[pavlov]

I got a score of 26,000. I'm Finnish, and actually learned French as a second language in school and English as third.

I've never lived in an English-speaking country, but English is so prevalent in Finland these days that I wouldn't be surprised if it gained some kind of official status within the next 50 years. Whether in formal meetings or informal bar encounters, people voluntarily switch to English if there's even one non-Finn present. In my field, this happens nearly every day.

I even use English to communicate with Swedes, even though Swedish is the second official language of Finland and I studied it for 6 years... There's no point in limping through the conversation with my childish Swedish, when it's 99% guaranteed that Swedes speak English.

[krmmalik]

Holy wowsers. I grew up in England, and i only scored 14,800 on the test! Although English isnt my native language, i did speak it from a very early age.

[nuromancer]

I was completely honest scoring 16,000, English is my one and only language. Depending on your field/background you could understand more words than this test suggests. Looking up the words that i did not understand coupling them with there relevance and the shear volume of test words or lack thereof makes this test inaccurate in my mind.

[chousuke]

Another Finn here... I got 25,200. I guess I need to read a couple books. :P

My Swedish is atrocious. I can't recall a single time that I'd have had use for it outside school. In contrast, English is useful every day, though mostly in written form.

[kiiski]

And third Finn here, but my score was mere 13,000. At least I have the excuse of still being a student :)

[zcid]

Last year I met and associated with a Finn while traveling in France. He spoke extraordinarily good English and could have passed for a native of the USA with very little accent correction (it was more the timing of his speech that gave him away). I wouldn't have thought him to be exceptional until I discovered that I was the first native English speaker he had ever met and he had never even left his country before then.

I wish I had been given language instruction of that caliber when I was in school.

[eru]

I don't know if you can blame it completely on school. They also watch their films subbed, not dubbed.

[pavlov]

This vocabulary test got me thinking about the last unknown English word I'd encountered, and that inspired a little post on my blog. Have a look if you're interested -- there's a bit of a coding angle, even:

http://lacquer.fi/pauli/blog/2011/07/the-ten-abominations/

[ohashi]

And I am a native english speaker and you got a higher score than me. I never prided my language skills but damn, that's a shot right in the ego!