How many words are there in the English language?

英语里一共有多少单词?

There is no single sensible answer to this question.It's impossible to count the number of words in alanguage, because it's so hard to decide whatactually counts as a word. Is dog one word, or two(a noun meaning 'a kind of animal', and a verbmeaning 'to follow persistently')? If we count it astwo, then do we count inflections separately too(e.g. dogs = plural noun, dogs = present tense ofthe verb). Is dog-tired a word, or just two otherwords joined together? Is hot dog really two words, since it might also be written as hot-dog oreven 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 academicwriting, Japanese words used in martial arts? Do you count Scots dialect? Teenage slang?Abbreviations?

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