|
There is no single sensible answer to this question. It's impossible to count the number of words in a language, because it's so hard to decide what actually counts as a word. Is dog one word, or two (a noun meaning 'a kind of animal', and a verb meaning 'to follow persistently')? If we count it as two, then do we count inflections separately too (e.g. dogs = plural noun, dogs = present tense of the verb). Is dog-tired a word, or just two other words joined together? Is hot dog really two words, since it might also be written as hot-dog or even hotdog? 这个问题并没有一个简单而合理的答案。想要计算一种语言里有多少单词是不可能做到的，因为很难定义究竟什么才是一个单词。Dog究竟算一个单词还是两个（名词指一种动物，动词指长期跟随）？如果算作两个，那么我们是否也要把它的变型也单独计算（例如：复数名词dogs，第三人称单数现在时dogs）？Dog-tired（筋疲力尽）算一个单词还是两个连在一起的单词？既然Hot dog（热狗）可以被写成hot-dog甚至hotdog，它真的算两个单词吗？ It's also difficult to decide what counts as 'English'. What about medical and scientific terms? Latin words used in law, French words used in cooking, German words used in academic writing, Japanese words used in martial arts? Do you count Scots dialect? Teenage slang? Abbreviations? 同样，很难定义什么才算英语。医学和科学名词怎么办？法律中使用的拉丁词汇、烹饪中使用的法语词汇、学术写作中使用的德语词汇和武术中使用的日语词汇怎么办？苏格兰方言算不算？青少年的俚语呢？缩写呢？ | 
