General Service List

The General Service List (GSL) (West. 1953) is a set of 2,000 words selected to be of the greatest “general service” to learners of English. They are not the most common 2,000 words, though frequency was one of the factors taken into account in making the selection. Each of the 2,000 words is a headword representing a word family that is only loosely defined in West. Frequency numbers are given, derived from Thorndike and Lorge (1944). Frequency data is also given for the various meanings of words. This list has had a wide influence for many years, serving as the basis for graded readers as well as other material. Texts based on the GSL are still on sale, but the list itself is out of print. A fuller discussion of the GSL, and word lists in general, can be found in Nation (1990, pp 21-24) and Carter and McCarthy (1988, Ch. 1)

As published, the GSL is a medium-sized red book, organized like a dictionary. Each of the 2,000 headwords is listed alphabetically with brief definitions and example sentences. A number is given for each word, representing the number of occurrences per 5 million words. A percentage number is given for each meaning, representing the frequency of that meaning in the occurrences of the word. Headwords are listed in uppercase bold type. Derived forms are listed under the headwords in lowercase bold type and are (usually) given their own frequency numbers.

— quoted from jbauman.com

GSL中的词汇，可以用来给自己纠正英文单词的发音。我自己并非英语专业科班出身，在英语教学的这许多年过程中，曾专门制作一个列表，叫“读错过的单词”，其中竟然上百的词汇。这些天闲来无事，我从www.m-w.com（韦氏词典网络版）上，把GSL词汇列表中相应词汇的声音文件拉下来，制作了一个90分钟的mp3文件。有空的话，可以花费大约一个半钟头，跟着录音把这两千多个单词读一遍——我个人觉得用处不小。

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

mp3下载地址：

http://www.lixiaolai.com/misc/gsl/gsl.mp3

• GSL A-Z
• GSL frequency