Dr. Antonia Johnson
How Many Words for English Proficiency
English Speaking Skills: How Many Words for English Fluency?
Here are some rough word counts according to Jakob Gibbon, 2023:
Advanced: With 4,000-10,000 words your communication goes beyond everyday conversation and into specialized vocabulary for talking about your professional field, current geo-political and local events and news, opinions and vocabulary for more complex abstract verbal vocabulary. This is also the C2 level in the Common European Framework for Reference (CEFR).
Fluent: 10,000+ words. At around 10,000 words is considered near-native level of vocabulary, with the requisite words for talking about a wide range of topics in detail. Most importantly, you recognize enough words in every utterance or sentence so that most frequently you understand the unfamiliar ones from context. That means you can easily add words to your vocabulary if you read English a lot.
And just so you know: Estimates of words known by the average native American English speaker vary from 10,000 to 65,000 words.
Don’t stop now deliberately adding to your vocabulary! It’s no wonder that proficiency in American English speech communication continues for native-born Americans throughout their life. They are adding vocabulary, along with accurate pronunciation for professional words, scientific words, geo-political words, necessary words (like pandemic, corona virus), and skill for persuasive and information giving speaking communication, and skill for stimulating social conversation and presentations.
Research suggests that the average American hears between 20,000 and 30,000 words during the course of a 24-hour period according to Rebecca Lake, 2014. That’s a major source of “continuing education” for English speech communication, a source for increasing vocabulary and honing or making better the skills for communicating information, emotion, doing presentations, even refining body language to emphasize ideas.
Relatedly, many (most?) professions in the education world, tech, medical, lawyers, etc. require continuing education. Got to keep up with the profession and improve communication within the organization. Such is lifelong learning.
In the human development of proficiency for English speech communication throughout the lifespan (that’s what native-born speakers of AE do), just remember that the best kind of practice for English speech communication skills is deliberate practice where the purpose is to get better.
Along with expanding their spoken vocabulary, nonnative-born persons can experience “pronunciation drift.” Pronunciation drift is real and happens when AE pronunciation has gotten sloppy or inaccurate or the speaker has forgotten how to do American English speech sounds accurately or has forgotten the pronunciation rules. Most likely is drift to accented- English (Chinglish, Spanglish, Indian English, Arabic English, etc.) Most likely is also drift or movement of articulators (tongue, lips, jaw) to go lax and not tense, with decreased force or range of movement, and into difficult to understand consonants and slurring of words.
Fact is, the kind of work environment makes a difference for vocabulary development, pronunciation (and other English speech communication skills such a voice inflection or presentation skills).
Do you work in an organization where verbal English communication takes between 30 minutes and two hours or more? If so, then you can do deliberate practice of clear English speech daily.
Or does your profession call for less than 30 minutes or even less than 15 minutes of oral communication in English speech? A good number of professions call for extensive computer work (or other forms of solo-work) where hearing and speaking English may be very limited. Especially for the second circumstance, it’s not surprising that persons with English as a second language forget skills and may have very limited opportunity to deliberately practice American English speech skills in work and daily life. Deliberate practice of clear American English is the remedy. Take every opportunity to practice accurate and clear English speech by reading aloud anything from books to your children, online newspapers, several pages from a fiction book, or abstract or portions of a research article.
For English speech communication, deliberate practice strengthens the accurate motor or muscle memory—including adding to vocabulary. Deliberate practicc can be done no matter what stage in the lifecycle. Ack, you could be 99 years old and benefit from doing deliberate practice to improve your deficits or make your strengths even stronger. In other words, producing strong, vibrant, accurate English speaking for a vocabulary of 10,000 words to 65,000 benefits with deliberate practice, no matter the life circumstances or age.
Do native-born speakers deliberately practice pronouncing new vocabulary for work and social life? Absolutely! One strategy is to pronounce words after a news broadcaster or entertaining program while streaming or while viewing YouTube. Another strategy for native-borns is to enter vocabulary words to their smart phone, on the computer, or a notebook, and deliberately practice the pronunciation over and over until it is fluently and easily accurate.
