Which language gives you more?
Pick up to 4 languages and see them measured against each other: how many words reach half of everyday speech, how much of the language the top 100 carries, and how steeply each frequency curve falls away.
Chinese–English subtitles (English side) Add a languageSide by side
The best value in each row is marked. Read across, not down.
| Measure | Chinese–English subtitles (English side) |
|---|---|
| Corpus size Tokens of subtitle dialogue counted. More data means a steadier ranking | 46.6M |
| Distinct word forms Unique surface forms found. A measure of morphology, not of quality | 231.1K |
| Words for half of speech Fewer is better. Less vocabulary buys more of the language | 116 |
| Words for 80% Entries needed to cover 80% of running text | 3,580 |
| Top 100 covers Share of all speech carried by the 100 most common entries | 48.1% |
| Top 10 covers Share carried by the ten most common entries alone | 18.4% |
| Whole list covers Share of running text the full ranked list accounts for | 83.9% |
| Promoted phrases Multi-word units ranked alongside single words | 1,288 |
| Average word length Characters per word across the top 1,000. Descriptive, not a virtue | 4.7 |
Where each language's weight sits
Share of running text carried by each band. A front-loaded language rewards a small vocabulary more.
| Band | Chinese–English subtitles (English side) |
|---|---|
| Top 100 | 48.1% |
| 101–500 | 17.9% |
| 501–1,000 | 5.7% |
| 1,001–2,000 | 4.8% |
| 2,001–4,000 | 4.1% |
| 4,001–8,000 | 3.3% |
The five most common words in each
Ranked within their own corpus, translated to English.
Chinese–English subtitles (English side)
- 1 you you
- 2 the the
- 3 i I
- 4 to to
- 5 a a
Choose languages to compare
Pick up to 4.1/4 selected
The first 23 are built from the same 2,166 films, so their rankings can be compared directly.