I use Puzzle-English like additional source training. I really love the “songs” section, I hope it will be updated! Even today I thought that it would be very interesting to take part in filling the service.
I also love the exercise section; unfortunately, I rarely get to watch the training videos themselves, but I enjoy going through the tasks! Thank you very much for your work!

Margarita,
26 years old, Moscow

• I really love learning English, and the Puzzle English website is truly the highest quality and thoughtful resource I have ever come across!!! I always feel a lot of gratitude to the creators and developers of the site for your work. What I like most is working with listening and videos, and in general, the fact that you can highlight any word and add it to your dictionary is, in my opinion, incredibly useful! Thank you very much!

  Violet,
  36 years old, Rostov-on-Don

• I have been striving to master English for a long time. I need it for study and work. I took courses and tried using various computer programs, but the results were not encouraging. I learned about Puzzle-English on the Internet. I liked the project. I decided to try it. Having already completed 50 lessons (listening, videos, TV series), I noticed that I began to understand quite well English speech aurally. This inspired me, because... I could almost independently understand lectures in English. In this, I believe that Puzzle-English helped me a lot. I continue to study English on Puzzle-English and I am sure that the results will be even better. Working out is interesting and exciting. Well done authors! We took a creative approach to creating a website - from idea to practical implementation. I am glad that the guys do not stop there, but are constantly improving and developing services.

  Igor Vayzyan,
  53 years old, Volzhsk

• I am a housewife, far from young, almost of pre-retirement age, and I SEEMS like I don’t need English anymore, and the meager school and institute base is enough for travel, BUT - having accidentally stumbled upon a puzzle-English website on the Internet, I plunged into it with something unexpected for myself pleasure. I don’t have a specific motive for learning the language, but almost every evening my hands type “Paz-In” on their own and I go to lessons and exercises. The idea of ​​​​a sentence constructor is so exciting that my daughter (9 years old) herself sits down with Peppa Pig and, now, for Mazzy, and asks me not to give any hints. Many thanks to the creators of the site, we are looking forward to new lessons and cartoons for girls. Good luck!

  Irina-yori,
  Moscow

• I mostly watch only TV series, first with Russian, then English subtitles on headphones. I check new words in the EN-Ru dictionary. I like grammar exercises and a variety of videos. The main thing is to do this every day. I’m trying to conduct a monologue in English to myself, using new words from Puzzle English. I want to learn English more and more.

  Victor,
  55 years old, Tolyatti

• I have been learning English for quite a long time, both independently and with tutors. But this gave almost no visible results: either it was boring, or the approach to studying was not correct. But since I got acquainted with Puzzle-English everything has changed. Thanks to this resource, in less than six months I began to freely understand spoken English and translate texts of average complexity. Learning on this site is interesting, fun and always accessible. The “Serials” section was especially effective for me. I thank the site developers for such a wonderful resource and a great opportunity to finally learn English!

  Sergey,
  24 years old, Kharkov

• In the evenings I like to sit in Puzzle English. I love the play space the site offers. I love singing songs, although they often change and sometimes I don’t even have time to remember or write them down. I love children's songs, especially since their author is a very talented musician. I like the series of programs about who lives in London and what. This greatly expands your horizons and gives you a lot of frequently used words in different versions. I liked the videos about Buddha and the Angkor Wat temple complex, I love the travel series. I liked the new Sherlock, the only thing I regretted was that there was no series about Poirot with David Suchet. The songs are the best. I began to understand English speech by ear, although if it is not native speakers who speak, but Asians, Latin Americans, Indians, I still I understand with difficulty. For me, this is gurgling in a cauldron... My vocabulary expanded and this was done playfully, without any tension. And I’m just happy to learn English on this site.

  Hera,
  Minsk

• I fell in love with the English language a long time ago during my school years. Unfortunately, when I was studying, we developed reading skills, so after school I read at a fairly good level, I understand about 80% of what is written. And such important skills as listening comprehension and speaking speech, was practically not taught at school, or was taught in limited quantities. I came across this site by chance about 2 years ago and I liked it for its gradation educational material for users with different skill levels. The audio clips presented on Puzzle English helped to significantly improve the listening comprehension of English speech, especially in films, because if you take news clips, the announcers speak very clearly and my level of listening comprehension reached 60-70% when watching such clips. And When watching films, usually all my words merged into an almost continuous stream and you can only make out individual familiar words. By watching films on this site and analyzing them in detail by phrases. On the second, third viewing, you already hear these phrases and remember what they are mean. And if you watch the film at least 10 times, the phrases are already spinning in your head and not only that, one might even say they roll off your tongue. Thanks to Alexander Antonov and his team for such a huge and necessary work, and most importantly for a not very large annual fee

