I'm curious to see how much vocab each of us currently knows compares to how much we comprehend. For this, I mean in terms of at least reading, and listening if you can do that as well. I figure this is more productive than another "How many do I need to know to do X" and getting a lot of ESID, "it depends" type answers. Here, we're just sharing our current experiences.
Also, in this case, I count not only single words, but also different meanings of a word (like 気 and かけるhave a million each), as well as short "phrases" that function more more less as words (like 気に入る) as their own separate "vocab" since it was something I didn't know that wasn't kanji or grammar.
Obviously, grammar is also a factor for comprehension, as is total immersion time, but the point of this is primarily to compare a single variable first, namely, passive vocab.
Vocab level: In my case, in Anki my vocab deck is currently just over 11k words.
Comprehension level: I can follow easier manga like Pokémon Adventures, though I still miss details here and there and there are often several words per page that I don't know. I was surprisingly better at following Pokémon Origins w/subs and pausing than I was at reading Pokémon Adventures when it came to vocab. Naturally, content that I've mined already gives me few problems.
Bonus – Grammar: I suspect that my grammar comprehension is "ahead" of my vocab level because 19/20 I don't know something, it's vocab, not grammar.
Bonus – Kanji: Occasionally a new kanji (currently around 1900) will also be to blame. I can occasionally intuit the meaning of unknown words just well enough for it to not block sentence comprehension altogether thanks to kanji and context in the sentence.
Bonus – Comparative comprehension: At this point it feels like for Japanese I need at least double the vocab that I needed for Spanish to be at the same level of comprehension. By 11k Spanish, I was weeeell into comfortably watching shows and listening to native podcasts like The Wild Project (despite the name it is Spanish) without issue. Where I'm currently at feels like more or less 4-5k Spanish vocab felt like in terms of coming across words I don't know.
by linkofinsanity19