Funny thing is, deliberate practice for the motor and muscle activity of English speech takes about the same amount of time as “mindless” practice. But the results are accuracy, proficiency, and long lasting… and deeper learning. More on “deeper learning” later.
Copyright 2023 by Clear Talk Mastery, Inc.
P for American English and Syllable Pronunciation for Clear Speech
This is our Number 3 in the series of recommended sequence for consonants and vowels.
Like Number 1 which has the word “probably,” this video also directly instructs for the American English (AE) consonant speech sound P.
Ninety, 90, sovereign and non-sovereign entities have English for their official language including India, South Africa, Nigeria, to name a few. (See For more information on “other” Englishes, see http://www.cleartalkmastery.com/blog/2023/03/17/assessment-why-bother/.) However, the pronunciation for the consonant speech sound P is different in other Englishes than American English. The consonant sound for P in American English has a puff of air after the lips are pressed together. If listeners cannot hear that puff of air, they cannot accurately identify it as an American English sound for P. Instead, they are likely to perceive the AE speech sound for F.
To do “clear English speech,” perceptually enhance or make it very easy to hear the puff of air for AE. Make the puff of air loud.
For deliberate pactice here for the consonant sound for P, press your lips together firmly. That tension or stiffness will make the fast twitch muscles grow bigger, stronger. For American English proficiency and mastery, you want the stronger fast twitch muscle fibers in your lips.
Advice for proficiency of AE– practice many times!
That’s why I (Antonia Johnson) am posting this recommended sequence of English speech pronunciation video tutorials (also on YouTube)—to help you get lots of deliberate practice.
English speech proficiency is accuracy in words. In the Accent Reduction Tip Number 71 below, you get video and audio and direct and guided instruction for the AE consonant sound P for the word “anticipate.” Plus, you get coached on syllable pronouncing syllables clearly and accurately. “Clear Speech” is a style or mode of talking where each spoken syllable is clear, not slurred together, so the listener can hear each syllable. All syllables in English have a meaning.
Consider doing this video tip speech instruction (about 2 minutes) multiple times. Aim for AE accuracy each time. Of course, you are getting accuracy on many speech sounds when you deliberately practice words. Deliberate practice means your goal is to get better!
Proficiency?? There’s More to the Story!
Proficiency?? There’s More to the Story. Article 9
The burning question is: How Long Does It Take to Become Proficient for English Speech?
Here’s more of the story. Becoming highly proficient in AE (American English) speech communication includes more than skills for accurate pronunciation and enunciation of AE consonant and vowels. But the fact is, if you don’t have that, then the other proficiency skills are not worth a hill of beans.
Critical is that proficiency means mastering AE word syllable accent stress for multiple syllable words.
Critical is mastering AE voice inflection so your connected speech (sentences) are NOT monotone, flat and boring. Critical are the multiple voice inflection techniques to help listeners understand and remember your information. This is career changing. Experts consider voice inflection to be the critical communication skill to boosting your career.
Proficiency means being able to determine the pronunciation of unfamiliar multiple syllable words. Fact is, each profession has its own core vocabulary and employs other current vocabularies, such as from business, psychology, sociology, and tech, etc. So you need accurate pronunciation of many multiple syllable words for proficiency in English speaking communication.
The keystone here is mastery of dividing into syllables written words to be proficient in pronouncing unfamiliar multiple syllable words. Just so you know, there are eight basic rules for written words and the essential skill of recognizing roots.
Proficiency means being able to determine the meaning of words, especially multiple syllable words, with solid learning of roots, root words, stems and prefixes and suffixes which primarily come from proto-German, Norman French, French, and Latin origins. Sorry guys, English is a polyglot!
There are many levels of learning – skill sets—for proficient English communication. Proficiency includes mastering the most important presentation skills, including persuasive techniques. Notably, presentation skills are typically not taught in the U.S. until latter high school at the earliest, and college. Persuasive speech communication is university level learning.
Recall that numerous motor skills are best learned through extensive repetition of proper form—that’s deliberate practice. Proficiency in accurate, intelligible, and pleasing to the ear, easy to understand and remember information AE speech is also best learned through extensive repetition of “proper form” ( “It’s not practice makes perfect, but perfect practice makes perfect.”)
