There are some serious problems with the crude calculations used in this study. First, they assume that the input is comprehensible so that learners can learn from it. We know however that learners need a vocabulary size of around 7000 or 8000 words before unsimplified written input is likely to be comprehensible without outside support such as a dictionary (Nation, 2006). Similarly, learners need a vocabulary size of around 6000 words before movies become comprehensible input, although Webb and Rodgers (2009) argue that 3000 words may be sufficient. However, the more vocabulary known, the better comprehension is likely to be (Schmitt, Jiang,& Grabe, 2011).
http://nflrc.lll.hawaii.edu/rfl/October2014/articles/nation.pdf
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