Het Begrip Van Teksten Met 10% tot 25% Onbekende Woorden

This article describes two small scale studies aimed at defining the number of words necessary for comprehension.of written texts in the native language (Dutch) and in two foreign languages (English and French) In the literature one finds coverage percentages varying from 75% for global comprehension to 98% for almost complete comprehension. The subjects in these studies were students from different age groups and different learning backgrounds (HAVO-4, VWO-5 and university). It is concluded that it is not so much the knowledge of the language as the age and the greater knowledge of the world that account for the difference in scores.