  Vladislav,
  42 years old, Kyiv

• When I found out that in 5 years I would need a decent knowledge of English, I went on an Internet reconnaissance mission. This was in October 2012 and I had almost zero knowledge of English (basic reading rules, 3 simple tenses, 500 words of vocabulary as a result of all my previous attempts). After trying a bunch of sites, I ended up on Puzzle English... And I fell in love... Because that I found such a wonderful idea here, that I didn’t have to study in the classical sense, but could just play with words, trying to put them together in the right order. And to help, the translation is right next to the word, and the voice acting is right there, and it’s cool and clear. It’s great that the words are all in context and therefore are remembered much faster. And besides, the videos... After watching a bunch of different ones, I forever got rid of the fear of whether I could speak correctly in English, since I saw that straight people often use fairly free construction of sentences. When the movie appeared, I already understood the series by 50%, and TED by almost 90%. In a word, my results exceeded all my expectations about them. I recently passed an interview-test with teachers from the USA, which identified me as a strong Advanced. But it’s not even 2 years since I ended up on puz-eng. And all thanks to such a wonderful invention - not to study, but to PLAY folding puzzles. Super! Now I am sure that by staying with you, in a couple of years I will become proficient in English. I wish you to grow and develop, and I wish you the same.

  Irina,
  37 years old, Lviv

• Thank you very much for your site. Working with your website is very useful for developing listening skills. I have been learning English for many years, but understanding English has been my main problem. After studying on your site, I made a big leap in this area and began to understand English texts by ear much better. An important innovation of the site developers is interactive exercises - puzzles. They allow you not only to watch a video and read subtitles, but to actively act, making sentences from the words you listened to. The selection of videos and films is very impressive. Personally, I especially like popular science documentaries, a large number of which are available on the site. In the future, I would like to see on your website the series “Friends” (at least its first episodes) and classic English detective stories (such as, for example, “Inspector Morse” or “Inspector Lewis”), as well as films in which you can hear correct and competent English speech (“Royal English”). Also, in my opinion, it would be useful to create general table ranking of site participants so that they have the opportunity to compete with each other by being active. I would like to wish the site developers further success and further development this very useful undertaking.

  Alexander,
  54 years old, Moscow

• A huge THANK YOU to the entire Puzzle English team for such a wonderful project!! I studied English like everyone else: school, college, even some courses at work, I tried many sites, but there was no such result, I just “mumbled” something there, and nothing more)). About 1.5 years ago I accidentally came across Puzzle English, then the site was still very young, but from the first visit it attracted attention, I won’t lie, firstly, the price, compared to other sites, is VERY affordable, and secondly, such a variety of materials I haven’t seen this anywhere in Puzzle English and there are a large number of videos different levels, grammar exercises, service series (truly a unique service). Thirdly, you can study at any time convenient for you. It is also worth noting that the site is aimed at Russian-speaking people learning English and all explanations of the material take place in the RUSSIAN LANGUAGE, which is important if your level of knowledge of the language is not so high... In this regard, I would like to note one more interesting thing “thing” as “Tips-secrets”, personally I learned a lot of useful things from them!! After 1.5 years spent with Puzzle English, I’m finally starting to speak English, and not “moo” as before, the fear of communicating with native speakers has passed, before that I was always afraid of seeming stupid and avoided communication, I have improved my ability to perceive the language by ear . In general, we can talk for a very long time about this project, but it's better to try!! Once again I would like to express my gratitude to those who are working on the project. I am very pleased with the way the whole process is organized. Administrators work very efficiently and quickly, the site is constantly developing. I would like to wish a long life to the project!!

  Anton,
  28 years old, Khabarovsk

• I usually don’t write reviews, I don’t like it (and maybe I don’t know how). But for my favorite site Puzzle-English I will make an exception :-) In my opinion, Puzzle-English is the best site for self-learning English, and even in a playful way. There is never a dull moment on the site; you can always choose a video to your liking, regardless of your level of language proficiency. The site will be of interest to both beginners and experienced students: in front of you is a huge catalog of cute songs for children, cartoons, musical hits, thundering all over the world, speeches by famous artists and politicians, fragments of TV shows, educational videos and other videos of varying levels of complexity. Your task is to listen to part of the video, try to hear the phrase clearly and assemble a mosaic of its words. I treat this service as a game, entertainment, when I want to take a break from my main work and relax for ten minutes, I just go to Puzzle-English and collect the video I like. With songs observed interesting effect, when you UNDERSTAND what this song is about.. Those who are interested in English grammar can go to the exercises section and practice the chosen topic, collecting specially selected sentences, of course, first listening to a short theoretical video explaining the intricacies of this topic. All phrases in this section are voiced by a narrator. The Puzzle-English website has a unique “Serials” service. Before you are several dozen episodes of famous TV series and programs: “Two and a Half Men”, “Sherlock”, “ Big hopes", "Life on Mars", TED conference speeches, etc. You just watch your favorite TV series, and in difficult moments you press pause and you have the opportunity to read the script of the episode, listen to the phrase again, watch a video explanation of slang expressions and words. If you are a beginner, you can set subtitles to display in English and/or Russian. The site has a built-in player specially designed, and therefore convenient, for learning the language. All unfamiliar words can be placed in a “personal dictionary”. It is noteworthy that in addition to the word, the dictionary contains a corresponding phrase with a translation into Russian. And in the end I want to recommend you the Puzzle-English channel on YouTube, the guys share tips there self-study languages, and the entire collection of educational videos of the site is collected there. PS. In order to use the site, you do not have to be a user with a paid account. Many sections can be used for free, but an annoying sign with a payment offer will be displayed all the time. P.P.S. And yet, I urge you to pay for the site’s services, this money will help make the site even better, and its creators deserve to be paid for their work, in addition, a lot of additional opportunities will open up for you.

