The reality is that there is just a lot of possible reasons somebody might have for learning a language and there is a lot of different outcomes that they might wish depending on the particular reason. 

Posts like mine are attempts to characterize the complex specter of human experiences into a single categorical suggestion and since life doesn’t work like that my suggestion shouldn’t be taken seriously.

I also wouldn’t agree that a superficial understanding of lots of languages is better than a deep understanding of a few. What if you want to read literature in a language? Or study at a university in the country? Or are marrying a speaker? There are very good reasons for ind-depth language study. Furthermore, when do you know when to stop? How conversationally proficient is enough? Language skill exists on a continuum. I guess you’re advocating learning a lot of languages to B1 level, but even that requires quite a lot of work.

The most important thing that should be said, of course, is that no language is made up of only 8 words… that’s just convenient for an example. No one is going to learn a handful of words and suddenly be useful in that language.

However, it’s not hard to find frequency lists for vocabulary. In fact, it’s the use of a frequency list for Russian that I believe helped me the most on my goal to being fluent so quickly in such a difficult language.

For those who aren’t familiar, a frequency list is simply a list of the most commonly used words in a language, ranked by how often they appear. The data is usually based on a broad sample of data including books, newspapers, transcribed speeches, etc.

A frequency list for English, for instance, might start out with “the, a/an, it, he, my, I, you, where, how, love, us” etc.

While you’re not going to be useful after learning even the first 10 words, I could make a strong case for the first 100. And it’s reasonable to say that knowing the most common 1,000 words in a language will make you conversational (within reason) and equip you to understand 40% or more of what you encounter on a daily basis.

The most important thing that should be said, of course, is that no language is made up of only 8 words… that’s just convenient for an example. No one is going to learn a handful of words and suddenly be useful in that language.

However, it’s not hard to find frequency lists for vocabulary. In fact, it’s the use of a frequency list for Russian that I believe helped me the most on my goal to being fluent so quickly in such a difficult language.

For those who aren’t familiar, a frequency list is simply a list of the most commonly used words in a language, ranked by how often they appear. The data is usually based on a broad sample of data including books, newspapers, transcribed speeches, etc.

A frequency list for English, for instance, might start out with “the, a/an, it, he, my, I, you, where, how, love, us” etc.

While you’re not going to be useful after learning even the first 10 words, I could make a strong case for the first 100. And it’s reasonable to say that knowing the most common 1,000 words in a language will make you conversational (within reason) and equip you to understand 40% or more of what you encounter on a daily basis.

I could go on saying that some people could still learn from it, etc. but that's not necessary: I know we could do better. I'll still leave the post for some time, though, just to preserve history.

And I like your bluntness there (I really do).