How to Use the 80/20 Rule of Effectiveness to Learn English Effectively

The Pareto principle of effectiveness in building vocabulary in English The most important Useful information Useful information

"Focus on being productive instead of busy." - Tim Ferris

It is unclear from where the confidence that you can write an essay in English only by learning all English words by heart comes. As we know, a few thousand words are enough for writing and communicating in English, and if you start with the correct ones, then literally in a month you can start talking from scratch on simple topics. This brings us to the principle of Pareto efficiency - useful and easily applicable in the practice of learning written English.

The Pareto principle of effectiveness in building vocabulary in English

Take advantage of the famous Pareto principle of efficiency, according to which 20% of things create 80% of results. Focus on learning 20% of the words that are used in 80% of English conversations.

The 100 most common words in English make up nearly 50% of the words in written language. The 300 most common words make up 65% of text and can be used to express more than 70% of informational messages in writing. Therefore, it is very important that you first learn these particular words, and then expand your vocabulary as needed, without straining to memorize vocabulary from cover to cover.

After you have learned the 100 most common words, you will move on to the next step - the 300 most common words, then the 1000 most common words. By then, you will have words that make up over 85% of English conversations among native speakers. And if necessary, you can clearly and accurately express more than 97% of everything that you need, in writing or verbally.

The most important

Start learning words with a list of the most commonly used spoken and written words.
Expand your vocabulary as needed, and do not overwhelm your head with thematic lists of words that you are unlikely to ever use in everyday life or on an IELTS exam.