What does “best learned” mean? It’s what most people want — efficiency in time and long lasting learning.
So here is the deal. Based on our experience (more than 20 years) and expertise,(almost 1000 different human beings from more than 60 countries and first languages), our scientific assessments (pre course, mid course, and post course) , and our past and present deep academic research into multiple topics including motor skill development for the human body, motor skill development for speech (and English), English clear speech, deliberate practice, procedural learning (that’s what acquiring English speech is), linguistics, “deeper” learning, learning methodologies including mastery learning — Antonia Johnson simply loves to learn– we propose the following. Humans need to get perhaps 10 years of practice and likely 4,000 to 8,000 hours of practice under their belts to become highly proficient in American English speech communication.
Does this seem impossible? 10 years and likely between 4,000 and 8,000 hours of practice?
NOT!
Here’s why this is NOT impossible. What is important is how to calculate that “10 years of practice” and the likely between 4,000 and 8,000 hours of practice to become proficient in English speech communication.
DO THIS: include in your calculation your prior instruction in your home country and other English speech instruction perhaps in North America, or France, or Germany, etc. That might add up as much as 5 to 7 years. Then include the amount of time in hours of your taking every opportunity to deliver clear English speech communication in daily life, Then add in any other deliberate practice of clear English speech– maybe for getting ready for a presentation. All those hours count. Every deliberate practice in hours counts!
Fact is, you are closer to proficiency than you think.
Then take a concentrated look at your English speech communication skill. What is missing? Sometimes that self-analysis is painful. But do it.
THEN focus on what is missing or needs to be better..
Then remember this — Concentrated deliberate practice using the distributed practice schedule is the most efficient route to acquiring proficiency in English skill sets. The sequencing of those skill sets can make the mastery easy.
Moderate and high proficiency is the goal for high satisfaction for career and daily life.
Just so you know– minimum proficiency for most professions which use English is 50% whole word intelligibility. Is that proficiency? Not. And that is also why organizations are generally happy to finance or pay the tuition for efficient and long lasting instruction for English speech communication.
50% whole word intelligibility is minimum. Notably, 50% means that listeners are working hard to understand. Frustration and miscommunication are collateral damage at 50% intelligibility. That is recognized by the English talker and supervisors. (More later.)
How Long to Get Proficient English Speech?
How Long to get Proficient English Speech? Deliberate Practice –Article 8
One of the first questions most instructors for American English (AE) get from nonnative-born new students is : “How long is it going to take until I am proficient at speaking English.”
That simple question about how long does it take to become proficient (mastery) has been the subject of many years of research from foremost minds in the industry of motor skill development. Motor skill development is skill which involves brain and muscles/movement and a lot of research has been done for sports—a major pastime all over the world in which proficiency is highly valued for amateurs and professionals alike. Relatedly, mastering accurate and easy to understand American English speech is a motor skill—it takes brain and muscles.
The first to say to become an expert required about 10 years of experience was Herbert A. Simon (Nobel Prize 1976). He and his colleagues estimated that expertise was the result of learning about 50,000 chunks of information.
For motor skill high proficiency, a range of research shows 4,000 hours, some show 6,000 hours including Gibbons and Forster’s landmark study in “The Path to Excellence” for US Olympic athletes. All studies agree that a significant investment of time is required. Much of the debate about how many hours is required is due to lack of agreement between experts on what they consider practice (Rose, 2013).
One of our first student-learners had been practicing speaking American English two hours a day, five to seven days a week for months before he came to us. Initial whole word English speech intelligibility was about 34%. Gist of the problem was that this Arabic first language person did not know what to change. Like most of our student-learners, he had 5 to 7 years of English language learning in his home country.
Is all practice the same? Easy to see that if you practice inaccurate American English pronunciation for hours, there is no improvement in intelligibility.
Rose, 2013 described motor learning experts Ericcsson, Krampe and Tesch-Romer, 1993’s comprehensive review of what type of practice is best if human beings want to get better. Conclusion: the most effective learning occurs through doing highly structured activity defined as ‘deliberate practice.’ It’s totally opposite to ‘mindless practice.’
