12.6 Review — 6,000 words — Epoché
What this lesson reviews The vocabulary of the whole course, measured. A learner at C1 needs to understand roughly the 6,000 most frequent words of the language and to know how to fill the gaps. This lesson does three things: it tells you how much of the frequent vocabulary of German this course has taught you, it tests whether you still know words from the vocabulary lessons of the last three phases, and it gives you thirty of the most frequent German words that the course has not yet taught you as headwords, so that you can close the largest gaps first. Sentences from this lesson, before the explanation. Read the German aloud; all of them come back below. German English Unsere Zusammenarbeit ist fruchtbar gewesen. [1] Our collaboration was fruitful. Die Dinosaurier sind vor langer Zeit ausgestorben. [2] Dinosaurs died out a very long time ago. Manchmal kann eine kleine Änderung große Auswirkungen haben. [3] Sometimes, a small change can have a big effect. Er ist wegen unzureichender Vorbereitung bei der Prüfung durchgefallen. [4] He failed the exam because of a lack of preparation. Sie ist genauso schüchtern wie ich. [5] She is just as shy as me. Normalerweise verbringen wir den Sonntag außerhalb der Stadt. [6] We usually spend Sunday outside the city. Jetzt ist ein genauso guter Zeitpunkt wie jeder andere. [7] Now is as good a time as any. Prerequisites : 12.5 — and in practice all the vocabulary lessons of volume 5, especially 5.14 Vocabulary to 5.34 Vocabulary . How much the course covers The figures were measured while this lesson was written, on the 238 lessons that came before it. Across them the course has taught 3,187 different headwords with dictionary entries, examples and translations. Many more words appear in the readings, the grammar examples and the corpus sentences: in all, the German text of the course contains about 26,000 different word forms. To compare this with real German, we took the list of the most frequent German word forms from wordfreq , an open-source collection of word frequencies compiled by Robyn Speer from modern written and online German, removed English words, abbreviations of one or two letters, and the double spellings with ss and ß , and checked which of the words appear anywhere in the course. The result: 97.8 percent of the 1,000 most frequent words, 95.1 percent of the 2,000, 87.6 percent of the 4,000 and 81.0 percent of the 6,000 most frequent words occur in the course at least once. Two cautions. First, a word that occurs once is not a word you know; the figures measure what the course has shown you, not what you have learned. Second, the frequency list comes from the internet and newspapers, so it contains many names, brands and words of sport and politics that a literary course rarely meets. Among the gaps that remain, the most useful are words of everyday public language: mittlerweile , derzeit , Unterstützung , Zusammenarbeit , Auswirkung . They are the subject of the word list below. Twenty sentences One example sentence from each of twenty vocabulary lessons of the last three phases. Translate each sentence and name the word that the lesson taught; the answers give the word and the lesson. German English Er ist Rechtsanwalt. [8] He's an attorney. Der Handel hilft unserer Wirtschaft. [9] Commerce helps our economy. Kinder mögen Märchen. [10] Children like fairy tales. Sie forschen an Krebs. [11] They are engaged in cancer research. Bitte sei vernünftig. [12] Please be reasonable. Das Kätzchen schlummert. [13] The kitten is taking a nap. Sie war unglücklich. [14] She was unhappy. Das reimt sich. [15] That rhymes. Das wäre ironisch, oder? [16] That would be ironic, wouldn't it? Er hat nichts falsch gemacht; gleichwohl wurde er hart bestraft. [17] He did nothing wrong; all the same, he was severely punished. Der Fürst und der Hofnarr hatten viel gemeinsam. [18] The prince and the jester had a lot in common. Fass es ruhig mal an. [19] Come on, touch it. Man muss nicht promovieren, um einen guten Job zu bekommen. [20] You don't have to get a PhD to get a good job. Ich habe keine Vorstellung, womit es Ähnlichkeit hat. [21] I have no idea of what it is like. Ich studiere Kunstgeschichte. [22] I'm studying art history. Ich mache meine Steuererklärung selber. [23] I do my own taxes. Wo befindet sich die Redaktion dieser Zeitung? [24] Where's the newsroom of this newspaper? Pass auf! Der Gehsteig ist rutschig. [25] Watch out! The pavement's slippery. Sherlock Holmes rieb sich vor Entzücken die Hände. [26] Sherlock Holmes rubbed his hands with delight. Die Säuglinge schreien. [27] The babies are screaming. Thirty frequent gaps Thirty of the most frequent German words that the course has not yet taught you as headwords, in four groups. A few of them may have turned up in passing in a sentence. Most of them belong to the formal, public language of newspapers, offices and work. Adverbs of time and manner Word (article, plural) Meaning Notes mittlerweile de meanwhile; by now Gender / part of speech adverb How English differs Mittlerweile is now as the result of a change. Dinosaurier sind mittlerweile ausgestorben. [28] Dinosaurs are now extinct. genauso de just as, exactly the same Gender / part of speech adverb How English differs genauso gut , just as good . Ich genauso wenig. [29] I don't, either. erneut de again, renewed Gender / part of speech adverb, adjective How English differs Formal; everyday wieder . Er hustete erneut. [30] He coughed again. derzeit de at present Gender / part of speech adverb How English differs Formal; everyday zurzeit or gerade . Wo arbeitest du derzeit? [31] Where do you work now? erstmals de for the first time Gender / part of speech adverb How English differs Formal; everyday zum ersten Mal . Dieses Buch wurde erstmals im vergangenen Jahr veröffentlicht. [32] This book was first published in the previous year. momentan de at the moment Gender / part of speech adverb, adjective How English differs momentan is also momen