off by half (or 100%, depending on how you count), due to a structural error. (context: native English speaker, big reader, huge nerd, perfect SAT score) I got all 100 correct on the first try without looking anything up! Confusingly, that only resulted in a "SCIENTIFIC ESTIMATE" that I know 85,000/~170,000 words? Their "How is this calculated" page that…

Exactly the same feedback: I got all 100 correct, and the results were the same as yours. As it usually happens in this kind of "check your vocabulary" tests in English, being Greek gives you an advantage in higher levels ;-)

I rely on being Geek for advantage.

Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?

#409

Post by testemailfordg2 » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 5:12 AM UTC

Gave it a try and got 78 correct out of 100, so it extrapolated it to me knowing about 55k+ words and saying most native speakers only get 15k - 35k...Interesting

Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?

#410

Post by thenthenthen » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 5:13 AM UTC

haswell wrote: post #212

thenthenthen wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol. Yeah. Non native here but gave up at about 50 words. Too many words, too easy. And my English SUCKS

If you gave up at 50, that means you skipped the difficult words.

True. I tried a few more times. There is just so much wrong with the design. First 90 words super easy and then super hard? Why not random? Why is the longest description the correct one? Why so many? Why 3 clicks?