How many characters do you need to know to read Chinese?

Probably the most intimidating part of learning Chinese is the challenge of learning Chinese characters. Chinese has tens of thousands of characters but many of those characters are rarely used and literacy can be achieved by learning just a small fraction of all the characters that exist.

In this article, we’ll explore how many characters you need to know for different levels of fluency; from basic literacy to advanced native level comprehension. We’ll also look at how many characters the average person knows, how many you need to read newspapers, and the differences between learning characters and words. Finally, we’ll cover how focusing on high frequency characters and essential vocabulary can make learning to read and write in Chinese a very manageable challenge that can be done efficiently. This will leave you with a clear target number of characters to aim for in order to achieve your goals in Chinese.

How many characters does the average Chinese person know?

By the time children in China finish elementary school they typically know about 2,500 to 3,500 characters. By high school they typically know about 5000 characters and professionals tend to know up to a 1000 additional characters related to their professional fields.

For basic literacy, i.e. the ability to read everyday materials like newspapers, websites and signs etc, a person needs to know around 2,500 - 3,500 characters. This is the same number that a student is expected to learn to complete the highest level of the Chinese langauge competency exam - HSK6 (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi).

Character frequency and the power law

Now you may feel a little disheartened at this point. “In order to just be as literate as an elementary school child I need to learn 3000 characters? Jeez, is this even worth it…”. Well before you despair there is something really important to consider - the relative importance of those 3000 characters that elementary school graduates know. To put it simply, those first 3000 characters that children learn are the most useful most frequently used characters in Chinese.

Chinese characters like words in other languages follow a power law, where:

• The top 20 characters account for 20% of the characters in written Chinese.
• The top 1,000 characters cover 89% of all characters used in everyday texts.
• The top 2,000 characters cover 97% of what you’ll encounter in normal reading material.
• The top 3,000 characters will allow you to recognize 99% of the characters you’ll see in modern Chinese texts.

So in practice learning just the 3000 most common characters will allow you to read the majority of Chinese texts that you will come across in everyday life. It’s only as you engage in more advanced literature such as scientific texts or historical texts that you would find a great number of unfamiliar characters.

Characters vs. words: what’s the difference?

Now don’t fall into the trap of thinking: “Oh, to read Chinese I just need to memorise 3000 characters.” If you knew 3000 characters you might be able to read texts out loud fairly well but you wouldn’t understand much of it unless you had been memorising Chinese vocabulary alongside the characters you learn.

As you probably know, characters combine in different combinations to form words. Individual Chinese characters usually do have a standalone meaning, but many words are made up from combinations of two or more characters. For example, the character "日" (rì) means "sun" or "day," but when combined with "本" (běn), it forms the word "日本" (Rìběn), meaning "Japan.”

So in order to become literate and read and write Chinese you can’t just learn characters, you also need to learn Chinese words and build up your vocabulary.

How many Chinese words do you need to know?

So we’ve worked out that you need to know about 3000 Chinese characters to be able to read. How many words do you need to know in addition to that?

Well:

• Elementary Ability: To engage in basic conversations, you need to know around 1,000–2,000 words. This can be achieved with knowledge of 1,000–1,500 characters as many of the words are made from combinations of common characters.
• Intermediate Ability: With around 3,000 words, you’ll be able to handle most daily interactions and conversations.
• Advanced Fluency: Knowing 5,000 or more words enables you to read newspapers, magazines, and books, as well as engage in complex discussions.

These numbers are comparable to most European languages. The only difference is that these words are written with characters which you also need to know if you want to be able to read and write.

What is an efficient learning strategy for learning Chinese characters and words?

We’ve seen that learning the most common 3000 characters in Chinese covers the vast majority of characters that you will come across in everyday text. Your approach to learning characters and vocabulary should take account of this. When learning characters it is important to focus on high-frequency characters that will provide maximum benefits. Similarly, when learning new vocabulary learn words that are frequently used in order to maximise the pay off from memorising them. Learning a small number of high frequency words can unlock the ability to have basic conversations in any language very quickly.

Beyond just focussing on learning the most common characters, make sure the methods you use to memorise characters take into account their structure and form. I explore this idea in this article on the best way to learn Chinese characters. Understanding the structure and meaning of Characters will make memorising them far easier and help support your learning of vocabulary.

Conclusion

To conclude, whilst Chinese has tens of thousands of characters you only need to learn a fraction of them to achieve literacy. For basic literacy, aim for around 3,000 characters and aim to build a solid vocabulary of between 3000-5000 words. Focus on high-frequency characters and words to enjoy the maximum payoff from your study.

If you are learning Chinese then join the waitlist for our new web app which is specifically designed to make learning Chinese characters and vocabulary easier.

In the meantime, all the best, VocabHacker