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How many German words should one know to read fluently German newspapers?


Eugene111

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It also depends on a newspaper. For something like Bild you need a smaller vocabulary than for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Der Spiegel is somewhere in between these two.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Mix, hi!

Ever since reading your post on April 15, I've switched from reading SPIEGEL to reading Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (thanks for the hint!!!). Based on my 11-day experience with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, I'd say that the amount of vocabulary required to read an article is more determined by its topic than by the general writing style of either SPIEGEL or Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

In Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung there're indeed truly formiddable articles, especially in their "Travel" section. Also difficult are rather technical articles, like this one about insurance companies: "Ewig einzahlen, wenig bekommen" (http://www.faz.net/aktuell/finanzen/meine-finanzen/vermoegensfragen/viele-private-rentenversicherungen-sind-unrentabel-13557409.html). I'm not sure a SPIEGEL article on the same topic would be much easier. But the article "Tsipras bittet Merkel am Telefon um Geld" (http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/griechenland-in-not-tsipras-bittet-merkel-am-telefon-um-geld-13560884.html) is a piece of cake. And there're quite a few articles like this in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Just as there're in SPIEGEL.

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Lushlala, I noticed in your other postings on this forum that you also speak French. How long did it take you to learn French? Do you read French newspapers? If so, do you have to use the dictionary--if so, how often?

Hey Eugene111! To be perfectly honest with you, my French has really taken a hit and is very rusty :( I don't do anything with it at  the moment, let alone read anything in French. It has well and truly taken a back seat.

I studied it all through uni for 5 years and also did a 3 month stint at a university in France. When I did used to speak half decent French, I used the French-English dictionary ALL THE TIME LOL I always wrote better than I spoke it. My plan is to get back on my feet and start lessons again :)

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  • 1 month later...

Just an update on the number of German words required to read German newspapers:

I posted the original question on March 10, 2015 and back then my self-compiled German-English dictionary contained 15560 words. Today I added to the list the word number 18000.

But not much has changed with regard to my German proficiency over the past 3 months. I still keep on writing out 20-30 unfamiliar German words per day. I just finished reading a 1400-word-long article from Die Welt (German newspaper) about the German language (http://www.welt.de/kultur/article124064744/Die-deutsche-Sprache-hat-5-3-Millionen-Woerter.html). I have spent over 3 hours reading it and wrote out 23 new German words. In case you're also learning German and are wondering what these 23 words are that have evaded me for the past 15 months, I attach the list on 2 screenshots below.

By the way, according to the article I've just read, there are about 70.000 general-vocabulary words in German. In the "Large Dictionary of the German Language" ("Große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache"), there are about 200.000 words. The total number of words in German is estimated to be between 300.000 and 500.000, including technical terms, slang and regional dialects.

For comparison: Oxford Dictionary of English contains about 620.000.

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