With 86% of the words, you might understand only 38% of an anime's lines
An online coverage calculator claims you can understand 85.9% of the spoken words in Frieren if you learn the 500 most frequently used words. However, this does not necessarily mean you can follow 85.9% of the show's lines. The reason for the difference lies in the length of the lines. On average, a line in Frieren contains seven words.
With 85.9% coverage, you would only be able to understand about 35% of the lines. This ratio holds true for the other seven shows studied. Serial Experiments Lain, for instance, requires only 400 common words to follow half of its lines, whereas Jujutsu Kaisen needs 980. The calculation does not take into account the fact that many lines are missing just one word, nor does it consider the presence of words with multiple meanings. As a result, the coverage figures provided by learning sites may be misleading.
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