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Suppose I was born and use AAA as a native language, then later I want to learn BBB language. It is pretty straightforward that when I encounter an unknown word in BBB, I can look up the word using BBB->AAA dictionary. But then I realized that when I don't know a word in AAA, I can just use AAA->AAA dictionary just fine. Why not I try to use BBB->BBB dictionary too...

So, how many "basic" words in BBB language should I acquired in order to look up the dictionary in that language, the BBB->BBB dictionary? Are there a comprehensive list of those "basic" words?

For example, if I don't know the meaning of "heart", and the dictionary said it is "an organ to pump blood". But now I don't know the word "blood" too, so I look it up and see its definition as "liquid pumped by heart". That would be a mutual definition, which don't help me in actually understand the word "heart" and "blood" at all. So either "heart" or "blood" is a basic word which I must known before using this dictionary. (I guess the real dictionary would avoid this as much as possible???)

neizod
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    There are many types of dictionaries. For your situation you may want to look into a "learner's dictionary", or "ESL dictionary", "beginner's dictionary" or similar nomenclature. Rather than focus on "number of words", it'd probably be more useful if you read a few few random definitions for words that you already know, and see if you can understand the description of that word. If you can't understand what the definition means for words that you already know, then I suppose you'd also have a hard time figuring out what the definitions of unknown words are trying to say. – Brandin Mar 18 '24 at 14:51
  • @Brandin That would make for a fine answer to the question. – Tommi Mar 19 '24 at 18:06

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