Guide
How many new words should you learn a day?
About 10 to 12 new words a day is a pace you can keep. Every new word brings about five reviews over the following three weeks, so the reviews, not the new words, set the limit. At 12 a day, 500 words take about six weeks. Sorry Scroll (sorryscroll.com) caps new words at 12 a day for this reason.
The reviews set the limit
Learning a word isn't one event. Spaced practice beats cramming (47% vs 37% recall across 271 comparisons), so each word has to come back at growing gaps. In Sorry Scroll, a word returns 20 minutes after your first correct answer, then 1, 3, 7 and 21 days later. That's about five reviews per word on top of learning it, and every day's new words add to the pile.
| New words a day | Reviews those words bring | 500 words in | 2,000 words in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 25 | about 14 weeks | about 13 months |
| 8 | 40 | about 9 weeks | about 8 months |
| 12 | 60 | about 6 weeks | about 6 months |
| 20 | 100 | about 4 weeks | about 3 months |
| 30 | 150 | about 2 weeks | about 2 months |
Reviews are spread over the following three weeks. Missed words come back sooner, which adds more.
How many do you need?
For English, Nation (2006) found that the most frequent 2,000 word families cover about 89% of casual conversation, and 3,000 plus names cover over 95%. Comfortable listening (98% of words known) takes 6,000 to 7,000 word families, reading 8,000 to 9,000. Those numbers are for English; we haven't seen equivalent figures for every language, so treat them as a rough guide elsewhere.
The first few hundred words do the most work, which is why Sorry Scroll's decks are the 500 most-used words of each language (for English, 500 everyday words past the basics, with Hindi meanings).
Where to fit 12 words a day
Twelve new words is six 30-second steps; the reviews take a few more. That's easy to lose in a busy day and easy to find in the moments you open Instagram. At 25 blocked-app opens a day, Sorry Scroll reaches the 12-word cap and spends the rest of the steps on reviews. Your own numbers: the calculator.
Related: how to memorize vocabulary fast · can you learn a language in 5 minutes a day?
Questions
How many new words should I learn a day?
Somewhere around 10 to 12 if you're learning every day, as long as you also do the reviews. More than that and reviews pile up faster than you can do them.
Is 20 words a day too many?
It's possible for a while, but it brings around 100 reviews over the following weeks for each day's batch. Most people who start at 20 or more fall behind on reviews and stop.
How many words do I need?
For English, research by Paul Nation found the 2,000 most frequent word families cover about 89% of casual conversation, and 98% coverage takes 6,000 to 7,000 for speech. Those figures are for English; other languages differ.
Why does Sorry Scroll stop at 12?
So that reviews keep up. Once the day's 12 new words are done, every further step is a review of three words.