[General] Vocabulary vs Vocabularies

[Icha Hariani Susanti]

Hi, there... I get confused about the difference between vocabulary and vocabularies. Which one is correct? Can you give explanations and examples? Thanks.

 

[emsr2d2]

Welcome to the forum. :hi:

What differences have you found by looking in dictionaries and/or Googling? We don't give examples here in the first instance - you do, so please give us some complete sentences in which you are not sure whether to use the singular or the plural.

 

[Tdol]

I use vocabulary.

 

[bubbha]

I need to improve my Chinese vocabulary.

I studied the vocabularies of French, German, and Hungarian.

I learned a new vocabulary word in my Indonesian class: "putih".

 

[Raymott]

A vocabulary can be a list of words used for a particular topic.
"Write a short essay using the vocabulary listed at the end of the chapter."
"The vocabulary of medicine is difficult to learn."

However, vocabularies are not words. This is a common mistake that we get here occasionally. "I have learned 20 new vocabularies today". This is an error if it means 20 new words.

 

[Tdol]

I need to improve my Chinese vocabulary.

I studied the vocabularies of French, German, and Hungarian.

I learned a new vocabulary word in my Indonesian class: "putih".

The plural can be used in some contexts, but many learners think it refers to the number of words they learn.

And, unless you learned the lot, I do think that I studied French, German, and Hungarian vocabulary works better.