  Inga,
  hero city Sevastopol

• When I started learning English in the eighteenth last century we had only boring and incomprehensible English manuals. At that time didn't exist the mp3 players, smartphones and laptops. I remembered even how People lived without the internet. And If I"d such stuff earlier, I"d was probably speaking English fluently now and could understand the English speech, movies and songs. Modernity has given us awesome facilities to study English. We can read the authentic books and newspapers, hear the English songs and audio books, watch the foreign movies and TV, communicate with native speakers. But we haven"t any time to practice this. Because I was glad when I found the site Puzzle English. On this website you can take a maximum of English stuff for yourself and spend a minimum of your time. Where are huge plenty of useful and interested English lessons, exercises, TV"s serials and so long. All of the ones were carefully prepared for education purpose. You can instantly find translation and pronunciation each English word or phrase and add one in your private vocabulary to try it later. All workouts are doing easy and fast. And I"m visiting on every day this site to improve my English language. Of course I use not only this website, but Puzzle English is my favorite one. And I hope with Puzzle English my awful English will have been reached the perfection.

  Vladimir Shchepkov,
  49 years old, Sergiev Posad

Every even remotely serious lover of anything in the world sooner or later has a desire to measure his collection: in money, in volume, in quantity... The philatelist carefully blows the dust off the hundredth stamp in the album, Henry Ford polishes the new one to a shine tire, Rockefeller looks at the number of zeros in the amount stored in the bank, etc. How to be an English lover? Love for English can also be measured. The hours devoted to studying? Words that make up an active vocabulary!

Supplies vary

No, not firewood for the winter and not sweets under the pillow, as you already understood, but English words in the lexicon. There is nothing shameful or boastful about measuring your vocabulary: after all, there is no limit to perfection, but there are intermediate stages along the way.

Statistics, supported by practice, say that to freely express your thoughts in English you only need 2000 words. Statistics, also supported by optimism, put the figure at 1000-1500 words, and the creators of Basic English are wizards and ours best friends- only 850 words. Realists and optimists, hold off on your skepticism! Basic English is divided into thematic groups words (objects and phenomena, actions and movements, expression of qualities) - original selections of the most hit copies from each category. Essentially, frequently used, mostly monosyllabic words (514 out of 850), easy to memorize and pronounce, were selected.

We would like to ask everyone who relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief after the figures were announced: what do you personally mean by the concept of “expressing yourself freely”? Of course, asking for a window seat at an airport check-in counter or ordering a veal chop at a restaurant requires 2,000 words. Diving begins where, when answering a question, you do not understand the meaning of the unfamiliar words spoken or cannot talk about specific gastronomic preferences in the company of gourmets. And then we multiply 2000 by two and get 4000 words, which will certainly allow you not to lose face and keep up your conversation in English.

One more nuance: so far we have been talking about active vocabulary, i.e. layer of those words that you regularly use when speaking. What you once wrote down in a dictionary and, on occasion, perhaps (!) remember the meaning, is called passive stock - words that you seem to know, but most lie on the shelves of memory under a layer of dust. Yes, they fall into the general standings, but they don’t bring any special dividends.

Perfectionists hungry for more! Outside the language environment, learning the 8,000 words that make up the active vocabulary of an English-speaking citizen is quite difficult. It is possible, of course, but with great energy consumption, diligence and methodicality. With a luggage of 4-5 thousand words, you can safely pack your bags to Britain, the USA or Canada, where you are doomed to expand your vocabulary to the treasured 8-10 thousand units.

Gradations of vocabulary

Or how much is needed for complete happiness? You can start with the top 10 or top 100 words in the English language and be happy. A selection of the most commonly used English words around the world will set the desired vector for replenishing your vocabulary. And we again pick up a ruler and return to simple arithmetic, this time introducing you to gradations (types) of vocabulary.

