Well, vocabulary is one of the most important, if not the most important, aspects of second language learning. In methods like audiolingualism, structure was paid cery much attention at the expense of vocabulary, but recently vocabulary has got the upper hand. In minimalistic approach proposed by Chomsky, vocabulary is the central aspect of language. But we must keep it in mind that vocabulary is more than a single word, memorized by itself. The study of collocations and idioms has been of paramount importance in recent decades. 

Gerativists, help us! ;)

So, just to give an opinion, but i think that the knowledge about other languages can, at extent possible, the apprehension pf the semiose proccess between expression an content, of course, from the perspective of the semiotic.

For example: its raining dogs and cats (english)

e.g.: " its raining penknives" (brazilian, ipsis litteris)

both signific "too rain", but what itself catch from them its the signifcance, not a lable of words.

Sorry for poor english

Well, vocabulary is one of the most important, if not the most important, aspects of second language learning. In methods like audiolingualism, structure was paid cery much attention at the expense of vocabulary, but recently vocabulary has got the upper hand. In minimalistic approach proposed by Chomsky, vocabulary is the central aspect of language. But we must keep it in mind that vocabulary is more than a single word, memorized by itself. The study of collocations and idioms has been of paramount importance in recent decades. 

Vocabulary is tied to the functionality of the language - i.e. what is it that one wants to communicate. What I mean by this is that if one has an interest in communication on a specific subject, there is often a set vocabulary associated with it. For example talking about cooking has a large number of words associated with that subject to allow for an ability to communicate various concepts or physical attributes of that topic, and this repetes for other topics. In general there is about 200 words to be able to communicate generally. Then one builds on this vocabulary by subject and the words tied to that subject.

vocabulary size (breadth) must be combined with vocabulary depth ,that is, pragmatic, discoursal, cultural, figurative information to be adequately effective .

Vocabulary size is the single most important determinant of success in second language learning. There is extensive literature on the importance of expanding the number of words known beyond the most common, which in English, at least, is taken to be the first two thousand words which might allow you to know between 80% and 85% of texts, depending on the genre. Research in the field is still very active with names such as Nation, Schmitt, Laufer, Webb, Waring, Meara and many others being very active in this area. A very good review article to start off on this topic is here:

http://www.norbertschmitt.co.uk/uploads/schmitt-n-%282008%29-instructed-second-language-vocabulary-learning-language-teaching-research-12-3-329-363.pdf

My own research in this area, considers the relationship between vocabulary size and the development of other aspects of vocabulary performance, such as speed of vocabulary recognition. I have a paper appearing very shortly with Paul Meara on this topic.

Best wishes,

David

Thanks for the interesting comments. I agree that vocabulary is the single most important aspect of learning a language. The "size' issue brings into play the various forms of words and the multiple meanings of words. I've recently begun to think in terms of corpora, especially when dealing with a specific use of words--your example of cooking--or the functionality of words--learning how the forms of words add meaning when used in intentional ways to carry out a task. This site http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/  is mentioned in this article: http://www.cambridge.org/grammarandbeyond/grammar-practice-activities/2016/02/corpus-informed-grammar-teaching   Vocabulary is probably the key element in native-speaker use of English as well. Look how little kids will say: "Oh, he/she uses big words!"= "they must be smart!"