2026-10-02
9 分钟How hard should we try to learn low-frequency vocabulary?
I think many of us are familiar with the idea that maybe 500, 1000 words will account for, you know...
50% or 70% of any given context.
So very often the advice given is just learn those high frequency words and you'll be able to do very well.
That has not been my strategy and I'm going to explain to you why.
But let me first of all say that the most important thing is what do you want to do?
What are your goals?
What gives you a sense of satisfaction?
When you are engaged in learning the language, do you feel, this is what I want to be doing,
I want to be learning the language, I want to be focusing in on high-frequency words,
or I want to be pushing myself to learn more low-frequency words?
Ultimately, it's up to you, the learner.
Because if you enjoy what you're doing, you'll continue doing it.
And the whole thing is, in language learning, it takes a long time.
You have to be in some kind of a learning process that's likely to continue.
But if I look at my statistics at LingQ, with Arabic, which is my most recent language, along with Persian,
but a language that I have found, you know, a lot of work.
If you look at my statistics, you'll see that I have read over a million words and I have saved,
I'm going from memory here, but over 90,000 links.
That means I have looked up 90,000 words and got some kind of a meaning.