A recent discussion over at the LingQ forums caught my attention because it begins to get at the question that I’m sure plagues language learners of all persuasions at one time or another: how many words do you need to become “fluent” in a language?

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Today, as I was entering new words into my Anki “flash-card memory software” (is that really a category of sofware?), I saw that my list of entered words has now grown to 800.  I sat back for a second, and enjoyed the momentary feeling of accomplishment.  A few months ago, I felt like I could barely say anything in Bosnian, and now (while I still might feel that way sometimes) I have a pretty good list of words I am supposed to know.  But then I started thinking… what can you really do with 800 words?

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