4000 Essential English Words

Unit
Target Words
Page)
16
adolescent, aptitude, compliment, hinder, journalism, jury, justice, liberty, literary, 
pharmacy, pill, presume, privacy, punishment, sensible, slice, sorrow, straw, swell, tidy
98
17
affection, agency, ash, confine, dismiss, erupt, fate, lava, miserable, navigate, originate, 
remainder, retrieve, shallow, slope, span, superstition, sympathy, vibrate, wander
104
18
armor, blaze, boom, cliff, flame, independence, invasion, knight, lightning, rebel, retreat, 
revolution, spear, steep, summit, thunder, troops, warrior, withdraw, yield
110
19
bench, confront, daisy, dispute, horror, incident, mist, object, orphan, plot, pregnant, 
rage, revenge, shame, sigh, sneak, spare, stem, supper, tender
116
20
beneath, cub, dawn, dissatisfied, ease, evident, hail, howl, leap, magnificent, necessity, 
outcome, pile, profound, seize, squeeze, supreme, terrific, trait, vital
122
21
accustomed, affirm, astonished, bang, clan, dim, emphasis, fable, feast, glow, hollow, 
instinct, joint, leak, physician, sacrifice, stiff, stroke, tragic, tune
128
22
accommodate, circus, coincide, commission, dose, dye, extent, gender, headline, 
informal, inquire, messenger, peer, portrait, pose, ranch, steer, stripe, tame, tempt
134
23
Aborigine, ban, cautious, confess, cottage, daytime, desperate, fade, fierce, gamble, 
lawn, mow, outlaw, prospect, purse, rod, seldom, shave, terrified, wizard
140
24
baggage, bulb, bundle, cattle, flee, graze, greed, herd, initiate, lane, luggage, nerve, 
optimist, parade, pave, phantom, portable, poster, scratch, symphony, widow
146
25
circulate, consequent, derive, drown, dynasty, fraction, frost, illusion, invade, lieutenant, 
marine, merit, navy, polar, ray, resign, suicide, tremble, underlying, via
152
26
alter, aside, autumn, blend, collapse, crush, curve, disgusting, drain, embrace, envy, 
fireworks, flour, fuse, ginger, jealous, paste, receipt, wipe, wire
158
27
acknowledge, ambassador, blonde, conquer, drag, exaggerate, heritage, insult, meanwhile, 
necklace, noble, precious, prejudice, rumor, sin, spectacle, stack, suspicious, tin, vase
164
28
ache, arctic, canal, chemist, chill, congress, dairy, descend, grocer, hesitate, institution, 
jog, merchant, poke, postpone, splash, stubborn, suburb, tide, tragedy
170
29
bomb, certificate, circumstance, coffin, cope, criticism, devastate, frown, gaze, glance, 
grief, groom, license, microscope, nuclear, portray, rotate, souvenir, submarine, trace
176
30
appliance, basin, broom, caterpillar, cupboard, delicate, emerge, handicap, hook, hop, 
laundry, pursue, reluctant, sleeve, spine, stain, strip, swear, swing, utilize
182
9

---

About the Vocabulary
The 600 words in each book of this series along with the additional target words 
presented in the appendices included in the first three books of the series are the most 
useful words in English. They were found by analysis of a collection of English course 
books from various levels in the primary, secondary and tertiary school systems. The 
words included in this series were chosen because they occurred many times in different 
levels of these materials. Because of the way
that they were chosen, these words have the follow ing characteristics:
1 
They are useful in both spoken and written English. No matter what English course 
you are studying, the words in these books w ill be of value to you.
2 
Each word in these books is a high-frequency word. This means that the effort in 
learning the words is w ell repaid by the num ber of times learners have a chance to 
encounter or use them.
3 
These books as a whole cover a large proportion of the words in any spoken or written 
text. They cover at least 80% of the words in newspapers and academic texts, and
at least 90% of the words in novels. They also cover at least 90% of the words in 
conversation.
About the Books
The activities in these books are specially designed to make use of im portant learning 
conditions. Firstly, the words are introduced using sentence definitions and an example 
sentence. The activities that follow in the units encourage learners to recall the meanings 
and forms of the words. Some activities also make the learners th in k about the meaning 
of the words in the context of a sentence— a sentence different from the sentences that 
occurred in the introduction of the words. Moreover, each unit ends with a story containing 
the target words. While reading the story, the learners have to recall the meanings of the 
words and suit them to the context of the story. Such activities help learners develop a 
better understanding of a common meaning for a given word which fits the different uses.
Illustrations for each target word are provided to help learners visualize the word as it 
is being used in the example sentence. These w ord/im age associations aim to help 
students grasp the meaning of the word as well as recall the word later.

---

It should be noted that words have more than one grammatical category. However, this 
series focuses on the w ord’s most common form. This is mentioned to remind learners 
that just because a word is labeled and utilized as a noun in this series does not mean 
that it can never be used in another form such as an adjective. This series has simply 
focused on the word in the form that it is most likely to be expressed.
Supporting Learning w ith Outside A ctivities
A well-balanced language course provides four major opportunities for learning: learning
through input, learning through output, deliberate learning, and fluency development. The
highly structured activities in these books support all four types of learning opportunities.
In addition, learning can further be supported through the follow ing activities:
1 
Have students create vocabulary cards with one word from the unit on one side of the 
card and the translation of the word in the student’s first language on the other side. 
Students should use the cards for study in free moments during the day. Over several 
weeks, students w ill find that quick repeated studying for brief periods of tim e is more 
effective than studying for hours at one sitting.
2 Assign graded readers at students’ appropriate levels. Reading such books provides 
both enjoyment as w ell as meaning-focused input which w ill help the words stick in 
students’ memory.
3 
Practice reading fluency to promote faster recall of word meaning for both sight 
recognition and usage. Compass Publishing’ s 
Reading fo r Speed and Fluency
is a 
good resource for reading fluency material.
4 Include listening, speaking, and w riting activities in classes. Reinforcement of the 
high-frequency vocabulary presented in this series is im portant across all the four 
language skills.
A u th o r
Paul Nation
Paul Nation is p ro fe sso r o f A p plie d Lin g u istics in the S c h o o l of Lin g u istic s an d A p plie d Lan g u a g e S tu d ie s
at Victoria University of W ellington, New Zealand. He h a s taugh t in In d o n e sia , Thailand, the United States, 
Finland, and Japan. H is sp e cia list interests are la n g u a g e te ach in g m e th o d o lo g y an d vo c a b u la ry learning.

---

arise 
[araiz]