400-500 words of active vocabulary - a passport to the world of English and a certificate of language proficiency at a basic level
. 800-1000 “active” words will give you the opportunity to explain yourself and speak in household topics, the same volume of “passives” will allow you to read simple texts
. 1500-2000 words of “assets” will reward you with the opportunity to freely communicate throughout the day or the same amount of “passives” - confident reading of more complex texts
. 3000-4000 words bring you closer to almost fluent reading of newspapers or books and magazines in your specialty
. 8000 words guarantee full communication for the average European. This is also enough for free reading and expressing thoughts in writing.
. up to 13,000 words characterize a highly educated person learning English as a foreign language.

How to determine and test English vocabulary?

Find out on the accounts? Marking familiar words in the dictionary? Let's not reinvent the wheel and borrow an answer from the creators of a test that can weigh your vocabulary in 2-3 minutes with an error of up to 10%. There will be a link to the test in a minute, but for now there will be brief instructions on how to use it and the answer to the question “how does it work.”

The developers took a dictionary of 70,000 words as a basis, discarded outdated, compound words, scientific terms and derivatives of each other, resulting in 45,000. Then they sorted them by frequency of use, sincerely admitting that the last 10,000 out of 45,000 are extremely rare, so even a respectable Briton may not feel remorse without ever using them in his life. From the English vocabulary test, words whose meaning could be obtained through logic were excluded.

The entire test consists of two pages: each contains English words in several columns without any logical sequence. If you know at least one of the possible meanings of a word, then confidently put a tick next to it. The task is the same on two pages, only on the second the program selects words from unfamiliar ones from the first page, as if wanting to make sure whether you really don’t know them. No sleight of hand, no cheating: the only condition is to be honest with yourself and not overdo the number of checkmarks.

We invite you to take the test for a couple of minutes, and then return to our article for a debriefing. We have already prepared a line :)

We measure ourselves by results

And now you are left alone with your test result. How did others cope? Statistics collected after passing this test say that among non-native speakers, the majority of respondents ended up with between 3 and 7 thousand words. There are noticeably fewer holders of 7-10 thousand words and even fewer from 11 to 30 thousand (strangely enough, even 30-thousand people paid attention to this test).

Among those for whom English is native, the situation looks different: a cosmic vocabulary of 30 thousand words for non-native speakers is the norm for 30-year-old English-speaking friends. Average result the previous category 3-7 thousand is typical for children 5-6 years old. Do not forget that it is precisely at this age that the world is actively being explored and the entire surrounding family with 30 thousand deposits around is actively not silent.

Let's sum it up

The richer the vocabulary, the easier it is to express oneself in foreign language and understand it by ear. Good vocabulary is the basis correct speech. We invite you to take a test on your knowledge of English words and determine what level you are at now.

If you score more than 15 points, congratulations, your level of knowledge of English words is intermediate. This is enough for communication, but you should still continue to learn new vocabulary. If the result is less than 14 points, we recommend high-quality materials for effective memorization of words on the website.

Online test for knowledge of English words

Question 1 of 20

I want to… in the village, in a big house.

His... is a very kind girl.

Do you… any money? I need 10 dollars.

When I … a child I liked ice-cream.

…is a large stone on the road. Be careful!

Every… I watch TV to know the latest news.

Our... is not big, only my parents and me.

When I … in the morning I usually go jogging.

It's 2 o'clock. It’s time to have… .

My mum is very… and caring.

…are you so angry? - I missed my train.

Nick doesn't have... friends. He should be more sociable.

The box is too…. I cannot even lift it!

What time do you… for Moscow? - The train is at 9.

Guess what? I…a new car yesterday!

It… to me that we’ll lose this game.

What are you...for? Come on in!

… it’s not my bag. Perhaps, I left mine at the airport.

The main… of living in the city is traffic jams.

I think … should pay more attention to the problem of homeless animals.

Continue

To continue the test, select one of the answer options.

You answered correctly
18 questions out of 20

Your result:

Oops!... Two points(((Hurry up and start learning English with the online tutorial Lim English. With it you are guaranteed to get results.

“Satisfactory.” Start learning English with the online tutorial Lim English using the unique method of Oleg Limansky. The result will not be long in coming!

“Okay” Congratulations! You are not bad at English language within the selected level. Start learning English with the online tutorial Lim-English using the unique method of Oleg Limansky. With it you are guaranteed to improve your knowledge.

Congratulations! This is an excellent result. You have excellent command of English within the chosen level. You have a great opportunity to raise your level with the Lim-English online tutorial. You will get daily practice.

Excellent result! You have excellent command of English within the chosen level. There is no limit to perfection, use the Lim-English online tutorial - this is a great way to always be in shape. Test your strengths in our advanced courses.

Incorrect answers:

Question No. (1)
Your answer: (2)
Correct answer: (3)