Scott

Message: 8490 From: Scott Thornbury Received: Do Apr 28, 2005 8:00 Subject: Re: EfromZ: 2000 words

I've often be known to say - with the tongue not entirely in the cheek - that the most useful thing a language learner could do first is learn the top 3000 most useful words in English. At 10 words a day, with Sundays off and a break at Xmas, this would take about a year. Having learned them, they would then come back (to class) and start using them. It was a source of annoyance to me, however, that these top words were nowhere to be found, unless you combed through a dictionary taking out all the words marked in red (or whatever coding system the dictionary uses for frequency). Now, however, the latest edition (2005) of the Oxford (OALD) has what they call the Oxford 3000 (c) in the back. (I like to think this was partly my doing). If anyone wants to read my articles on the subject, I'll happily place them in the files. S.