With 86% of the words, you might understand only 38% of an anime's lines

A study of eight anime shows, including Frieren and Serial Experiments Lain, found that knowing 86% of the words in a show does not necessarily mean you can follow 86% of the lines. The number of lines you can follow is significantly lower due to the average line length and the presence of words outside the top 500 most common words. For example, in Frieren, knowing 85.9% of the words gives you only 38.4% of the lines, and even Serial Experiments Lain, which reaches 95% coverage, still has a significant gap between coverage and lines. This is because a single line requires you to know all its words, and the words outside the top 500 most common words can greatly reduce the number of lines you can understand. The study suggests that learning the top 500 words in a show is a good starting point, but it may not be enough to follow the entire show, and that learning more words may be necessary to fill the gap between coverage and lines.