Jamiro wrote:@Saim: According to my japanese-pod101 vocab-list I have mastered around 2000 japanese words
(listening and speaking) But I would say realistically maybe it's 1.000? And it's again depending on the context if I recognize the word.
As for how many words you need, I agree with Saim - you probably need more for non European languages. I just recently (since around January) could start to watch Netflix on a more comfortable level - (I could watch it extremely slowly a year before). Anki claims I know around 7000 words.
I would say that the comprehension is "as good" as with Portuguese, where I maybe know around 2000 words.
So in Japanese you need more Vocabulary. Why?
-One factor is that there are always 2 roots, a Chinese one, and a Japanese one. So there are actually 2 words for everything - and sometimes more. In European languages like English and German, it is actually similar - we have a Latin based root and a German based root, so a lot of words are doubled.
-It doesn't stop there: There might be actually 2 words in Chinese already, because vocabulary is made from combining characters - and maybe more than one combination makes sense. Let's take the word simple / easy. In Chinese (traditional for better Character comparison) we have: 簡單, 單純, 簡易 (jiǎndān, dānchún, jiǎnyì) - so we have AB, BC, AD - combination. in Japanese those translate to: 簡単, 単純 (かんたん kantan, たんじゅん tanjun, and there seems to be 簡易 (たんい , tani) as well - but I never used it before. But we also have Japanese based words: 易しい (やさしい、yasashii) and of course シンプル (sinpuru) - so even more words with the same meaning.
-Than of course you have kunyomi and onyomi, so 2 pronounciations for every character, that can give us the words 世 (よ yo) and 世界 (せかい sekai) - both meaning "world" for example.
Now that I wrote this, I actually remember that I had the same feeling after 2000 words too. And felt like "man why can I not watch anything", but it is just how it is. Japanese is heavy on the vocabulary, and you need to learn a lot of words. So a good advice would probably be to focus on that. What you can do is have conversations. In Chinese right now I should know maybe around 4000 words (according to Anki). If I would watch TV now, I would not understand anything at all. But I can converse, so for daily life stuff the vocabulary is enough. I practiced conversing a lot, so it also didn't happen just over night. But just from the vocabulary point of view, it is something one can probably do with the amount of words (and even with less like 2000), you practice through conversation - and get new vocabularies through conversation etc.
There are other ways, but may it be with songs you like, or simple videos or with reading - and stuff recommended in the other comments, it all is expanding your vocabulary.
Now let me say that 2000 words is no small feat, and you have already passed a very difficult task in language learning. So don't give up and just continue, you will eventually get there.
Also you don't need to know all those words super effective, like get them right 100% of the time or so in a flashcard app. Because actually in videos, conversation etc - you will find them in context. And in context, your brain will puzzle it together somehow, even if you know the word only 10-20% of the time you review it. So your "2000 words, but effectively 1000" is still 2000 for video and listening comprehension.
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