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[Situation: I am talking with Jane, who is a native speaker of English, about the vocabulary size of native speakers of English.]

Kaguyahime: What's your passive vocabulary size?

Jane: About 30,000.

Kaguyahime: If you say "This word belongs to my passive vocabulary", does that/it mean that you know the exact meaning of that word?

Question: Which is correct, that or it?

I am confused because both that and it correspond to the same Japanese word sore. (My native language is Japanese.)

[Edit] My problem is that I do not know what pronoun I should use when I am referring to what I have just said myself.

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    Either would work fine here, and they convey the same meaning.
    – Paul Tanenbaum
    Commented Nov 15, 2023 at 12:37
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    "Does that mean that you know the exact meaning of the word?" is more idiomatic here because it refers specifically to what has already been expressed....In speech, we usually use "that" when we have been discussing something specific.
    – Lambie
    Commented Nov 15, 2023 at 12:53
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    According to lexicographer and dictionary expert Susie Dent, “the average active vocabulary of an adult English speaker is around 20,000 words, while his passive vocabulary is around 40,000 words.”
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Nov 15, 2023 at 19:09
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    Does this answer your question? What is the difference between, "it means," "this means," and "which means"? Also “This / That / It” in the following context and others.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Nov 15, 2023 at 19:11

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There's no significant difference in meaning.

Both pronouns simply stand for a thing that has been identified. The difference is that "that" calls a little more attention to the specific thing. In your example you're only talking about one thing, so there isn't much difference. If you were talking about more than one thing, then "that" would become more useful, to distinguish between the thing you're focusing on and something else: "This is a dog; that is a cat."

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