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How large is your passive vocabulary compared to your active vocabulary?

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Sho'Nuff said:
Hard to quantify, but I would say my passive vocab is 10-15X larger than my active. Maybe more. Between my job (patent attorney) and my education (chem and law), I know an awful lot of legal, science, and technology terms. I've basically spent the last 13 years reading technical and legal journals and writing a new technical paper (a patent application) every 3-4 days. Have pretty good vocab in chemistry, biology, math, cryptography, software, optics, classic and quantum physics, some EE, materials science, etc., but I would not say I use those terms in everyday speech.

I was also a state spelling bee champion back in the 80's. That helps build passive vocab quite a bit.
Click to expand...

there should be vocabulary Bees
 
Sho'Nuff said:
That would be fun. . . . Ok. I think that would be fun.
Click to expand...

The secret, and as a lawyer I think you know this, is that a vocabulary Bee is called 'being a professional' and people get paid very well for it.

If we just went around teaching lawyer speak to everyone then why would we need lawyers? (etc)
 
Passive is far larger than active, though at work I can usually explore it further than I can at home. My gf is not a native English speaker and her active/passive English vocabulary is very colloquial.
 
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