語言文化博大精深，在英語的學習中，最讓人頭疼的就是英語里邊那龐大的詞匯量了。我們常說書山詞海，那數不盡的英語單詞仿佛像真的海一樣，往往讓人無措下手，甚至望而卻步。
雖說記憶單詞的方法有很多，但相對于海量龐大的英文單詞來說，方法再好也難免需要很多精力和時間。每每想到這，我都會很好奇：英語里一共有多少個英文單詞呢，為什么總感覺背不完？你是否也曾有過我這樣的好奇？
不過，好奇心這個東西，往往會影響人的實際行為，要不怎么會有好奇害死貓的說法呢？所以，懷揣著無比強烈的好奇心，我特地做了一番調查整理，下面咱們就一起來看看英語中一共有多少個英文單詞吧。
How many words are there in the English language?
英語里一共有多少單詞？
There is no single sensible answer to this question. It's impossible to count the number of words in alanguage, because it's so hard to decide what actually counts as a word.
這個問題并沒有一個簡單而合理的答案。想要計算一種語言里有多少單詞是不可能做到的，因為很難定義究竟什么才是一個單詞。
For example,Is dog one word,or two(a noun meaning 'a kind of animal', and a verbmeaning 'to follow persistently')?
例如，Dog究竟算一個單詞還是兩個？dog的名詞指一種動物，dog動詞指長期跟隨。
If we count it astwo,then do we count inflections separately too (e.g. dogs = plural noun, dogs = present tense of theverb).
如果算作兩個，那么我們是否也要把它的變型也單獨計算（eg：復數名詞dogs，第三人稱單數現在時dogs）？
Is dog-tired a word,or just two other wordsjoined together?Is hot dog really two words,since it might also be written as hot-dog or evenhotdog?
Dog-tired(筋疲力盡)算一個單詞還是兩個連在一起的單詞?既然Hot dog(熱狗)可以被寫成hot-dog甚至hotdog，它真的算兩個單詞嗎?
The Second Edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use, and 47,156 obsolete words.
長達20卷的《牛津英語詞典》第二版中有171476個仍在使用的單詞詞條，還有47156個廢棄單詞詞條。
To this may be added around 9,500 derivative words included as subentries.
此外還要加上約9500個派生詞作為詞條下面的分項。
Over half of these words are nouns,about a quarteradjectives,and about a seventh verbs;the rest is made up of exclamations,conjunctions,prepositions, suffixes,etc.
這些單詞中，超過半數是名詞，約四分之一的單詞是形容詞，七分之一左右的詞是動詞，剩下的是感嘆詞、連詞、介詞和詞綴等。
And these figures don't take account of entries with senses fordifferent word classes (such as noun and adjective).
這一數字并未把單詞的不同詞性(例如名詞和形容詞)分別計算。
This suggests that there are,at the very least, a quarter of a million distinct English words,excluding inflections,and words from technical and regional vocabulary not covered by the OED,or words not yet added to the published dictionary, of which perhaps 20 per cent are nolonger in current use.
這表明，英語中有至少25萬單詞，其中的20%可能已經不再使用。這25萬單詞中不包括變型、《牛津英語詞典》中不收錄的專業(yè)術語和地方方言、以及尚未被已出版詞典收錄的單詞。
If distinct senses were counted, the total would probably approach three quarters（接近四分之三） of a million.
如果要把同一單詞的不同含義分別計算，英語單詞的總數可能會接近75萬。
