Free tool
English vocabulary test
A vocabulary size test, not a grammar quiz. Tap every word you actually know. After about forty words you get an estimate of your total English vocabulary, your CEFR level and the percentile you land in. Two minutes, no sign-up, nothing leaves your browser.
Words seen: 0
Mark the ones you recognise
Some of these words are invented. Marking them as known lowers your honesty score, so skip anything you are not sure about.
Your estimated vocabulary
0
- CEFR level
- A1
- You rank in
- top 50%
- of English learners
- Honesty score
- 100
- no fake words claimed
Where your words sit
Track this over time
The Android app runs the same test with a bigger word pool, keeps your history, and turns the words you missed into a picture quiz with spaced repetition. Works offline, 16 interface languages.
How the estimate works
English words are not equally common. "Water" turns up constantly, "wane" rarely, "quixotic" almost never. Vocabulary research splits the language into frequency bands and samples a handful of words from each one, because checking a random 40 words from a dictionary would tell you almost nothing.
This test uses six bands that line up with the CEFR levels, from the first thousand word families up to the rarest twenty thousand. If you know 3 of the 5 words sampled from a band worth 5,000 word families, that band contributes 3,000 to your total. Add the bands up and you have the estimate. The test also adapts: recognise most of a page and the next one gets harder, miss most of it and it backs off, so the sampling concentrates around your actual level instead of wasting words at the extremes.
Why the fake words matter
Ask people whether they know a word and a fair number will say yes to anything. Every page here carries one invented word built from real English patterns, like "prondal" or "skurge". They exist only to catch that reflex. Claim none and your estimate stands. Claim several and the honesty score drops, which is your signal that the number is flattering you.
What the result means
The number counts word families, so "run", "runs", "running" and "ran" are one item rather than four. It measures recognition, which is always well ahead of the vocabulary you actually produce in conversation. Around 3,000 frequent word families already cover roughly 95% of everyday English, which is why people reach comfortable fluency long before their count looks impressive.
For the research behind the numbers, read how many English words the average person knows . For what your result means at each level, see vocabulary size by CEFR level , average vocabulary size by age and how the native speaker gap breaks down .
Questions people ask
How many English words do I know?
Nobody counts their own vocabulary by hand. This test samples words from six frequency bands, checks which ones you recognise, and scales each band up to its real size. Forty words is enough for an estimate within a few hundred word families.
How accurate is this vocabulary size test?
The sampling method is the same one used in vocabulary research: recognition checks across frequency bands, then extrapolation. Accuracy depends on how honest you are, so the test mixes in fake words that look English but are not. Claiming those pushes your honesty score down and tells you the estimate is inflated.
What CEFR level does my vocabulary size mean?
Roughly: under 1,500 word families is A1, 1,500 is A2, 2,750 is B1, 3,250 is B2, 5,000 is C1 and 10,000 or more is C2. These are ranges rather than hard borders, since vocabulary is only one part of a CEFR level.
What counts as knowing a word?
Recognition, not usage. If you would understand the word while reading and could give a rough meaning, mark it as known. Your receptive vocabulary is normally two to three times larger than the words you actively use in speech.
How many words does a native speaker know?
An adult native English speaker recognises somewhere around 15,000 to 20,000 word families, and a heavy reader can reach about 30,000. A learner at B2 or C1 usually lands between 4,000 and 9,000.
Is the test free and does it store my answers?
Free, and everything runs in your browser. No account, no upload, nothing stored on a server. Reload the page and the test starts over.