It’s easy to do mindless practice or to slip into mindless practice. A while back we had a student who made great progress for his first course, and subsequently was making very little progress on the next level of skills. Turned out he was spending less than 30 minutes on deliberate practice/homework in talking between coaching sessions and was spending most of his time ‘reviewing’ with his eyes only the previous coaching session’s work. Our recommendation is at least 30 minutes of deliberate practice/homework five days a week. That’s called distributed or spaced practice, which is widely agreed to be the best schedule of practice for procedural learning (learning to speak clear English is a kind of procedural learning). Later I will get back to that.
Ericsson defined deliberate practice as, “activities that have been specifically designed to improve the current level of performance. Deliberate practice requires effort and is not inherently enjoyable.” Rose adds, deliberate practice’s motivation is to get better.
Blanda, 2012 in Lifehacker further reported that “top performers select the difficult aspects of their work and repeat them endlessly until they are engrained as habit.” His example was the anecdote of Shaquille O’Neal practicing his free throws – his weak point rather than practicing slam dunks.
Deliberate practice is not inherently fun, like playing a game for a sport is fun. The renown mathematician Herbert Simon recognized both the importance of deliberate practice and the likelihood of boredom. The answer for him was the requirement that the teacher creatively design the deliberate practice activities to prevent boredom.
Rose also describes the Cote and May 2002 emphasis on the importance of deliberate play (as contrasted to deliberate practice) in the early years of elite athletes. (Also Bloom, 1985, Carlson, 1988). Deliberate play activities are those designed for enjoyment and have simple rules. Enjoyment is part and parcel for the long term involvement and deliberate practice for high proficiency of a skill.
Is deliberate play also a form of practice? Rose gives a definite, “Yes.”
How does all of this relate to becoming proficient at speaking clear English (intelligible and easy to understand English for everybody—native-born and nonnative-born speakers of English)?
To speed up learning, we recommend minimum deliberate practice of clear English speaking skills for at least 30 minutes a day and 5 days a week. To get better, aim for accuracy. “It’s not practice makes perfect, but perfect practice makes perfect, “ asserted Jack Nicklaus, one of the all-time great golf champions.
Since on average it takes 70 days to establish a habit, we do a course for three months, which is 10 weeks of learning and assessment and feedback. For more information on amount of years and hours to become highly proficient or fully master a skill (elite!) Link here to elite blog.
How to keep that deliberate practice from getting to be deadly boring? Our answer has many dimensions: Importantly, use variety of audio and video lessons and textbook for deliberate practice. Include phrases and sentences frequently needed and used in daily and work life. Include practice on sentences inherently interesting (wisdom and famous quotations). Also, vary the difficulty of the practice words and sentences, Notably, include the equivalent of deliberate play via conversation during each coaching session. Likewise for deliberate practice at home, include the task of clearly speaking answers to conversation questions of the ice breaking variety.
Take home message—to acquire proficiency in any motor skill takes a considerable amount of time. Best for efficient success is deliberate practice. Best for combatting boredom is variety and doses of “interesting.” That’s true also for acquiring proficiency in English speaking!
K and T English Sounds
We continue our series of recommended sequence for American English consonants and vowels. For practice this is Number 2.
Deliberately practice with this video with the intention of getting better. Don’t do this practice in a mindless manner. Just a couple of minutes.
This SECOND speech tip is our chosen one for systematic learning. It will help the muscle memory in your brain remember the four English consonants that are quick and have NO voice as a group (P, T, K, Ch).
Here’s the English speech sound K (often written as C) and the consonant sound for T.
In American English speech, speech sounds K and T have a loud puff of air.
Deliberately practice this word loudly, especially the consonants.
Deliberately make portions of your tongue stiff and tense— the back of your tongue stiff and tense for the consonant spelled c and pronounced K, and the front tip of your tongue tense and hard for the consonant T.
You get instruction for the American English short vowel A in this speech tutorial. That’s probably the most frequent error for vowels for nonnative-born speakers.
